Saturday July 12, 2008, 12:54 pm
More like the husband of this woman is afraid of his wife and has to show that he is the controller on a power trip. This woman said "she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and had worn the burqa since arriving in France at the request of her husband."

"She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,"...

TY, Jill.

Sunday July 13, 2008, 12:59 am
This woman's husband, Jim, is a French citizen, but practices an extremist form of Islam for the family: Salafism. (This isn't in the Guardian article posted here, but in the Independent's article.)

The French who had to investigate her for the purposes of deciding on her citizenship application also found that she lived as a virtual recluse, rarely leaving the house, and thus, having no connection to French society in her daily life.

Sunday July 13, 2008, 1:21 am

In terms of your comment about the husband's fear of his wife, I think you could argue that all the Muslim practices of repressing women stem from the desire to have total control over women. Brothers, fathers, cousins, uncles, husbands all have control over the women and should a woman take any initiative in her life, attempt to pursue personal friendships, for example, or ask to attend school, it can be construed as 'dishonor' and the woman is killed.

I don't know if this whole system came into being because the men are afraid of the women, or if they are afraid of losing control over them.

I saw an interesting documentary recently about a small population of Christian Ethiopians in a remote mountainous region. They have a tradition of arranged marriages of very young girls. Some of the girls, between 10 and 14, now run away when they discover the marriage plans that are in the works. If the father's word is final and they cannot convince him to let them continue school, which is what they all want to do instead of being forced into marriage, they run away.

One father, however, learned to read after the forced marriage of his oldest daughter. He showed the reporter his copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and explained how he regretted having forced his first daughter into marriage at the age of 12. He said and repeated that he had 'buried her alive.' As a result, he broke off the next daughter's engagement, sent all the presents back, withstood the criticism of the community, & has allowed her to go to school, instead.

If only literacy and evolution could have such a liberating effect for oppressed women throughout the world.