Psychology of Men's Honour and Women's Sexuality

Re: # 64
dear khurram...thank you for your comments and your genuine question. in human psychology there are two schools of thought.
one school focuses on large numbers of people or patients... hundreds even thousands and collects statistics and reports the results. for example suicide rate in canada is average 10 per 100,000 population. newfoundland has 4 per 100,000 lowest in the world. those studies are epidemeological studies and reflect certain trends like polls for american elections before the real elections.

the second school that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and many other psychologists belong they pick one case or a few cases and analyze their behaviours, thought patterns and conflicts and give their analysis or impressions. they believe if you undrstand one case thoroughly...one schizophrenic, one depressed, one paranoid person, others are variations of that. it is a philosophical and psychological approach that offers theories. these theories are part of philosophy not hard core science like biology and physics. they are pragmatic and helps therapists to help understand the dynamics and reduce the emotional suffering. it also helps to resolve conflicts and improve the quality of life.
exp freud knew a depressed woman who was in an abusive marriage. after divorce she killed herself. other psychologists said she committed suicide, he said she comitted homicide. when asked to explain he said she hated her husband so much that even after divorce she found herself thinking about him all the times. she realized that becuase she lived with him for so many years she had psychologically internalized him and the only way to get rid of him was to kill him inside her and the only way she could do that was to kill herself.

now this is a theory you can agree or disagree. to agree you have to believe in unconscious mind and many other defence mechanisms.

i belong to the second group. based on my personal and professional experiences i develop some insights that help me in helping others and i share my insights and impressions with others in my books and essays. my colleagues and patients and friends find my ideas very helpful in their lives. i never insist that my theories are correct or are the last word. they are my ideas and i share so that they open up a genuine dialogue about human psychology and relationships. human psychology is still a developing field as it is closer to philosophy than biology and we are learning more with passage of time.
unfortunately many research workers in psychology use such an academic language that one phd can only communicate with another phd, one professor with another professor. i try to share my ideas in lay man's terms so that more and more people can understand them and can use them in their lives.
i believe in public education about mental health that is why i made documentaries about depression and domestic violence etc.
thanks once again.
from a humable student fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind, personality and psychology. sohail

"I could not convince them that it was quite natural and healthy for young boys and girls to socialize with each other and date so that they could
get to know each other and make wise choices about their life partners."


Not sure if interaction between young boys and girls can be as healthy as author thinks. If this is so then why there is such
a high divorce rate in the west?

Dr Sohail,

Is religion to blame for this mindset or is it just a case of tribal customs refusing to evolve?

My dear Dr. Sohail sahib what a perceptive gentle soul you are trying to teach in the most rational and kind way the incorrigible Muslim male chauvinist pigs from the pig pens of India and Pakistan something unteachable -- to go easy on their wives and daughter -- not strangle them for not wearing hijab -- and not shoot them for wanting to lead against a cruel male dictatorship

A dictatorship that blames the women victims for their rape and and murder -- ("they asked for it - Mukhtaran and Shazia for visa to Canada, Benazir for pmship") -- shows no remorse for what happened to the one and the only Muslim woman who dared to defy the male chauvinist swines.

you are a great social psychiatrist -- very learned and very articulate -- more power to you.

Dear dr. sohail,

do humanists make good friends? Is the "Family of the hearts" a cult?

As you know, I pay great attention to pictures. The pictures on the "family of the hearts" look a bit shady...why are these people grinning?

Is this like Rosemary's baby? You know? A gang of people facilitating the birth of anti christ?

Akhanusa, I think divorce rates are higher in the west primarily because women have more economic and social freedom and do not have to put up with bad marriages, which most eastern women accept because they have no other option. According to the statistics, women are more often the ones asking for a marriage to be ended. I once read, "only Americans expect to be happy"; and there is some truth in that.The economic and scientific progress that western countries have seen has not occurred in a vacuum; it is because the situation in their society has been conducive to this. If their values were to change into Pakistan's or even India's, they wouldn't be finding cures for cancer or new planets either.

