'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
Series Foreword by Péter Berta
Foreword by Deeyah Khan
Note on Orthography
Chapter 1: Honor
Chapter 2: The Problems of Earthly Existence
Chapter 3: The Patriarchal Order
Chapter 4: Marriage
Chapter 5: Modernity
Chapter 6: Quantitative Analysis
Chapter 7: The End of Honor
Acknowledgements
References
Index
Appendix
About the Author
Joanne Payton has worked with the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization since 2005. She also works with the media company Fuuse in London, United Kingdom, appearing in the Emmy-award winning film Banaz: A Love Story, which explores an ‘honor’ killing.
What People Are Saying
“Honor and the Political Economy of Marriage underlies ambitious narratives regarding the rights of women in marriage and formation of alliance, women offered as gifts to form and continue alliances. This is a rich text that dialogues with a global comparative approach analyzing the giving and receiving of women in various contexts, providing a survey of types of marriages and cultural significance of women as commodity within the lens of marriages and what unions entail.” Lina Fruzzetti, Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
"In a sophisticated layered fashion, the book links past studies to the present with keen attention to quantitative and qualitative data. It is an ideal work for courses addressing violence against women and girls." Eliz Sanasarian, author of The Women's Rights Movement in Iran