Compassion for Women

[DooDoot]

Notice "husband" is the main element in your quote?

Irrelevant. The quote is about how men should ideally relate to women. The quote is about this topic "compassion for women".

This is in the context of arranged marriages where women didn't choose their husbands, didn't have sex before marriage

The sutta remains relevant in general; although not in its minor cultural details. For example, in today's reality, the five principles in the sutta remain valid, namely:

1. Wives miss their families therefore a husband should not be a possessive control freak if his wife wants to visit her parents, family or friends.

2. Women still menstruate & get moody.

3. Women still get pregnant, which still results in many additional duties for husbands.

4. Women still have children, which still results in many additional duties for husbands.

5. Women still like to look after their husband & family therefore husbands still need to be grateful.

didn't have sex before marriage, didn't work nor vote, didn't have 'no fault' divorce laws, men were paid dowries, virginity (and thus pair bonding by extension, look up sexual activity and pair bonding studies) was guaranteed. The balance has shifted.

What has the above got to do with Buddhism? Where does Buddhism teach to have sex before marriage? Regardless, given men & women now have sex before marriage, they are not only naturally not "virginity pair bonded" (as you said) but are also more emotionally volatile & unpredictable. Therefore, having compassion towards women & following the five principles is even more important for a husband because, if not, 'no fault' divorce laws means your non-virgin wife will devastate you financially in a no-fault divorce.

Today women are "sexually liberated" so as a result they've lost protection from men as husbands and instead have gained it in the form of rights from the government.

While relevant to the "left-wing", this is also a generalization. Regardless, again, it is not a personal view from a Dhamma reality. As Dhamma practitioners, I think we try to control our own reality, be it our job choice or choice of partner or choice of world view.

Marriage rates are dropping fast because there is no-fault divorce which means a woman can divorce and get half of everything for any reason, even if she cheated, and thus divorce rates are very high, which acts as a deterrent for men to get married who could lose their wealth as soon as they get married or lose custody of their kids, so marriage is dying in the west, jewelry stores are going bankrupt, etc..

And, so?

The Buddha said lay people shouldn't roam the streets at night because it is dangerous, well the same goes for women and promiscuity. It would be silly of me to go out at night to bad areas and then complain I got assaulted as a result, likewise it would be silly for women to be promiscuous with people they are not married to and then complain about getting raped as a result. Laying naked and exposed with strangers who you know little about is even more risky than walking the streets at night in a bad area. And yet getting drunk and having promiscuous sex is now the past time of the average young woman.

Generally Buddhist practitioner's don't dwell in the hungry ghost realm (described above).

So any sutta you quote regarding lay people and relationships will refer to men as Husbands, today the notion of Husband is drastically disappearing..

Maybe but its part of compassion to have the view of "a husband". Its not "compassion" to accept the hungry ghost realm as something OK. If we hope to be compassionate, we cease to believe that promiscuity, etc, brings happiness and we live our lives accordingly, including how we relate to women. For example, if a "liberated" woman wants to have impulsive sex with us, as a Dhamma man, we say "no".

Furthermore I think it's important for people to understand (scientific sources below):

- Pair bonding is the mechanism that maintains monogamy
- Pair bonding is dependent on the hormone oxytocin
- The more sexual partners a woman has had in her lifetime the less oxytocin she is able to produce, the less she is able to pair bond, the less able she is to stay in a monogamous relationship
- The less a woman is able to pair bond with men, the less she is able to pair bond with her child in its infancy
- If an infant cannot pair bond with its mother, the infant will fail to be imprinted and learn emotional intelligence, empathy, and self-awareness.. Leading to autism, psychopathy, and a host of mental diseases.

Therefore the sexual liberation movement is not only destroying marriages, but also women and children. This is why virginity was guarded in the past by religions and royal families, even going as far as implementing chastity belts.

Whooa! Dhamma overload! Politically incorrect in Western Buddhism. Sorry, back to topic. Yes, the above considerations influence compassion towards women. Again, if we are an evolving Western man discerning this sexual dukkha, we learn to say "No" to unbeneficial sexual liaisons. This is compassion towards women; to relate to women with "metta" as "friends".

[budo]

All I'm saying is that now men are no longer responsible for women and the government has taken over the role as the protector and provider of women. The amount of husbands are dropping, and will continue to drop because so are the incentives for marriage. Therefore the climate and context today is different than the climate and context in which the Buddha gave those teachings. At that time in India, Nepal and most of the world, there were several safe guards to protect women and children such as arranged marriages, protecting monogamy/marriages, fair family courts, protecting virginity, protecting against adultery, etc... Today these safe guards are gone and a few transferred over to government.

