Behavior and Social Issues

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-019-00021-y
ORIGINAL PAPER

Metacontingency and Macrocontingency Analysis

Related to Honor Crimes in the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan

Thouraya Al-Nasser 1 & Kenneth J. Burleigh 1 & José G. Ardila Sánchez 1 &
Ramona A. Houmanfar 1

# Association for Behavior Analysis International 2019

Abstract
Honor crimes are extremely violent cultural practices against women in general, and
women in the Arab region in particular, culminating in murder by a male family member.
The notion that religion, mainly Islam, enforces honor crimes is a misconception. Honor
crimes are committed when a woman shames her family by having a premarital sexual
relationship, an adulterous affair, other “inappropriate” behavior, or simply by being
accused of such. Many families deal with this covertly by choosing a male family member,
usually the brother, father, or uncle, to “cleanse” the family’s honor. In this paper we offer a
descriptive analysis of cultural contingencies that maintain honor crimes as a cultural
practice using the country of Jordan as a case study. The description of Jordan’s cultural
milieu allows the identification of selected metacontingencies participating in the recur-
rence of this cultural practice. We will conclude with several recommendations on how to
alter the number of aspects in the cultural milieu that may change how individuals within
the Jordanian culture perceive honor crimes.

Keywords Cultural practices . Metacontingencies . Macrocontingencies . Honor crimes .

Leadership

Honor crime refers to the killing of a woman by a family member (usually male) for a
violation, or even a perceived violation, of cultural norms in patriarchal societies. The
historical record for honor killing dates to the codes of Hammurabi in 1752 BC, which
state that a woman, “if she has committed adultery, . . . shall be executed by being
thrown into the water” (Rummel, 2007, p. 143). The Roman statesman Marcus Cato
gave that right exclusively to the husband by saying if you “catch your wife in adultery,

* Thouraya Al-Nasser
thourayalnasser@gmail.com

1
Behavior Analysis Program, University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), Mail Stop 296, Reno,
NV 89557, USA
 Behavior and Social Issues

you can kill her with impunity; she, however, cannot dare to lay a finger on you if you
commit adultery, for it is the law” (Lefkowitz & Fant, 2005, p. 88). Moreover, during
ancient Roman times, the male representing the head of a family had the right to kill a
promiscuous daughter in the name of honor for violating cultural norms.
Honor as a historical term is very complex. In classical Latin, the word honor—
honos, honoris—“is associated with the ideas of respect, esteem, and prestige, and
connected with the existence of public dignities and offices” (Baroja, 1966, p. 83).
Ancient Greeks’ and Romans’ descriptions of honor are related to “pride” (e.g., people
are proud of their belongings and are willing to go to war to keep them safe). Schneider
(1971) explained that honor is “the ideology of the power-holding group which
struggles to define, enlarge and protect its patrimony in a competitive arena” (p. 2).
Julian Pitt Rivers (1968) defined honor to be

the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his society. It is his
estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the acknowledgment
of that claim, his excellence recognized by society, his right to pride. (p. 503)
The concept of honor is related to the influence of tribe and clan rooted within
Arab Bedouin families and Arab culture. A tribe is a

structure of extended families, a patrilineal kinship structure of many generations

that encompasses a wide network of blood relations descended through the male
line. Tribes are divided into clans. Clans are divided into family groups
(ha’mulah), some of which can trace their ancestry back for ten generations.
(Furr & Al-Serhan, 2008, p. 21)

Members of each clan share a direct blood connection and are responsible for each other
regarding issues related to blood vengeance and matters involving honor. In the Arab
world, individuals’ identity and honor are closely tied to their family and tribe. Subse-
quently, for many, protecting one’s honor is of the utmost importance for the Arab
culture’s survival. Arab culture, however, is not synonymous with Muslim culture. The
22 Arab countries of the world share ethnicity, not religion. They are basically countries
whose native language is Arabic. Muslim groups, on the other hand, may not speak
Arabic yet follow Islam as a religion (e.g., Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India).
Men in an Arab tribal culture share a patriarchal attitude toward women, celebrating
male members and encouraging them to control their female family members. Baker,
Peter, and Margery (1999) argued that honor is an essential element of patriarchy,
leading to violence against women. For example, men in the Arab culture are given the
right to police women and assign themselves as their protectors in regard to gender
relationships. Moreover, men manage and control all household and tribal social issues.
Responsibility for dealings with the outside world lay formally with men who are seen
as the head of the house and tribal leaders” (Hourani, 2002, p. 105). For example, an
Arab male typically may not choose his wife without his father’s approval. Disobeying
a father’s decision is a source of public shame (Furr & Al-Serhan, 2008, p. 21).
Honor is integral to understanding the concept of honor killing. In this paper, we
offer a descriptive analysis of honor crimes in Jordan by exploring the important role of
the cultural milieu as a context for this cultural practice. From a behavior-analytic
perspective, honor crimes cannot be fully explained by simply identifying
Behavior and Social Issues

