>> From: Umberto Rossi <[log in to unmask]>
>> > as well. Notice what happened in ancient Athens when
>> > the population of women fell below 50 percent.
>> When did that happen, Lela? And why?
>A certain favour of male children can create this any time, given a time
>of 25-50 years of this trend.
>A similar thing had happened in Arabia before the prophet Muhammed. Female
>children were sacrificed to gods and treated badly (at least muslim
>"alims" claim this. :) ). The result was a shortage of women, thus many
>young males were marrying much much older women (i.e. Muhammed married a
>woman at least twice his age for the first time). After the prophecy,
>Muhammed forced arabs to treat their women kindly (with respect to old
>times, but still this "kindness" is very far from a civilised approach to
>the womans and thus, fanatical trends create many problems in muslim
>countries even at this modern age.
Umm, I don't believe that shortage of women was the cause of Muhammad
marrying an older woman, probably in her thirties or so, compared to his
middle twenties. It was just a case of love at first sight... I think :-)
Before Islam, women were nothing more than chattel. The prophet persuaded
his flock to treat women as an equal, as much as possible given the history
of the society. Things were progressing logically toward "emancipation"
when the Islam's expansion encountered the Persian and/ or Byzantium
culture. In these cultures it was customary to seclude women of the upper
classes, the "harem" society. Women became so exalted (supposedly) and had
to be protected. Even looking at them "indecently" was forbidden, or
"haram."
Well, from there on things went downhill. Women were controlled, supposedly
for their own good. Nowadays, things seem to have come full circle. In some
"Islamic countries" the status of women is no different than the status of
women in the pre-Islam days.
In Iran and Saudi Arabia, womens are
>just slaves. In many arabic and muslim countries radical muslims tend to
>treat their women very badly. In Turkiye (where I live and it is almost
>only country which treats its woman properly) radical muslims aims and
>struggles to gain contol and force women into the darkness of old times -
Unfortunately, radical religious rights are everywhere. Does anybody else
read that quote from Jerry Falwell?
"The grass is always greener over the septic tank"
-Erma Bombeck-
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