So sure you can bring up all these suttas for men to follow as husbands, but according to statistics and the way society is heading towards, there won't be any more husbands in the near future, at least in the west, just short term boyfriends, promiscuous flings, single mothers, increasingly mentally ill children, and government as the provider.

Call it irrelevant, but relevancy is what is happening in the present moment. As binocular insinuated, in present time, the problem isn't with men and women, the problem is with women among themselves and the government.

Marriage in first world countries is dropping across the board. Perhaps the sutta would be more suitable to Muslims who still have high rates of marriage even in the west, unfortunately they're not Buddhists.

Also I wasn't talking about the hungry ghost realm, but the sigalovada sutta where the Buddha says not to roam the streets at night.

[DooDoot]

All I'm saying is that now men are no longer responsible for women and the government has taken over the role as the protector and provider of women. The amount of husbands are dropping, and will continue to drop because so are the incentives for marriage.

Sure. But all I'm saying is the Dhamma remains more or less timeless in its use and, if necessary, adaption.

Therefore the climate and context today is different than the climate and context in which the Buddha gave those teachings.

The climate may be different but the way of living is more or less the same if we want to be compassionate & live with the least suffering. Therefore, for a man to be compassionate means to be more focus on women's needs and less focused on those boyish fetishes.

Call it irrelevant, but relevancy is what is happening in the present moment. As binocular insinuated, in present time, the problem isn't with men and women, the problem is with women among themselves and the government.

Maybe. But what is truly compassionate does not change.

Marriage in first world countries is dropping across the board. Perhaps the sutta would be more suitable to Muslims who still have high rates of marriage even in the west, unfortunately they're not Buddhists.

The sutta is relevant for board members here who are married or who are trying to practise the path. To cleanse the hindrance of sensual desire, at least in my experience, these contemporary world views need to be abandoned.

Also I wasn't talking about the hungry ghost realm, but the sigalovada sutta where the Buddha says not to roam the streets at night.

To me, night clubs with people looking for sex is the hungry ghost realm.

As binocular insinuated, in present time, the problem isn't with men and women, the problem is with women among themselves and the government.

In my experience, its important for the man to take the lead because (I might offend here), in my personal view, its often difficult to women to deeply acknowledge they made a mistake and abruptly change in a positive direction from that mistake. This is going to sound "sexest" but I think women don't cope very well with criticism, including self-criticism. Thus the impression arises that women are a problem for women. In my opinion, this occurs because women are hopeless as acknowledging they make mistakes. Thus they start "projecting". My impression of Binocular is she might think women are malicious. For me, women often just can't deal with mistakes & suppress & project the associated anger & hurt.

[budo]

The sutta is relevant for board members here who are married or who are trying to practise the path. To cleanse the hindrance of sensual desire, at least in my experience, these contemporary world views need to be abandoned.

Agreed, if your intention is advice for Buddhist board members practicing the path, then there's nothing to be said because I fully agree.

If your intention is to change the world, and world views, good luck with that, it's only going to get worse.

[DooDoot]

If your intention is to change the world...

Definitely not. But its still part of your personal virtue to view the world as the Buddha taught. Its part of your personal virtue & development to be able to perform those virtuous roles when required.

As a very superficial example, I was talking a lady I met the other day and each time her children want her attention she would tell them to not interrupt but i would tell her to attend to her children. We should always be prepared with virtue in an unvirtuous world.

[budo]

If your intention is to change the world...

Definitely not. But its still part of your personal virtue to view the world as the Buddha taught.

I remember reading either in one of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's books or Bhikkhu Analayo's work that the Buddha said the world would get worse as the dhamma fades, which it will, and people become greedy, hateful, etc.. until the next Buddha arrives again.

[DooDoot]

I remember reading either in one of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's books or Bhikkhu Analayo's work that the Buddha said the world would get worse as the dhamma fades, which it will, and people become greedy, hateful, etc.. until the next Buddha arrives again.

Absolutely. However, if we want to personally be at peace with a world that is aflame with defilements, we have to understand the causes of the world's dukkha. Its not peaceful to see a burning world but not understand the causes (which, are also the solutions). As Buddhadasa said, if you are the only person in the world with Right Dhamma; that is sufficient. And as I previously posted, we still need to develop those virtues and be able to use them when required.

Legacy 41
If all people in the world object to bringing Dhamma
into the world, because they think it’s impossible,
that’s up to them. We alone, if need be, ought to make
ourselves quench all dukkha with Dhamma that’s up
to the mark. Never be disappointed that so few people
are interested in Dhamma.