contingencies of reinforcement maintaining each individual’s behavior. Honor crimes

are a cultural practice that involves the cumulative behaviors of multiple individuals
responding with respect to the stimulus functions of certain components of the cultural
milieu. The cultural milieu is “comprised of the stimulus functions of events, objects,
and persons” (Ardila, Houmanfar, & Alavosius, 2019; Houmanfar, Rodrigues, & Ward,
2010). As a working definition, we will identify honor crimes as the cultural practice of
murdering women in response to a perceived violation of cultural norms influenced by
the cultural milieu consisting of shared traditions, legislative processes, and autocratic
governments. In short, the purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the
metacontingencies and associated aggregate products (e.g., policies, legislation, and
the application of the associated laws) that serve critical functions in the maintenance of
honor crimes in Jordan. The description of selected metacontingencies allows for the
identification of the associated aggregate products influencing honor crimes and how
this practice can in turn be analyzed in a macrocontingency relation. We will conclude
with some recommendations that may alter the cultural milieu associated with the
recurrence of honor crimes in Jordan.

Metacontingencies and Macrocontingencies

Glenn (2004) describes two kinds of cultural selection involving two or more people:
metacontingency and macrocontingency. Before introducing them, the term culture
must be defined; Glenn (2004) defines culture as

patterns of learned behavior transmitted socially, as well as the products of that

behavior . . . Culture begins with the transmission of behavioral content, learned
by one organism during its lifetime, to the repertoires of other organisms . . .
unlike learning, which is localized in repeated temporal relations between the
actions of a single organism and other empirical events, the locus of cultural
things is supra-organismic because it involves repetitions of interrelated behavior
of two or more organisms; one organism’s behavior functions as the situation or
consequences in the operant contingencies accounting for the behavior of the
other. (p. 139)

According to Skinner (1953), cultural practices are interchangeable individual practices

that establish group practices. Each culture “has its own set of goods, and what is good
in one culture may not be good in another” (Skinner, 1971, p. 124). The term cultural
practices refers to “similar patterns of behavioral content usually resulting from
similarities in the environments . . . [which] may be made up of independently
generated behaviors and also socially transmitted behaviors (Glenn, 2004, p. 140).
There are two distinct characteristics most cultural practices share; first, they “involve
many people engaged in the same repeated actions (behaving individually or in relation
to one another) and second, those actions have consequences—often several different
consequences” (Glenn, 2004, p. 140). Many Arab countries tend to share the same
Bedouin roots, values, language, and religion. The Arab culture also tends to kindle a
hierarchical order toward women by celebrating male members and encouraging them
to act as the gatekeepers to protect and to maintain their familial honor. This, on some
 Behavior and Social Issues

