Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
But it's not as though people would just shrug it off if a guy raped his neighbour's wife or daughter. Our ancestors weren't monsters.
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I'd say the outrage was more due to rape being seen as a violation of property rights, rather than selective concern for certain women. Wives and daughters belonged to a man, so other men weren't allowed to touch, but any woman who belonged only to herself was always in danger of being claimed, whether she willed it or not.
Our ancestors may not have been monsters, but they were in many ways monstrous. Wondrous, too, considering the milieu of poverty, ignorance, and death they lived in, but we should expect much more of ourselves than what would come of harking back to social structures based on a fundamental inequality of men and women.