As a result, cousin marriage is
So we begin to see the argument that cousin marriage is a patriarchal imposition on the autonomy of individual women of Pakistani heritage, forcing them into marrying cousins with the risk of giving birth to unhealthy babies. Surely, they reason, no woman could possibly want that for herself, or for her potential children. It is a coercive practice, designed to shore up the power of the male elders of clans, by marrying their own offspring together.
While the paradigm of patriarchy vs. autonomy might be effective dialectically in the context of British politics, in the case of both cousin marriage and the niqab, it is completely misapplied. It is not so much based on a misunderstanding of how human culture works, rather than a comprehensive disregarding of culture entirely. What began as a necessary and salutary backlash against cultural relativism on the Left a couple of decades ago, has become a lazy habit of simply neglecting the importance of culture.
To put it as crudely as possible, people who grew up in cultures where cousin marriage is normal, find cousin marriage normal. There does appear to be some instinctive, genetic trait hardwired into humans universally that we are (generally) not sexually attracted to the people we grew up with in the immediate family unit. But beyond that, all practices around pairing, courtship, marriage and procreation of children are subject to cultural custom, which are shaped according to the structures, needs and philosophy of that society. These customs vary massively across the world, from culture to culture. Unless they have extensive exposure to some alternative culture, almost nobody finds the customs of their own native culture creepy or weird. That is the nature of culture; it establishes norms that are, well, normal — at least to the people who live in it.
Something like the niqab is an even more clear cut example of classical in-group social signalling. Most obviously, wearing the niqab is a signal of piety, which is its own reward, and is an enhancement to female status within religious communities in the eyes of other women, especially older women. Signals of piety by a daughter or a granddaughter are a particular enhancement to the status of a matriarch. But within the context of an immigrant community, the niqab serves as a far more powerful signifier of place within the broader society — most specifically as a rejection of it.
Many Pakistani communities in England live in towns that have experienced economic decline and depopulation. What remains of the English communities around them are often those who lacked the wherewithal to leave, and who are afflicted by varying degrees of social and economic dysfunctionality. Unlike Pakistani communities, the local English lacked access to informal credit via extended family structures, and could not set up their own independent businesses. Chronic problems of family breakdown, addiction and low educational attainment, ended up with the Pakistanis regarding the English as dissolute and amoral. Much of this can be seen in the rape gangs scandal. But it also means that a clear signal rejecting mainstream English society is itself an ingroup status signifier among the Pakistani community. The associations of that signal in terms of personal virtue are especially important for women.
As with many female-specific cultural signifiers, the veil doubles as a status signifier in that it is an impediment to physical labour, thus suggesting the family can afford for its womenfolk not to toil in the fields or in a factory. In our own culture, long painted fingernails serve the same purpose. Although unlike long nails, the niqab can be easily removed indoors, and so does not preclude a life of drudgery inside the home. Yet as physical signifiers of leisure go, it is a relatively unobtrusive one for the wearer, compared with some of the more extreme measures some cultures have gone to such as Chinese foot binding.
Men have always gained status through demonstrations of their wealth; large houses, extensive lands and fine clothes; thoroughbred horses or fast cars. But it is women, throughout the ages and all over the world, who have cultivated the art form of more subtle signals not only about the wealth their family might have, but also how they might have acquired it. This is why most cultures have discrete concepts of class and wealth.
There are many theories about why humans have almost uniquely evolved the phenomenon of the menopause, and with it a population of women living beyond their years of fertility — the other species to do so being the killer whale. One theory is that the grandmother exists as a form of social technology to enforce norms. Thin
Yet other than the West and the former Communist bloc (especially China), most other societies have not experienced that degree of social change, and older familial hierarchies endure. This is particularly the case in traditional Muslim societies that restrict the role of women outside the home. There is a temptation among Westerners who are unfamiliar with the reality of family life in Islamic societies to take their pieties at face value, and to assume that men retain the whip hand over women in all aspects of life. But the reality is more nuanced.
If economic and political life outside the home is the arena of men into which traditional Muslim women seldom stray, then life within the home is their domain. Bottled up, and with far fewer distractions than a modern western woman, a Pakistani wife may devote herself to the stewardship of her household. The surprising result of this is that Pakistani and Middle Eastern husbands are some of the most hen-pecked men on God’s green earth.
Any analysis which suggests that cultural practices can be enforced by patriarchy alone without considering the role of matriarchy is probably not particularly helpful.'