Women During Pre-Islamic Arabia

Women have always been underestimated no matter what culture they are from. Males were viewed as more dominant than women, whom of which had limitations in terms of accessibility during the pre-modern society (Keddie, 15). During this time, Keddie explained that women had these limitations because men were guaranteed authority of their family and that the key role of women was to bear and raise children (15). The society believed that women have nothing to contribute other than caring for their own children and follow any orders given by the authority of the family. This led to the belief and practice that encouraged male dominance throughout the entire pre-modern societies. In this paper, I will discuss women’s position, in general, during

One of the types of marriage is by purchase, which is when the woman is given away at a price by her own family. During the pre-Islamic Arabia, female infanticide was very prevalent. Female infanticide is an action of deliberately killing a female infant. Female infanticide was usually performed because of the fear of being in poverty or the fear of dishonor. The reason why families fear poverty is because they believe that they should not put food in the mouths of females who do not contribute as much as men do and were less productive. The reason why families fear dishonor is because they wanted to avoid any embarrassment, disgrace, or shame if their daughter were to be captured during war, which was prevalent during this time

Nicolau stated that Zihar works by the husband saying “you are to me like my mother’s back” to his wife, and the separation of the couple would be final. Despite the small window of opportunity for women in terms of their rights after marriage, their lives continued to become unfortunate. Women were also treated like possessions during Muhammad’s lifetime. They were captured in battle and were used to please their captors. Muhammad also commanded to have about one fifth of the captured women reserved for his own even if he already had eleven wives to himself. Many of these women he reserved were put in his collection of sex slaves. After a battle at one point, Muhammad would even provide instructions to other men on how to properly rape these captured women. During this time period, it seemed like women were still not treated well and were only seen as objects for pleasure and