"Wife-beating a source of pride for [women] in Mauritania"

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'It must be love': wife-beating a source of pride for some in Mauritania

NOUAKCHOTT (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Salimata was always told she should be proud to come from a family of wife beaters.

“You’re the daughter of a woman whose husband broke her hands. Your grandmother’s legs were fractured by her husband. You must be loved,” Salimata said, citing her mother’s words.

The 19-year-old woman from Mauritania’s Soninké ethnic group, married to a man who also beats her, said she taught herself to believe what her mother told her.

“I felt like an animal that had to be disciplined,” she said.“As time passed, I came to believe that my husband beats me only when he is at the peak of his love for me.”

Mauritania, a poor, mainly Muslim nation, has deep social and racial divides, each group with its unique marriage norms... [D]omestic violence is frowned upon among the Moors, of Arab and Berber descent, it’s seen as an act of love and a accepted practice for Soninkés, said social researcher Sidi Boyada, an advisor at the ministry of social affairs.

TRADITION

Aichetou Samba is a 60-year-old Fulani grandmother who lives in a modest house in a Nouakchott neighborhood.

“In the past, our girls used to get married at eight years of age, and they usually married their cousins,” she said, coddling one of her grandchildren.

Mauritanian law stipulates “sanity” and “marriageable age” as preconditions for getting married, leaving the door open for early marriage by giving parents the right to decide.

Wearing a colorful scarf that shows her Fulani heritage, Samba smiled and said: “A Fulani woman always takes pride in being beaten by her husband,” and often shares her experiences with other women to show off his love for her.

“This is one of our traditions,” she said.“We see wife-beating as a common and normal practice, which sometimes includes pouring cold water on the wife’s body.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maur ... SKBN1640B9

That sounds like a pretty sad situation.

i wonder how they define "love".


some semantic meaning may be lost when translating to engish from whatever the soninkés word for "love" is.

50 Shades of Grey insanity, level 99.

They also keep slaves. That place is a black hole of barbarity and ignorance.

If the wives were into it and didn't mind we'd call it S&M.

That avatar reminds me of the logo for the Hungarian Jobbik party. It's very similar. Apparently it's a patriarchal cross.

It's a logo for a local metal band called In the Company of Serpents. I don't think this Hungarian Jobbik party would be very fond of this band.

No, perhaps not.

I don't know what to say. Sh*t.

On the topic, we have this famous singer (in the entire Arab world) who made this controversial tweet:

http://blogbaladi.com/najwa-karam-and-d ... -violence/

This one is christian though, just saying.

and here tweeted "I love it when there's fearing control in the house" when asked what she thinks of domestic violence.

http://blogbaladi.com/najwa-karams-take ... -violence/

There's nothing wrong with a woman wanting a good smack if she likes that. If it's internalised hatred for having tits and vag though it's terrible.

Yanomami women make similar proclaimations but make no mistake, these girls and women are victims and these attitudes are a front to save face in a situation in which they are powerless.

It's like an indisputabley ugly woman saying to herself or telling her ugly daughter that men don't approach because she is beautiful and they are intimidated rather acknowledge that she is ugly and doesn't compensate for it.

And as other posters pointed out, chattel slavery was legal in this country until recently and the institution still exisist and remains widespread despite the law. These slaves and masters exist in incredibly remote areas. The slaves were often born into it and know nothing else and would die of exposure to the elements, dehydration or starvation if they did walk away. Their masters often don't see the slavery is wrong, and have political sway such that they are rarely prosecuted even when slaves self emancipate and take the issue to the police, and it's only illegal to buy and sell slaves. They can still be gifted and inherited. In the rare instances where a slave gains freedom, they are still tethered to their former masters due to the remoteness of the area or the fact that their children remain enslaved.

Sickening-and here, people think garbage like 50 Shades of Grey is entertainment. Why would anyone think this is good?