No Honor

I read the newspaper online. I know, how very modern of me, but every morning I can drink my coffee and look over the headlines that the Post has for me that day (by Post I mean the one in Washington, not the one in NY. I find it funny that in NY, the Times is the credible paper and the Post is the sketchy one and in DC it's just the opposite. The best thing the Washington Times has ever done was line a litter box). Yesterday had an article about what women's rights looked like in Communist Russia and what is has looked like since the emergence of a more capitalistic society. It was written by a Russian journalist for the Post and I found it insightful.
As with most of the more intriguing articles published online, there are quite a few comments and additions made by readers, one being a link to a 2002 National Geographic article on 'honor killings' which is, essentially, the murder of women to "protect" their family's perceived honor (I highly recommend reading that article. It isn't very long). And that the practice is widely accepted and very rarely sees any sort of consequence for the killers. If a woman is caught in adultery, or in premarital sex, or speaks out against anyone in her family, or flirts, or if her dowry is too low, or any sort of slight, real or imagined then her life may be in jeopardy. And the idea that no one would stand for her is so sad. I cannot help but be angry that anyone in this day and age can and does treat another as a piece of property.
I am so thankful for the options that I have. I have options, and what my family thinks goes no farther than their verbalization of that opinion. In schooling, in occupation, in dating and marriage, in birth control, in divorce, the list goes on. Sometimes I forget how much had to happen to have those options, how novel some of them are globally.
My cousin Dan worked with women's rights in India for several years, writing a book about helping them to start on the road to economic independence. I've only read parts of it, but talking to him about it this summer gave me confidence that there are good things happening in that area, that slowly, things are changing.