Buddhadasa

[Wizard in the Forest]

@budo

I have no intention to have a wedding because they’re expensive and awful, but I still intend to be monogamous as do my many female friends. I don’t know why you are talking about something like pair bonding when the government itself discourages it with the welfare system punishing families by giving them less support than they need to survive. It’s the main reason the nuclear family is falling apart among the poor and working poor.

However I mention repeatedly that I’m not merely focusing on the women of the western world because like I said before problems of the undeveloped world get dismissed off hand just like you just did! You said, “a whole nother story and proceeded to ignore it to rant about pair bonding which has little to do with women’s problems and more to do with institutional collapse. Who is going to get married when a wedding is more than the cost of a down payment of a house and the penalty is half of your income for the foreseeable future? That’s a government interfereing to destroy pair bonding and people being too materialistic to think weddings aren’t necessary to be married!

@ Mike

donated and pitched in too, thanks so much.

[budo]

No one is forcing you to have an extravagant wedding. My friends recently had a wedding at their local church with the party in the church garden, I believe it costed them less than $200 bucks.

The government is not interfering with pair-bonding with expensive weddings as you put it, but with getting married in the first place, specifically with laws that lower incentives for men to get married thus forcing women to rely on welfare rather than staying in a marriage where both men and women benefit. At the end of the day, marriage is a survival strategy that dates its roots to the agricultural revolution so that you can have many kids to work on your farm and take care of you when you're old. Governments were too small to meddle in peoples lives back then.

If laws prevent men from seeing their own kids and losing their homes regardless of the cause of the divorce, even if a woman cheats, then of course men are going to be less interested in marriage. The cost/benefit simply doesn't add up.

I didn't dismiss the problems in the third world because they're not important, but because I don't think people would be interested in reading a wall of text about something they probably already know about, I appreciate the accusation though.

[Wizard in the Forest]

@Paul
It’s one of my favorite parables.

@Dhammarakkhito
Oh of course. Patience is also absolutely indispensable among ladies, but disposing of the dhamma is absolutely not acceptable until one becomes an arahant. It’s critical to all to be a participant in dispensing of the dhamma not just by talking, but by being a living example, it’s why I ask what you personally do to help.

@[name redacted by admin]
I wish more people understood that. Women make up half of the population!

@Bundokji
While this is a fabulous point I don’t agree with, it is also one of the first time someone actually addressed it, so I’m doubly grateful anyway! I am sure that familial rivalry exists throughout the world but a male’s value is not placed on his sexual status like a woman is and that is the primary reason for honor killings. A woman who is found to not be a virgin or who has chosen to date outside of her family’s wishes is liable to be killed by her own family members rather than another family distanced enough not to feel compassion for them. Rival family killings are a result of not knowing and hating, honor killings are people who directly known and often felt affection for. They kill because they feel the woman’s sexual behavior stained the honor of the family in question. This behavior is unique and does not happen to men (being killed for their sexual status).

@budo
Economic reasons? You bet that’s why.
check me for a bit of a confirmation

It’s just not as profitable to marry anymore.

[Bundokji]

@Bundokji
While this is a fabulous point I don’t agree with, it is also one of the first time someone actually addressed it, so I’m doubly grateful anyway! I am sure that familial rivalry exists throughout the world but a male’s value is not placed on his sexual status like a woman is and that is the primary reason for honor killings. A woman who is found to not be a virgin or who has chosen to date outside of her family’s wishes is liable to be killed by her own family members rather than another family distanced enough not to feel compassion for them. Rival family killings are a result of not knowing and hating, honor killings are people who directly known and often felt affection for. They kill because they feel the woman’s sexual behavior stained the honor of the family in question. This behavior is unique and does not happen to men (being killed for their sexual status).

I agree with your input, and i would add that focusing on the act of killing (which is relatively rare) serves to hide other issues, which is the expectations for women to police their sexuality and to remain virgin until they get married. It is worth noting that women who get killed by honor killing worldwide every year is less than people who die our of snake bites in one country (India)

I also thank you for mentioning the word "status" which is the last word in your post and which i highlighted it for emphasis. This is exactly the point i was trying to make. In one of my previous posts i said:

So, focusing on conditions results in seeing states of being, while being fixated on the manifestations turns these "states" into "status" which would then merit a special compassion towards women.

So this is what is it all about, is it not? status anxiety?

