Equal but not the same

As it stands now, I am a human being first, a woman second, a daughter third. All the other hats I wear – sister, girlfriend, friend, pet owner, employee etc, may change in the priority ranking with the passage of time, but the first two things that I am has never, and will never change in importance and in priority.

Considering that I am a woman second, I am deeply disturbed by this offence in the Penal Code known as ‘enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married woman’.

First of all, there is no corresponding provision for enticing, taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married man. This obviously connotes that women are weaker than men as they can be easily enticed, whereas men are strong and therefore cannot be enticed. And yet every year the statistics show that more men have extra-marital affairs than women. Who is really the weaker sex?

Secondly, this offence only applies to married women. So it is not an offence when someone entices a woman who has been in a 10 year relationship with her boyfriend. But it is an offence when someone entices a woman who is married for a day. The difference is a piece of paper called a marriage certificate. How superficial.

I can’t help but imagine that the draftsman who drafted this offence lost his wife to another man. Unable to accept the fact that his wife could leave him for another man out of her own free will, he drafted this nonsensical offence out of agony and spite. In his simple mind, it simply could not have been his fault (for he is, after all, a man!), and it could not have been her fault either (for she is too stupid to think for herself), so he just blamed the man she ended up with.

Women have come a long way and yet archaic legislation like this serves as a grim reminder to all women kind that the battle for equality is far from over.

George Orwell got it right when he wrote “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.