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Comment by realo | Hacker News Reader

One of the sentences at the beginning:

==== “They start talking and the next thing you will have a love marriage or she will run away with a boy,” said Mr. Balbi. ====

Oh the horror! A love marriage? No no no... we cannot have that here...

And then the last 2 sentence of the article say it all, really:

==== Lakhan Singh Arya said it was a father’s duty to protect his daughter because someday she would marry into another family. “A daughter is someone else’s asset,” he said. “They must be more cautious, and we have to go an extra mile to protect her honor.” ====

I have trouble imagining a human being as an "asset"... but maybe it's just me.

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The key to understanding many traditional cultures around the world is that men are valued as agents, but not assets, and women are valued as assets, but not agents.

Agent/asset also explains related attitudes including homophobia(blurring lines between agent and asset), culturally accepted abuse(instrumental to asset control), and honor culture(no room for expression outside the agent hierarchy).

Yes, I beleive too often abuse is described in the language of violence, which either ubjustly narrows the definition abuse or expands the definition of violence in ways that illicit confusion or resistance.

Interesting. Is this a well-known theory? I'd be interested in reading more about it.

To my knowledge it has not been elsewhere summarized as such. This is my personal synthesis of what I've read.

Thanks; very insightful. I understand the other three cases, but how are males not assets?

Also, I believe females are often seen as being the liability side of the balance sheet (which is perhaps what you meant). You have to pay another family (pay a dowry) in order for them to take on the woman.

(In case there is any doubt, I strongly believe that every woman is a person who should decide for herself who she wants to be.)

So see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_price which at least is practiced in some West African cultures that are otherwise very similar to dowry ones.

This leads me to beleive that the transaction direction is somewhat arbitrary, and the main purpose is the ritual of negotiating with the other family and then establishing s financial bond to match the matrimonial one.

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Social Psycologists would argue that men are more expendable because their low marginal contribution to the reproductive capacity of a society. Indeed there is genetic evidence that the distribution of children was less equal, with many kings with harems on one hand and childless low-status on the other.

Colloquislly, we have memes of "<harmed> even women and children" and "women and children" getting on lifeboats. Male subcultures tend to emphasize competition and unequal outcomes rather than care and cooperation.

Many of the most dangerous jobs skew male, but that could do more with them requiring brute strength.

Very interesting. Thanks.

No its not just you. This is a common behavior in the villages where education is rare and religion heavily influences the lives of people. Its very depressing to see this exist in 2016 and the govt is busy inciting communal riots against minorities in the name of nationalism. But there are many Indians who live only in the cities and constantly deny these things as allegations to defame the country and stuff like that. In reality they have never travelled to a poor village or seen their lifestyle. In most villages that I have visited the men of the house send their women/daughters inside the rooms away from outsiders' eyes!! Yes it happens. I really hope these things change sooner.

They have trouble imagining females as human, in the way that you mean.

Two words.... Human resources.

But of course there won't be any critique from the usual suspects because "it's their culture"

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