Honor and the Political Economy of Marriage

Violence against Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Joanne Payton

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781978801714
• eBook ISBN: 9781978801738
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

'Honor' is used as a justification for violence perpetrated against women and girls considered to have violated social taboos related to sexual behavior. Several 'honor'-based murders of Kurdish women, such as Fadime Sahindal, Banaz Mahmod and Du'a Khalil Aswad, and campaigns against 'honor'-based violence by Kurdish feminists have drawn international attention to this phenomenon within Kurdish communities. Honor and the Political Economy of Marriage provides a description of 'honor'-based violence that focuses upon the structure of the family rather than the perpetrator's culture. The author, Joanne Payton, argues that within societies primarily organized by familial and marital connections, women's 'honor' is a form of symbolic capital within a 'political economy' in which marriage organizes intergroup connections.
Drawing on statistical analysis of original data contextualized with historical and anthropological readings, Payton explores forms of marriage and their relationship to 'honor', sketching changing norms around the familial control of women from agrarian/pastoral roots to the contemporary era.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Foreword by Péter Berta
• Foreword by Deeyah Khan
• Note on Orthography
• 1. Honor
• 2. The Problems of Earthly Existence
• 3. The Patriarchal Order
• 4. Marriage
• 5. Modernity
• 6. Quantitative Analysis
• 7. The End of Honor
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Authors