occasions, triggers blood feuds that require revenge between tribes. In cases of murder
or disputes related to honor, Bedouins and Arabs had and still have “a rigid code of
honor in which the chastity of their women was very important and which also included
hospitality and generosity” (Singh, 2011, p. 3). Honor crimes, as a cultural practice, are
an evident translation of these feuds.
To maintain the morality of a culture in general, and the Arab culture in particular,
honor crimes are encouraged and reinforced by the surrounding community. Morality is
frequently associated with being obedient, right, good, legal, and virtuous, where
immorality stands for the opposite: disobedient, wrong, bad, illegal, or sinful. A person
is moral if they follow “acceptable” cultural standards and rules.
According to the literature in behavior analysis, moral behavior is defined as the
“behavior governed by and consistent with verbal rules about what is socially and
personally good” (Hayes & Hayes, 1994, p. 46). Skinner explained, “The behavior of
an individual is usually called good or right insofar as it reinforces other members of the
group and bad or wrong insofar as it is aversive” (1953, p. 324). Therefore, moral
behavior is governed and assessed by larger community standards. As discussed by
Houmanfar, Hayes, and Fredericks (2001), a change in moral code is enhanced when the
preliminary behaviors setting the occasion for moral behavior are loosely defined and
when the authorities enforcing moral codes are relatively powerful. In other words, the
more loosely set up the definition of a moral code and the more powerful the authority
enforcing it, the more likely it is that those authorities will enforce a different and more
favorable code, given circumstances warranting this change (Schoenfeld, 1993).
Metacontingencies are defined as “a contingent relation between 1) recurring
interlocking behavioral contingencies having an aggregate product and 2) selecting envi-
ronmental events or conditions” (Glenn, 2016, p. 13), the components of which are
interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBCs), associated aggregate product, and the envi-
ronmental demand for the aggregate product. They are common selective behavioral
contingencies that operate on an interlocked pattern of behavior between two or more
people. The “prefix meta- together with the root contingencies is intended to suggest
selection contingencies that are hierarchically related to and subsume, behavioral contin-
gencies” (Glenn, 2004, p. 144). They do not represent a class of behavior; they emerge only
after “social events become prevalent in the behavioral environment of the species that has
the human combination of physical and behavioral traits” (Glenn, 2004, p. 144). When the
behavior of one person becomes interlocked with the behavior of another, a pattern of
behavior emerges known as IBCs that function as an “integrated unit and result in an
outcome that affects the probability of future recurrences of the IBCs” (Glenn, 2004, p. 144).
The concept of macrocontingency as a unit of analysis describes “the relation
between a cultural practice and the aggregate sum of consequences of the
macrobehavior constituting the practice” (Glenn, 2004, p. 142). Macrocontingency is
defined as the “relation between 1) operant behavior governed by individual contin-
gencies and/or IBCs governed by metacontingencies and 2) a cumulative effect of
social significance” (Glenn, 2016, p. 19). The wider spread a practice, the greater the
cumulative effects are and the more important they are to the well-being of a larger
number of people. However, there are no direct contingencies between the operant
emitted by any individual of a given group and the observed cumulative sociocultural
effect. Thus, macrocontingencies carry delayed and probabilistic consequences to
individual behavior, which is evident in the case of honor crimes resulting in a large
Behavior and Social Issues

cumulative effect of casualties and economic consequences with global repercussions,

such as losing external international aid, ranking Jordan as a dangerous place to visit,
and losing potential investments due to the country’s reputation as a country supporting
crimes against women and violating human rights.
In an elaboration of Glenn’s three-term metacontingency (1988, 1989, 2004),
Houmanfar et al. (2010) introduced the five-term metacontingency, which includes the
cultural-organizational milieu, socio-interlocking behaviors (socio-IBs), aggregate product,
consumer practices, and group rule generation. The first term of the elaborated account is the
circumstances under which metacontingencies and macrocontingencies interact and may be
described as the cultural milieu (Houmanfar, Rodrigues, & Smith, 2009). The cultural
milieu may include stimulus functions such as materials, resources, policies, rules, values,
traditions, institutions, technological progress, and environmental competition. These fac-
tors function as shared stimuli that occasion certain socio-IBs and aggregate products that in
turn provide the context for the development and maintenance of the cultural practice of
honor crimes. As such, the maintenance and effects of honor crimes must include an
analysis of the circumstances under which they occur—that is to say, the cultural milieu.
Analytically speaking, cultural milieu is not synonymous with environment; whereas
the latter comprises biological, anthropological, and psychological circumstances, the
former comprises multiple stimulus functions that may be present in any environing object
(Ardila et al., 2019). In analyzing cultural phenomena, it is important to consider cultural
milieu occasioning metacontingency and macrocontingency interactions. For example,
with honor crimes, the perpetrator’s and victim’s level of education, social status, employ-
ment, close ties to family and tribe, policies and law, and other social factors, such as the
effect of gossip and rumor (Houmanfar & Johnson, 2003), are all part of the overarching
milieu within which this cultural practice occurs, is encouraged, and maintained.
Thus, our analysis of honor crimes will include a distinction between the environ-
mental circumstances across the Arab region and Jordan’s cultural milieu and the
selected metacontingencies influencing the recurrence of this cultural practice. In
particular, honor killings are influenced by the interplay of Jordan’s legislative and
judicial systems (i.e., metacontingencies) and the patriarchal culture (i.e., cultural
milieu) within which they operate. In that regard, for the remainder of this paper, we
will focus our discussion on the metacontingencies of Jordan’s legislative and judicial
system and their respective influence on the cultural practice of honor killing. Cultural
practices are comprised of cumulative, noninterlocking behaviors, which can vary in
complexity from the cumulative effect of actions of several individuals to cumulative
IBCs of workers in public and private organizations (Glenn, 2004, p. 140). Although the
IBCs of organized entities may be maintained by a metacontingency, cumulative IBCs
of a particular type (e.g., development, change, and maintenance of policies in govern-
ment and legislative organizations) may prompt macrobehavior (e.g., honor crimes) and,
hence, a cultural practice (Houmanfar, Alavosius, Morford, Reimer, & Herbst, 2015).

