War-related Sexual Violence in Sierra Leone

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

Women were expected to do so much but at the same time so little. They had no power to do what they desire because men had all the power to control them. Society had an expectation of how women were supposed to act. For instance, Mary’s father cared for his sons education he wanted them to know how to read, write, and to do sums, as for his daughters he only cared that they knew how to read and sew. That is the basic that women were allowed to learn it was not important for them to know more since all they were going to work for is taking care of children. Here is an example, “…Gender roles within those families the reinforcement of gender ideals such as “helpmeet” and “notable housewife” by religious and civil authorities, and the simple

A young woman would marry a man who was usually significantly older than she was. After marriage, women were stuck in a home where the male was the head of the household and made all of the decisions.11 Marital choice did not exist; at least not for women. Woman were forced to marry men that they barely knew, thus even the most intimate details of their lives were decided not by them, but by others. Love was usually not a factor in the marriage equation. Wife-beating was also allowed and men sometimes imprisoned, starved, and humiliated their wives.12

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

This left women with a clear disadvantage. The system worked well in happy marriages, but if a situation such as a husband's death, desertion from his family, or divorce were to arise, it was usually the woman who suffered as a result. According to the Code, a contract was necessary for marriage. Also, when a man and woman were getting married, the most important item to be negotiated was the bride price. This, again, shows that men were superior to women when it came to the ownership of property. Regardless of the amount of this bride price, it was managed by the husband and it was used to support the wife and her children: "If a woman who lived in a man's house made an agreement with her husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document therefore; if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the creditor can not hold the woman for it" (Pritchard 155). The bride's father had the right to change his mind about the marriage, in which case he would have been required to refund the purchase price in full showing again how women were nothing more than a piece of property: "If a man bring chattels into the house of his father-in-law and pay the price; if then the father of the girl say "I will not give you my daughter," he shall give back all that he brought with him" (Pritchard 156). Another horrific example of how women were regarded as nothing more than mere possessions was that if a wife died before giving birth to

Women had great social pressure on them to marry. Young girls were often married by the age of 13 or 14 . It was socially unacceptable if women were not married by the age of 25 . Marriage was mostly for economic benefits, not romantic situations. A wedding, rather than a religious ceremony, was a civil contract that set the responsibilities and duties of husband and wife . Once married, they legally became one with their husbands. Married women had no control of their earnings, inheritance, property, and also could not appear in court as a witness nor vote . Their husbands, therefore, were responsible for all aspects of their wife including discipline .

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how

In Genesis 12-50 we read about the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Their spouses do come in second in their way of life, as well as in the story found in Genesis. From the years 2,100 to 1,800 BC, ladies are seen as property: first of the fathers, at that point of the spouses (SOURCE). There were laws that ensured ladies at the time, yet still at the end of the day these laws had a man's centric point of view. For instance, rape was considered a wrongdoing against the father, not to the woman, as it denied him of his "bride price" (SOURCE). Marriage was authoritative report exchanging responsibility for lady from the father to the spouse. While these laws appear to be exceptionally sexist to us, a considerable lot of them were planned

Allowing a woman to leave a marriage and not be scolded or cast out, let alone getting her dowry back, was unheard of in this time period. Though a woman’s dowry was to her husband, he had no control over spending it; if she died without having children the dowry went back to her family, or if she had children they would share it equally . This was very important in protecting women from men marrying them only to take their dowry and run with it, as well as protect her children. Even having laws “restricting the use of women’s dowries, the bride prices paid for women, and the manner in which divorce can happen all point to the states recognition that women needed some legal protections from male authority” was a vast improvement in the treatment of women .

A woman’s fate was controlled by the father and passed down to the husband afterwards. Women of the antiquity were married in their early teens to older husbands. The marriages were arranged by the Father’s bride and often the bride did not meet the husband until marriage details had been worked out. Virginity was valuable for women in antiquity, as well loyalty and fidelity. For a woman to divorce it needed the permission from a male member of the family (the father). Women were not allowed to own land or dispose property as she pleases. Also, they are prohibited to participate in politics, buy goods or sell services. Men believed women only cause despair, chaos, and confused situations even more, that they are incapable of decision making

According to the article “Rights for woman”, in the 1800 women were treated as subsequent class citizens, and they did not have many rights at all. They were not able to vote and were not encouraged to get an education, or even get a job that they enjoyed (Rights for Women, Par. 1). Women were expected to clean, cook, and find a husband. According to Juliet Levy, Marriage is an agreement that over all comes with substantial financial upbringing. (Levy, 427) As previously stated woman were worth less than men during that time, so the men were basically able to treat them however they wanted. Men were able to send their wives to insane asylums if they did not follow the rules or live up to the expectations of women of that time. According to an article on woman

"Upon marriage, woman became the legal wards of their husbands, as they previously had been of their fathers while still unmarried" (Martin, 68). It was common for a father to sell his young daughter into marriage and the young women had no say in her preference of her suitors (Mahaffy, 48). This was done while the girl was in her young teens while the groom was ten to fifteen years older (Martin, WEB2). As the father, or guardian, gave the young girl away he would repeat the phrase that expressed the primary aim of marriage: "I give you this women for the plowing [procreation] of legitimate children" (Martin, WEB2). The woman’s role was primarily in the home. "Households thus depended on women, whose wok permitted the family to economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis" (Martin, WEB2).

Before all the changes happened for women. “Women were completely controlled by the men in their lives. First, by their fathers, brothers and male relatives and then once married, their husbands. A women’s sole purpose in life was to find a husband, reproduce and then spend the rest of their lives serving their husband.” (Smith, 2002) When a women married, “her husband had rights to

In the Middle Ages from 476 CE- 14th century almost all of the power of women was determined by biblical references. The average woman in a rural area had the duty of making clothes from wool, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children. The women in town often were tasked in purchasing and trading goods and the normal housekeeping. In extreme cases women were known as witches. Other women became nuns and got involved in spiritual matters. In the year 1000 traditional marriage that involved getting married for financial reasons became less common. Although the parents still assisted in choosing the spouse it was becoming freer to choose who to marry. The woman was essentially owned by a male guardian almost like a child. However, if a rich widowed woman decided she did not want or have another guardian available, she was able to have her own name. During the Middle Ages many rich women were able to participate in things such as art, music or writing. It was rare for a woman not that well off to be able to purchase the tools or have the education to do art, music, or writing. All the rules developed depended on how

Women were viewed inferiorly compared to men. They were expected to do all household chores, bear children, and obey their husband’s wish