Again, in one of my previous posts, i mentioned the following:

So, in the conditioned world we live in, every story/truth seem to have two sides. Women being physically weaker can be a cause for oppression, status anxiety or hero role playing, but it can also be a life saver. In wars in general, there are much less deaths and casualties among women than men, which brings us back to the original point: if we truly are agenda free, why a particular subgroup is more worthy of compassion than others?

As we are conducing this discussion with a spirit of openness and honesty, what you are proposing, seems to me, not compassion. Clinging to hierarchical structures (which causes status anxiety) in a particular society, and projecting it on other societies is not compassion and does not lead to end suffering. In conservative societies, the more a woman is modest and decent (from conservative perspective) the more she is valued. Conversely, in western nations, they have different value systems. Freedom seem to mean being able to do whatever i want as long as i am not hurting anyone.

Again, this is what i said in a previous post:

Saying all of the above does not mean that manifestations should be neglected, but should be seen for what they are: "value free", and when we stop imposing our deluded values, we stop making things worse than they already are.

A good subject of contemplation in my opinion is to examine the western notion of freedom, and to try to see the problems and the stress it causes. To think of it as an "ideal" is akin to living in a bubble of one's own conditioning, all in my opinion.

[Wizard in the Forest]

Oh I didn’t know that is what meant there by status and values! I had an entirely different idea because I thought you were talking about the conservative values in western society which is entirely different elsewhere.

But your request to contemplate on the meaning of freedom is very insightful. I actually think of freedom in this way as a bond or a restriction because it requires lot of responsibility and while some people are raised to be ready for such freedom others are profoundly not ready. It helps to remember freedom in the real sense should never be freedom without consequences or from responsibility. I don’t think any freedom comes without a corresponding responsibility.

Also I feel this notion that western women don’t love Modesty is a terrible miscommunication. Modesty is actually REALLY important but it needs to be understood in terms of self effacement. Imho, modesty has less to do with sexual status but so strongly to do with conduct and in moral behavior. A woman must in a normal sense of self effacement cultivate a sense of self-respect that includes the respect of others. This requires careful cultivation of things that the Buddha went into in detail in the Sallekha Sutta, another of my favorite expositions.

[Bundokji]

Also I feel this notion that western women don’t love Modesty is a terrible miscommunication. Modesty is actually REALLY important but it needs to be understood in terms of self effacement. Imho, modesty has less to do with sexual status but so strongly to do with conduct and in moral behavior. A woman must in a normal sense of self effacement cultivate a sense of self-respect that includes the respect of others. This requires careful cultivation of things that the Buddha went into in detail in the Sallekha Sutta, another of my favorite expositions.

Thanks for your input

I think the term "western women" is a generalization and that each individual woman is different. However, i think the prevailing value system in the west does not encourage modesty and links it in a subtle way to oppression of women. I remember a female member of this forum describing the pressure western women feel to lose their virginity, and if a woman decided to keep her virginity, she is often seen as odd.

Few days ago, i encountered the following article on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44143003

[binocular]

It is worth noting that women who get killed by honor killing worldwide every year is less than people who die our of snake bites in one country (India)

And what is the number of people who die in vehicular collisions!
Who cares about those?

The majority of vehicular collisions is avoidable. But no. People MUST tailgate, they MUST drive under influence, they MUST not respect posted speed limits, and, most of all, they MUST not maintain safety distance.

If we're really interested in people not getting injured or killed by people, then why not do something about vehicular collisions? Vehicular traffic is something that most of us participate in daily, the damages are exorbitant, the number of injuries and deaths high, not to mention all the other problems that follow after a vehicular collision (such as losing one's job because of a lenghty recovery).
To say nothing of the daily stress of aggressive driving.

Why distract ourselves with those poor hungry Africans, poor Indian girls, and such, when we have far more imminent problems right under our noses, and do little or nothing about them?

It appears to be a status symbol for a first-world person to care about third-world problems. As if to say, "Look at me, I'm so compassionate, I'm such a good person! You owe me admiration!"

[budo]

If you want to compare all causes of human death, the biggest killer of humans are mosquitoes, followed by heart attacks/cardiovascular disease.
Humans kill about 470,000 humans a year, while mosquitoes kill 725,000 humans a year. Car accidents are still way way down the list when it comes to absolute causes.

Also while women may get denied education and forced into prostitution, still 93% of workplace deaths are men in the first world, let alone the third world. How often do you see women working on power lines, gas rigs and other dangerous jobs? Women on average take the comfortable jobs.

At the end of the day there is no short supply of suffering, the victim olympics doesn't do us service, have compassion for everyone.