Jordan’s Legal System

The countries of the Middle East, including Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, were
under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for about 600 years prior to its collapse after
World War I. In 1920 the region was divided under the mandate of the Allies: Jordan,
 Behavior and Social Issues

Palestine, and Iraq were under the British mandate, whereas Lebanon and Syria were
under the French mandate. Accordingly, Jordan’s legal system, despite the fact it is
based on the 19th-century Ottoman and Egyptian legal system, also got its law structure
from the Napoleon French legal system. This gave Jordan’s legal system unique
characteristics where many of these codes are still applicable even after Jordan’s
independence from the British mandate in 1946. In addition, Jordan (the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan) is the only monarchy in the region ruled by the Hashemite family
since 1921.
Jordan’s constitution is based on a formal separation-of-powers doctrine situated in
three branches: the executive branch vests executive authority in the king and in his
cabinet, the legislative branch is composed of the two houses the Senate and the
Chamber of Deputies, and the judicial branch is independent of the two other branches
of the government.
In a situation where there is a suspicion that a woman has violated a cultural code, usually
one of two scenarios will unfold: either she is able to successfully run away from her family
and surrender herself to a representative of the authorities (police or the governor) or to a
tribal leader and be detained indefinitely, or she will be murdered by a family a member.
The police or tribal leader will surrender the fugitive woman to the governor ruling
that area. The governor in turn will take preventive measures to control and maintain
the security of the public order based on the Crime Prevention Law of 1954 by placing
this woman under administrative detention. The 1954 law granted administrative
governors the power to impose administrative arrests in some cases (i.e., cases related
to honor). The 1954 law allows governors to “start procedures against persons who are
“about to commit a crime or assist in its commission”; those who “habitually” steal,
shelter thieves, or fence stolen goods; and anyone who, if remaining at liberty, would
constitute a “danger to the people.” Among those detained outside the scope of the
Crime Prevention Law are women and men in “protective” custody and foreigners who
are suspected of breaking the law. Governors invoke the Crime Prevention Law—
although it does not explicitly cover such situations—to place women in “protective”
custody because family members, generally men, have threatened these women’s lives
for perceived moral lapses” (Human Rights Watch, 2009). For example,

In a secret shelter in the Jordanian capital Amman, 52-year-old Fatima runs a

hand over the scar that has shaped her life. Almost 30 years ago, her father shot
her and her sister to “cleanse the family’s honor” after her younger sibling got
pregnant out of wedlock and he deemed both daughters should pay the price.
“When they shot my sister she died,” said Fatima, who declined to give her real
name for fear of reprisals. “When they started on me, our neighbors informed the
police . . . I remained in hospital for six to seven months, then the police came and
put me in prison.” Fatima remained in prison for 22 years under a law that allows
the authorities to indefinitely incarcerate women considered to be at risk of being
attacked or killed in the name of family honor. “Your life is gone; your youth is
gone. Everything you wished for in the world is gone,” said Fatima, who now
lives alone in a shelter run by a charity. (Thompson, 2017)

The governors base their decisions on their own personal history and attitude toward
honor crimes. For example, this detention does not typically apply to the male involved
Behavior and Social Issues

in the incident. Only on very rare occasions will authorities seek to apply the same
consequences to both men and women. At the same time there are no specific criteria or
law the administrative governors follow when detaining these women. These measures
are considered preventive measures aiming to protect the public order and social
stability from assault or any cultural violation by anticipating upcoming events and
therefore preventing them. Detained women tend to stay in administrative detention for
indefinite durations.
This administrative detention, rather than helping to solve the situation on a larger
cultural scale, shames the family and adds immediate contingencies for the family to
react and respond publicly. Their daughter not only “violated” cultural rules or is
“suspected” of doing so but also escaped and challenged her family’s authority. The
family at this point (father, brother, and uncles) need to demonstrate patriarchal and
gender control. At the same time, the administrative governor not only anticipates
upcoming events but also controls women’s freedom, fate, and future, as the only
means for a woman to be released from this detention is when and if a male family
member (father, brother, or uncle from her father’s side) acts as guarantor and signs an
order of protection assuring her safety. A woman cannot leave detention without her
family signing this order of protection. She does not have control over her own freedom
or her fate. Those same guarantors in many cases will shoot their detained daughters a
few minutes she steps outside the detention door. To the perpetrators, washing their
shame has more value than spending time in prison. For example,

