The elephant in the room is Qur’an 4:34, and somehow, once again, people in the Muslim world are following what it says, and not some fanciful rationalization from the HuffPo Tafsir Bureau. That tactic is nothing new, of course, but helping to perpetuate the real and ongoing suffering of untold numbers of women by turning a blind eye to the texts that endorse domestic violence seems to be a price the apologists are willing to pay.
–˜50% Pakistan urban women get beaten by their husbands”,” from Asian News International, March 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
Fifty percent of women in Pakistan’s urban areas admit that their husbands beat them, a 2009 US State Department report on Pakistan has revealed.
In 2009, efforts were in progress to come out with a new domestic violence law in Pakistan. A private bill on domestic violence had been passed in the National Assembly in 2009, which required approval by the Pakistani Senate.
However, the Council of Islamic Ideology”s (CII) warning that a law against domestic violence will “˜push up divorce rates” coupled with Mohammad Khan Sheerani’s objections (of the JUI-F), led to a deferment of the hearing in the Senate. Since then the government has not paid much attention to the matter and the bill has lapsed, The Express Tribune reports.
It appears that due to a fault within our social structure, even urban women not only tend to have a high tolerance for domestic violence, but also are often at the forefront of inflicting pain on other women.