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This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
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Me on Al Jazeera again
The physiology of abuse during pregnancy is quite interesting. It epigenetically programs the fetus in utero to be more violent. This is the well known “cycle of violence”.
If a woman is living in a violent society, where to be successful one must use violence first, then it would be a “feature” for her mate to beat her while she is pregnant with their child. The child will get a “head start” in being ruthless and violent. The more trauma a woman experiences while pregnant, the more violent and ruthless her child will be.
Turns out that worked for Saddam.
http://hnn.us/roundup/entri...
It is interesting that Conservatives are trying to do the same thing in this country, make the lives of the poor, and especially poor women as harsh and brutal as they can reasonably get away with.
It turns out that works pretty well, some of the greatest predictors of future criminality is childhood abuse and socioeconomic status.
No, dowries exist because women were (and are) considered a financial burden. These societies either believe women cannot be as productive as men when working the land (though, in practice women often ended up doing most of the work) or because women were forbidden from making money (it's especially easy to see the fallacy in the latter way of thinking).
Robin, erronously describes this as a free market: women used to be a financial burden so dowries were created and in the future the scarcity of women will lead to reversed dowries. This is wrong because dowries were never rational to begin with (the "price" of women was "fixed" by an irrational rule, stemming from religious and cultural tradition, that women were not allowed to make money).
Even if the free market model was correct it would not add any real value to the economy (it's basically speculation with people), while it does cause human suffering (there will be significant lag in the system, meaning that it's "out of balance" most of the time). So, It beats me why anyone would be in favor of such a scheme, unless they intend to make money off of it themselves.