Re: # 70 nb,

I agree with that.

I would also like to point out to Akhanusa that divorce rates are not as bad as honor killing rates.

Now you could argue that domestic homicide cases per Capita are equal to the honor killing / domestic violence in Pakistan, etc (I don't know the numbers and am not asserting anything) , then you would be comparing oranges with oranges.

Divorce rates. pfffftttt....

# 67

culture = collective mind
mind = individual mind

individual mind is EMBEDDED within the collective mind
mind # static , it is dynamic-living thing

mind can be found in ONLY TWO states
either it is evolving-growing or
it is devolving-shrinking !

both collective mind & individual mind are struggling to influence-shape each other

muslim culture is more overpowering than individual muslim mind. It shapes-manipulates & uses individual muslim mind for its OWN ENDS (mostly political in nature)
the collective muslim mind does not tolerate being questioned-challenged by individual muslim minds.
It takes "practical steps" to ELIMINATE such minds.

In western societies, individualism rules.
individual minds are more strong than the collective mind (too weak to shape-influence individual minds)
individual minds are free to question the wisdom of the collective mind-cultures.

Re: # 69
dear hurricane...these days i am writing for
clarington durham region humanists
www.cdrh.humanists.ca
that is where i live in canada
and we are creating a Humanist Hub
our next seminar on feb 8th would be on Charles Darwin to celebrate his birthday. maybe you can visit that site and attend our friendly seminar
i agree with you that divorce is far better than honour killing
have you read what bertrand russell said about marriage
...chains of marriage are so heavy it takes two to carry them sometimes three
sincerely
sohail

Re: #70,

There is also the Western concept of companionate (aka 'love marriage') vs. the Eastern concept of non-companionate marriages. In, e.g., S. Asia the idea of a wife was not of a 'partner in life' but someone to do the housework and bear children. Societies that wall of women, e.g., the Zenana, invariably have noncompanionate marriages and much lower status of women. Of course, in Europe, the artistocracy married off their daughters for political/dynastic reasons and those marriages usually worked as well as many Eastern ones.

Re: # 34 Thanks UNB for telling what i wanted to write. I do not see good by condition Koritoconus and all mistakes are inadverdent. Also due no better focusing adjucent words are many times interchanged like A may be replaced by s or N by M.
Incidently I was thinking about two bundishes little thing struck me in hindustani Bandishes " Piya" word is used in unisex way.
Again thanks for correcting.

#70

This is not the answer to my question. Once again my question is why "interaction between young boys and girls does not help marriage institutions in the west?". Why people in the west can not find right spouse after learning about opposite sex since an early age?

Re #76

Khan Sahib, I am not qualified like Dr Sohail, but as someone who has raised a family and lived in the West for a long time, I hope you will not mind my sharing my personal observations and opinions. I have no claims as to the scientific validity of what I am about to say, and will be very willing to change my opinion where appropriate.

When you say ""interaction between young boys and girls does not help marriage institutions in the west", I suppose your criterion is the duration of wedlock in the liberal west being shorter when compared to the marriage spans in the subcontinent. It may be a relatively recent phenomenon in the west. Let us assume it is indeed so.

From a western liberal perspective, the success of a marriage is to be measured more in terms of the happiness it brings to the two primary partners and to their offspring, and not in terms of how many years the marriage lasted. The happiness of the offspring often takes second level of importance compared to the spousal happiness. Such a concept would be in stark contrast with what our traditional society has always preached.
• "Marriage means compromise". No emphasis on happiness here ...
• "Weddings bring families together not just a man and woman". Not a bad idea –but it somehow translates in to the idea that the couple - read the wife - must make sacrifices in the larger interest of the two families, and by implication, their honor, their feelings, their concerns, etc. etc. which are nebulous and context dependent ...

