"It has been reported that members of the community have turned on the child bride and she that has been forced to flee Yarralin." (from CA25705E0004A183 )
Ok, I admit to stereotyping and generalisation. There are many hundreds of "jurisdictions" of customary law in Australia. I have no idea of the details on the community in question. In fact if there were more than half a dozen people in the world who knew all the intricacies of that particular "jurisdiction" I would be surprised.
In *some* jurisdictions a woman who refuses to perform loveually for her husband is "taught" the correct behaviour by a group of elders. I seem to remember another thread on that topic in this forum some time back.
There is some evidence to indicate that punishing women in this way is a fairly recent phenomenon rather than something with historical roots in customary law. Unfortunately customary law is not codified so we only have the word of the "elders" that the crimes and punishments are customary.
"One result of Aboriginal women=3Fs changed role today compared with pre- contact times is that they are now subject to violence from their own men of a kind which would not have been countenanced in traditional society. As one woman remarked; =3FThere are now three kinds of violence in Aboriginal society =3F alcoholic violence, traditional violence, and bullpoo traditional violence=3F. Women are the victims of all three. By =3Fbullpoo traditional violence=3F is meant the sort of buttault on women which takes place today for illegitimate reasons, often by drunken men, which they then attempt to justify as a traditional right (A Bolger Aboriginal Women and Violence Australian National University, North Australian Research Unit, Darwin NT 1991:4, 50)." ( from w.shtml )
Again, depends on the "jurisdiction". Eyre had this to say about the people of Central Australia:
"The females, and especially the young ones are kept principally among the old men, who barter away their daughters, sisters or nieces, in exchange for wives for themselves or their sons. Wives are considered the absolute property of the husband, and can be given away, or exchanged, or lent, according to his caprice ... Female children are betrothed usually from early infancy" (Eyre, Edward John Journals of Expedition of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland From Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-41 vols I&II, T & W Boone, London, 1845, vol II, p.318.)
cut
-- DM personal opinion only
