What do you believe is the connection between the three stories and gender roles?
I can see how man is suppose to respect her wife and if he were to commit adultary he would be killed. On the other hand women who commit adultary are mistreated and whipped in front of society, but not killed. The public humilation that women have to deal with after public whipping is more harmful than death? Is that why women aren't killed instantly like when men commit adultary?
I think Professor Velasco was talking about how women are given a lesser punishment because they are considered "inferior" and not as able to control their desires, while men are expected to be in control of these desires and thus get punished more severely (aka death).
ReplyDeleteThe punishment of women who have committed adultery can be seen as less severe than that of men if the husband ends up forgiving her and removing her from the covenant, but this just shows how the gender roles have formed, because it is up to the husband to decide the fate of his wife. In everything during the time the songs were written, males are always considered the head of the family and the women are below them.
ReplyDeleteI believe that as you said, humiliation was used in order to give an example to society of what can happened. In addition, to be honest, I believe it was way more harder that a men will be convicted of adultery as a consequence that men will be the responsible and women will be afraid of accusing him. Finally, the position of being less severe with a woman in regard to her punishment implies how they believed that she was not able to take decisions by herself.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, women were thought to be inferior and also weak and unintelligent. Therefore, women were seen as not being able to control themselves or even more susceptible to being taken over by evil or the devil to commit acts like adultery. Essentially, humiliating a woman could be extremely detrimental to her but death is also quite severe.
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