I believe these days the couple’s happiness is a better criterion to measure success of the marriage than how long it lasted.
• It focuses on gender equality during these times when the families are getting smaller and smaller with the couple being the only adults in the household
• Gender equality is essential these days in the marriage because two-income families are better off in handling economic pressures
• Unless both spouses are happy, the children will not grow in a harmonious and positive environment

But if the West puts so much emphasis on gender equality and mutual happiness of the spouses, why doesn’t the marriage last long? Why do the couples separate so often??

Please take my thoughts with a largish pinch of salt. I have lived in Western Europe and in North America for some 35 years, but my exposure may not be representative at all.

• Some of the married couples I met were previously married and divorced and maintained cordial relationship with the ex-spouses and their families, exchanging not just the annual Christmas gifts, but also getting together with children, and having fun. “Honey, your children and my children are beating-up our children” was a popular caricature of this brave new society.
• The unmarried couples I came across also thought in terms of commitment to each other, but did not seem to consider wedlock as being necessary to become acceptable socially. In other words, it was the concept of “Miya – Bibi raazi tau kya karega Kaazi” abstracted to a level where society’s approval became irrelevant if the couple was committed to each other. Such cohabitation would be unthinkable in our traditional society, although metropolitan India and Pakistan are probably moving in that direction.
• That “Marriage is after all a piece of paper” was an accepted philosophical statement amidst some young, unmarried couples. My impression was that they did not mean it so much to express a disdain for the institution of marriage, but to suggest that there is something more important than the ritual of getting married.
• Amidst the dating young men and women, the practice of sex was probably common, although it was not considered a big deal. Sex between consenting adults was not illegal, and was looked at as the culmination of a happy relationship - not as something to be reserved with religious sincerity for an eventual would-be spouse.
• The concept of virginity was considered old fashioned, and in the American context pre-marital or post-marital escapades would probably be considered immune from censure since the constitution guarantees individuals freedom to pursue happiness.

Making sense of all that I was coming across has been an ongoing process for me.

In my cynically critical moments, I have attributed the presumed phenomenon of lack of marital longevity in the West sometimes to a youthful tendency to confuse happiness and pleasure, and sometimes to immaturity and need for instant gratification.

I have also wondered about the influence of Christian religious thought on the mind, where you believe you have only one lifetime to live, and yet you are “modern” enough not to believe in the Garden of Eden and the concept of heaven where you will be eternally happy.

Even Ghalib had those doubts – “YuN tau hameN bhi maloom hai Jannat ki haqueeqat lekin, Dil-ke behlane ke liye Ghalib, khayaal achchha hai”!

A logical extension of that thought process is to follow your instincts, and do what your heart, mind or hormones tell you to do. Which wins when, probably depends on age and circumstance. 

It will be great if you and others give your thoughts.

-- Essensaur

Re: # 77

essensaur,

... excellent post! ......... the institution of formal marriage is highly overrated and had everything to do with the economic dependence of women and very little to do with relationships, happiness, family, children and all that other crap that we have been brought up to believe ......... with the emancipation of women, it will find its true place in society - in the gutter, where it belongs with religion and the horse drawn carriage (and used condoms, if i may be so bold).........

...... based on my circle of friends and family, i can safely say that half the people are extremely unhappy in their marriages ...... they stay in those relationships because of societal pressures or because they are simply butt ugly and couldn't find another partner if their life depended on it .... and i am sick and tired of listening to them whine!

Re: # 77
dear essensaur...i fully agree with you. you have wonderful ideas and have raised the level of discussion. thanks...sohail

Re: # 73 dr.sohail.

This talk of starting a "hub" makes me nervous.

Also, I believe in the almighty a bit too much, I may be a part pooper were I to attend your next "all hail the atheist God" meeting.

But I do like the fact that you and your colleagues promote peace and love...with or without God, it is still necessary and commendable.