R. Ahmed (pseudonym) was 28-years old at the time of her interview and has
been in prison since 1994. When she was 18, her family forced her to marry a
cousin against her will. She then fell in love with a Lebanese neighbor, and they
made plans to flee to Syria. Suspicious uncles followed them to a house and,
when she refused to go home with them, they shot her multiple times and left her
for dead. When she was interviewed, the scars of the bullet wounds were still
visible on her shoulders and chest. She had required five months in a hospital to
recover. In the hospital, guards protected R. Ahmed, and her uncles were not
permitted to see her. Nevertheless, through an aunt, they convinced her not to
press charges against them. R. Ahmed believed that, if she decided not to press
charges, they would relent. But when she recovered and was sent to meet the
administrative governor of al-Salt, her home province, her uncles were present,
still vowing to kill her. The governor deemed that her only choice was to go to
prison. Her lover was later deported to Lebanon. (Human Rights Watch, 2009)

There has been a lot of discussion and demands for several years from different
organizations and legal states, including the National Center for Human Rights, to
repeal the Crime Prevention Law and the contradictory role of the administrative
detention forced by governors. The role of the governor contradicts Jordan’s constitu-
tion that assures the freedom of every citizen and the separation of powers as previously
mentioned. The government’s widespread use of administrative detention

fundamentally undermines the rule of law in Jordan. Ministry of Interior officials

abuse their powers of administrative detention to lock up persons in an arbitrary
manner. These officials have at times detained persons despite judicial orders for
 Behavior and Social Issues

their release. At other times, they have jailed persons whose administrative
detention did not serve any of the stated purposes set out in the Crime Prevention
Law, which authorizes the practice. (Human Rights Watch, 2009, p. 1).

Yet this role is still maintained. It is a way for the government to maintain and assure
social and tribal satisfaction, as well as to assure political stability by imposing
regulations that do not require judicial legal defense or explanation to any other entity,
local or international.
In the second scenario, if a male perpetrator (as a father, brother, or in some cases a
husband) is successful in killing a woman (in suspicion of violating the cultural norms
of honor or actually being surprised in a shameful dishonorable act), he will be tried
and imprisoned under Jordan’s judicial law. There is no specific law in Jordan’s judicial
system or panel code titled “honor crimes.” Yet there are two main articles that focus on
situations when a man kills a woman (his wife or sister) that could be related to a
situation of “honor” if proven to be so. They are Article 340 and Article 98.

Article 340, known as “Excused for Murder,” stipulates,

(1) Whoever is surprised by his wife or one of his female decedents or ancestors
or sisters (caught) during the act of adultery or in an illegitimate bed and murders
her immediately or her lover, or both of them or assaults her or both of them, and
the assault resulted in death or injury or harm or permanent disfiguration, he shall
benefit from a mitigation excuse.
(2) 2. The wife who is surprised (catches) her husband in the act of adultery or in
an illegitimate bed in their matrimonial home and murders him or his lover or
both of them immediately, or assaults him or both of them and the assault resulted
in death or injury or harm or permanent disfiguration, she shall benefit from the
same excuse mentioned in the paragraph above.
(3) 3/a. The right to self-defense shall not be used against who benefits from this
excuse
(4) 3/b. The provisions of aggravating factors or circumstances shall not apply
against such a person. (Husseini, 2018)

Article 98, known as the “Passion Law”—when a man surprises his wife with another
in bed—stipulates,

Whoever commits a crime in a fit of fury which is the result of an unjustifiable

and dangerous act committed by the victim, benefits from a mitigating excuse.
The new amended Article 98 included an additional paragraph with the original
text:
Article 98 (2): Individuals will not benefit from mitigating excuses as stipulated in
Paragraph (1) if the crime is committed against a female outside the rulings of
Article 340. (Husseini, 2018)

The law as it is written assures gender equality and justice to the victim and perpetrator.
However, there is a wide spectrum of biased interpretation by judges, lawyers, and the
media. How the case is represented by the defendant’s lawyer leaves room for
speculation despite the availability of facts; for example, when the forensic report states
Behavior and Social Issues

that the murdered victim is a virgin, the victim will still be seen at fault. Despite given
facts, honor is a sacred concept where any suspicion is neither allowed nor tolerated.
For example,

This is “Serhan, (a well-built man in his late twenties) he killed his sister to
cleanse his hounour”, stated one of the prison officials. His sister, Yasmin
(Jasmin), had been raped by her brother-in-law. She turned herself in to the police
to escape the consequence of such a crime. She was bailed later by her father and
was brought back home when Serhan walked in without uttering any word he
shot her four times with an unlicensed gun and turned himself in. “I killed her
because she was no longer a virgin”, “she made a mistake, willingly or not. It is
better that one person dies than the whole family of shame and disgrace . . . “I
know killing my sister is against Islam and it angered God, but I had to do what I
had to do and will answer to God when the times come”. He added: “People
refused to talk to with us. They told us to go cleanse our honour; then we were
allowed to talk with them. Death is the only solution to end disgrace . . . Even if
we had to wed my sister society would not stop talking. They only stopped
talking when she is dead.” (Husseini, 2009, pp. 9–12)

