A Question about Shame Cultures

We keep hearing about women in Islamic cultures who have brought shame to their families by doing something most Westerners wouldn’t think twice about, like dating someone from another religion. The family responds by killing the woman.

Doesn’t it occur to these people that they have brought shame on their families themselves by committing such a vicious crime?

Just to put things in perspective, compare Islamic shame cultures with the shame culture that is represented in Jane Austen’s novels. The harshest punishment of a woman who has done something shameful occurs in Mansfield Park, when Maria, the married daughter of Sir Thomas Bertram, has an affair. And what exactly is her punishment? She is banished from the family home and sent to live in another part of England (presumably in a remote farm house). Nevertheless, her father provides with her with enough financial support so that she is “secured in every comfort.”

In Pride and Prejudice, the youngest Bennet daughter, Lydia, runs off with a militia officer, George Wickham, without getting married. Their cousin Mr. Collins gives one of the conventional views of the time when he declares that the death of Lydia would have been preferable to what she has done. Later, when she has gotten married to Wickham, her father initially doesn’t want her to return home, but he is eventually won over, and when she does return her worst punishment is a lot of baleful looks from her sisters and father. However, her uncle and Mr. Darcy have contrived to send Wickham to a place far away, so their stay at the family home is a short one. Even so, when Mr. Collins hears of their visit, he does not hesitate in voicing his disapproval: “It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been rector at Longbourn [the Bennets’ house] I should very strenuously have opposed it.” He then adds, “You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.”

Disowning a child, cutting them off from an inheritance, banishing them from the family home, refusing to marry into a shamed family, and other similar actions are typical of Jane Austen’s era, and all seem morally permissible, but killing the offender isn’t. It’s as simple as that.