Rape, Republicans and Akin. Celtic Society.

It is shocking to live in a society dominated by white upper class men telling women what they can do and what they cannot do with their bodies. These men like Akin and Ryan and co. are vicious dictators.  They are now trying to get a form of words that will deny that any sexual act is rape. They are yammering on about "legitimate"  rape and "forcible" rape. Of course they are now running for cover but the truth is in what they said originally not in what they feel they now have to say to advance their political careers. The truth is that they do not believe in rape, they believe that women "ask for it."

While thinking about this I was reminded about the Brehon Laws in the the old Celtic societies.  In these societies there were a long category of what what constituted rape. It was considered rape when a man told a women lies to have sex with her. It was considered rape when a man got a woman drunk to sleep with her or when a man had sex with a woman when she was asleep. It was of course considered rape when a man used physical force against her. The old Brehon Laws were ahead of the republicans in the US today.

Other aspects of the law regarding personal relations were way ahead also. A woman could divorce her husband for many reasons. If he got too fat, if he left a bruise on her skin, if he became impotent and other reasons she could divorce him.

When Christianity came to the Celtic world, in my case Ireland, it crushed the Brehon laws and instituted its own laws. These were the laws of the male dominated priest ridden churches. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal that so called "saint" Patrick was being driven in his chariot in Ireland. A woman approached him and asked him to stop taking away her rights. He is reputed to have ordered his driver to drive over her and killed her.

US society and especially the right wing of the Republicans on whom US capitalism has been seeking to rest are more backward on gender equality than was the case under the old Brehon Laws and this was over 1,000 years ago.

Sean.