There are very few crimes that meet the standards and conditions of Article
340, “which refer to catching the woman in flagrante delicto of the act of
adultery (hal at-talabbus bil-zina). As such, many, if not most, honor killings
are carried out based on unfounded suspicion. Because Article 340 often is not
“suitable,” it is replaced with Article 98, which allows more room for inter-
pretation of how fit mentally the person was when he committed the crime.
This usually results in a reduction of penalty, for the crime is usually
interpreted as being committed in a state of “fury” and surprise. In her
aforementioned interview, Husseini asked Serhan,

“how long his sentence was”, to which he answered, “One month for possession
of an unregistered firearm and six months for the misdemeanor” . . . It was a
premediated murder. How did you receive such a lenient penalty? The investi-
gators . . . advised him to change his story to say he was taken by “surprise” by
his sister’s rape and the loss of her virginity. In order to get the lightest sentence
possible. His lawyer gave him the same advice when the case was about to be
heard in court.
Serhan elaborated that
he was treated as a hero in prison. “All the men who were with me for the same
reason in prison were treated as heroes by everybody.” Once he was back to the
real world, he was ignored and felt worthless. No one accepted to marry their
daughters to him, “they all refused that I might kill them or my daughters one
day.” Serhan’s family’s (Tribe) promises of rewarding him and helping him out
for killing his sister were never fulfilled. (Husseini, 2009, p. 14)

In the following sections, we will describe the influence of the identified cultural milieu
on the functioning of selected metacontingencies that maintain the recurrence of honor
crimes in Jordan. As mentioned earlier, we will discuss the role of cultural milieu as the
 Behavior and Social Issues

context for the interactions between the selected metacontingency and

macrocontingency.

Metacontingency Analysis

Honor crimes persist due to patriarchal cultures that tend to allow (if not fully promote)
a number of discriminatory practices. Families get away with murder because the laws
that forbid this practice are not stringently applied. There is no consistency with the
sentences that perpetrators receive. They may range from a couple of months to up to
15 years in prison. This sends mixed messages to perpetrators, who may step away with
their heads held high after only a few months in prison. For them, what are a few
months compared to eternal disgrace and shame? The community practice of honor
crimes is supported through several classes of actors (e.g., judges, women, perpetrator).
For example, the action or practice of lenient sentences by the judges influences the
motivating context for both the perpetrators and women in society. The perpetrator feels
empowered by the communal support of those who benefit from the perpetuation of the
practice more than he feels the need to protect his own freedom from a lenient sentence.
Women are motivated to maintain obedience to men because of the lenient sentences
and their effects on men who may be willing to commit the crime.

Serhan acknowledged that

his lenient punishment would encourage him and other males to murder again in
the name of honour”. He elaborates “If the state amends the law to execute men
who kill their female relatives or lock us behind bars for good, I do not think that
any family would venture and push her male relative to kill. No family wants to
see its male relative executed or locked up for good” . . . “I hope that the situation
will change because I alone cannot change or fix things in my society. My whole
society has to change.” (Husseini, 2009, p. 15)

These two cases exemplify how the history of individuals within IBCs is necessary to
consider (analyze) in order to properly account for the impact of the aggregate products of
the larger metacontingency on the community. In other words, we analyze the IBCs from
two levels: when considering each individual’s history (IBs) and when considering the
relation between socio-IBs and aggregate products. In these two cases, the cultural milieu
plays a significant role in the decision making of governors, authorities, and tribal leaders
given that they are the ones generating the rules that in turn affect aggregate products.
Furthermore, Jordan’s judicial system simultaneously is being influenced by a number of
international agencies to have more strict sentencing against perpetrators and is facing a
demand to impose more humanitarian sentences such as abandoning the death penalty.
These external agencies are not addressing honor crimes within Jordan’s milieu, and
therefore their recommendations are not properly accounting for this cultural practice.
The metacontingency of the legislative and judicial systems describes how critical
actors, such as tribal and governmental leaders, promote rule generation that influences
the maintenance of socio-IBs of a patriarchal governing system and the aggregate
product of laws and their application (Figure 1). These aggregate products influence the
maintenance of the cultural practice of honor killing through escape and avoidance of
shame. Seen as a metacontingency, the governing system influences the
Behavior and Social Issues

CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONAL MILIEU

Tribal Elected Foreign Governmental Judicial Legislative

Governor
Customs Officials Affairs Structure System System

Group Rule Generation

Institutional Stimuli

Socio IB’s AGGREGATE PRODUCT

Committee Deliberation Laws and enforcement
Proposing Laws
Products of Leadership Voting
Behavior
• Values COMMUNITY
• Instructions (Constitution) PRACTICES
• Leadership statements Honor Crimes
Lenient Sentences
Oppressing Women
Obedient Women
FEEDBACK

Fig. 1 The components of the cultural milieu

macrocontingency relation between the honor killing behaviors of multiple individuals

and the cumulative societal impact. Even though the behaviors of individual members
of the culture influence and are influenced by the socio-IBs, it is the interaction with the
associated aggregate products that selects the shared behaviors of honor killing. We will
now turn to the cultural milieu and how it may function as a facilitating factor for the
maintenance of the cultural practice of honor killing.

Jordan’s Cultural Milieu Associated With Honor Crimes

The five-term metacontingency allows for the analysis of the effects of the milieu
on consumer practices through identification of the context from which these
practices emerge. Some aspects of the anthropological environment (e.g., historical
and social context) allow for the identification of mutual milieu factors, such as
some traditions shared across the Arab region. Arabs with Bedouin roots are desert
nomads who hail from and continue to live primarily in North Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula of the Middle East. Bedouin means “desert people,” referred to
as bedu. They regard themselves as the “pure” Arabs. A majority of Arabs share
similar Bedouin heritage and customs regarding hospitality, generosity, revenge,
and loyalty. Arabs had and still have “a rigid code of honour in which the chastity
of their women was very important and which also included hospitality and
generosity” (Singh, 2011, p. 3). This is evident historically within the Bedouin
tribal society (culture), which is characterized by a fierce loyalty to family, clan,
and tribe. As within the Arab culture, society judges a person’s social value, or
honor, based on his family’s and tribe’s reputation. In other words, a person’s self-
worth and identity depend on the opinion of others. For example, a person’s
family name can be traced back to the great-grandfather, as a man’s name
generally consists of a personal first name, the father’s name, and the agnatic
 Behavior and Social Issues

great-grandfather’s name. By knowing a person’s family name, it is possible to

identify stories, good or bad, about this family. Women, on the other hand, keep
their father’s family name even after marriage because a female’s honor is the
responsibility of male relatives to uphold and maintain even after marriage.
Jordanians, like other citizens of Arab countries of Bedouin origin, are proud of their
tribal heritage, which is captured in their tribal names and revered kinship ties. Close
ties to family and tribe are at the root of how Jordanians and other Arabs seek to protect
their honor when threatened. A “person’s behavior may be attributed to external
circumstances which seems to threaten his dignity or worth” (Skinner, 1971, p. 41).
A widely quoted Bedouin saying is “I am against my brother, my brother and I are
against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger.” These historical circum-
stances of the Arab culture have acquired shared functions for Arabs; consequently, it
makes one’s honor a very sensitive subject, and no matter where a family moves, if the
family is dishonored, it will stain their reputation through the cultural practice of
shaming the offending family. Next, we discuss how honor and shame, understood as
values, are also part of the cultural milieu influencing the cultural practice of honor
crimes.

Value of Shame Versus Honor

Pre-Islam, Arab Bedouins would sometimes bury alive their newborn daughters
to avoid shame, for fathers would fear the day their daughters would be taken as
prisoners of war,
This was a universal practice before Islam. In times of war, women were often
captured and taken to the slave market of a trading place such as Mecca and sold
into marriage or slavery. As a matter of fact, it was Islam that made women
immune to attack or capture in war time. Woman before Islam would follow her
husband and bore children who belonged to him. She became his property and
completely lost her freedom. (Muslim Women’s League, 1995)
Shame, like honor, requires a distinction to
be made between the two pairs of words. Behavior is called good or bad—and the
ethical overtones are not accidents—according to the way in which it is often
reinforced by others. Behavior is usually called right or wrong with respect to
other contingencies. (Skinner, 1971, p. 104)

It reflects how the overarching cultural milieu influences community practices such as
judging a person’s behavior or his family in general. However, there is no objective
“good” or “bad,” as manners and customs often result from circumstances that have no
relation to the ultimate effect upon the group. Rather, shame and honor are shared
values influencing leadership practices utilizing many of their own personal idiosyn-
crasies, leading to this classification of “good” or “bad” social behaviors (Skinner,
1953, p. 426), where they

exert a powerful and often troublesome control. It is exerted in ways which most
effectively reinforce those who exert it, and unfortunately this usually means in
Behavior and Social Issues

ways which either are immediately aversive to those controlled or exploit them in
the long run. (Skinner, 1974, p. 209)

