Reply to Muslims - a question about the "wife beating" verse

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree with Amina Wudud in that Islamic law attempts to curb the inherent cultural violence against women at the time. Like making killing of infant daughters illegal. There was (still is) rampant violence against women, and that sura was meant to place restrictions on it. Too bad it doesn't outlaw it completely.

If you take the Quran as a whole, the overarching theme is to be kind and responsible toward your wife. Provide for her financially and let her keep any money she earns for herself. If she is widowed and has no father, her brother must step up and take care of her. And so on. Theoretically nobody is left out on the street. Islam provides economic rights that women never had before.

Of course, people use the verse to justify domestic violence. You can take pretty much anything from any religious book and bend it to suit your needs.

Personally, I just ignore it. :) [/quote]
I agree with you that you can bend any religious book to suit your needs, but you must agree that people who want to see only the good in any religious book use the same approach - they pick the best interpretation out of a myriad of possibilities.   Liberal Muslim thinkers bend over backwards to attribute alternative meanings to the verb "hit", and it's entirely possible that it means "tap" or "leave",  but it also quite possible that it means "hit". Presumably people who translated the Quran before hitting women became unfashionable were fluent Arabic speakers, too.

And just as Islam makes men responsible for financial maintenance of women, it likewise gives them the authority to make decisions for women under their authority. So yes, you can keep the money you make to yourself, but you need your husband's permission to get a job in the first place.  And the fact that Islam has no concept of marital property leaves non-working married women in a very vulnerable financial position.  The only remedy available to a divorced woman, no matter how rich her husband is, is "go back to your father's house." [/quote]

Non-working women are always vulnerable.[/quote]
At least in environments that recognize marital property they have a shot at a portion of the wealth they have no doubt helped their husbands make.  Not in shariah-based legal environments. Three months of alimony and off you go, back to wherever you came from.[/quote]

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