Leadership practices are reflected in the behavior of group members when acting in
similar patterns with respect to shared stimulus functions of honor and shame. There is
a distinct sexual aspect (i.e., a feature of the biological environment) to the reciprocal
relation between honor and shame within different Mediterranean and Arab countries.
Honor seems to be understood as an essentially male value that is qualified by shame.
Honor as a term in the Arabic language has two distinct linguistic meanings: Ird and
Sharaf. Sharaf is related to a man’s word of honor and his ability to defend and protect
his family, whereas a man’s Ird refers to the chastity of a family member (mainly a
woman). It is women’s duty to stay pious by guarding and protecting their own
reputation and chastity. A family’s Ird is always dependent on its females’ chastity
and virginity. In this sense, honor crimes, as a cultural practice, is also influenced by
shared stimulus functions associated with biological circumstances such as the sexual
differentiations between men and women, resulting in feuds related to honor and
shame. As such, honor killings are prevalent. For example, Khaled, who killed his
16-year-old sister, Kifaya, who was raped by another brother, stood outside their house
holding the blood-stained knife and shouting, “I have cleansed my family’s honour.”
His family was waiting “to congratulate him.” Khalid surrendered himself, claiming he
cleansed the honor of his family. When interviewed by Rana Husseini (a Jordanian
journalist and human rights activist), Khaled explained,

All my cellmates sympathized with me and treated me as a champion. All the

men who were in prison for killing their sisters or female relatives were treated as
champions.” He explained that he “realized that what he did was against the
Sharia (Islamic law), ‘but society is stronger than me or religion. I had to kill her
to preserve the family’s honour. Society imposes rules on us and I did it to please
society. No one was talking to me in the street. We live in a backward society that
imposes backward ideas on our lives.’” (Husseini, 2009, p. 16)

Khaled explains the role of the cultural milieu and cultural practices as related to his
particular crime, as members of the collectivity either positively reinforce an individ-
ual’s behavior as “honorable” or impose negative consequences by labeling it “shame-
ful.” In the Arab culture, shame relates to failure, inadequacy, and inferiority. It is one
of the strongest emotions that often leads to dishonoring an individual and, subse-
quently, the whole family, clan, and tribe. A person’s reputation is jeopardized when
cultural a violation of rules and regulations is undertaken in the form of “unaccepted”
immoral behavior, like adulterous or sexual immodesty. The family is then “dared” to
react violently by the surrounding community when they are shamed. Often, this
translates into honor crimes—committing a crime to “wash” away shame and gain
back the cultural approval for being honorable.
Male supremacy and misogyny are also deeply rooted within the Arab region and
Arab culture. Verbal rules and conditions under which the relevant behavior can occur
are usually manipulated for the benefit of those who are in leadership positions (Hayes
& Hayes, 1994, p. 51), where “punishment is usually confined to contingencies
intentionally arranged by other people who arrange them because the results are
 Behavior and Social Issues

reinforcing to them” (Skinner, 1971, p. 63). In summary, a woman is murdered

because, from the perspective of the surrounding patriarchal social community, she
challenged and crossed their “rules.” If they do not act, it is a sign of cultural approval
of breaking the rules, and others will follow. The cultural practice of killing her
occasions behaviors associated with the patriarchal stimulus function and puts an end
to similar incidents. Religious institutions as part of the psychological environment may
also acquire shared stimulus functions and thus are another milieu factor that bears
influence on the cultural practice of honor crimes.

Religious Institutions

Women in the Arab culture are governed by cultural rules and social contingencies,
usually masked and manipulated under the religious doctrines of Islam. However,
honor crimes are by no means an interpretation of Islamic teachings or Shari’ah law.
They are cultural practices rather than religious ones where men’s interpretation of
shame and honor are tied to their loss of control over women’s behavior. In the Quran,
the holy book for Muslims, there is no reference to honor crimes. Rather, there is a
reference to zina, adultery that is based on actual evidence and witnesses.
Zina, in Islam, is defined as any sexual relation between a man and a woman who
are not married. Any sexual relation before marriage is considered a sin. Also, a
married woman is to stay loyal to her husband and not engage in any sexual relation
with any other men. If she does engage in a sexual relationship with another man, this is
a form of adultery (zina), and based on the religious teachings of Islam, she has
committed a sin that will be consequated by secular and afterlife punishment. However,
this does not apply to women only. On the contrary, it applies to both women and men
equally. Men should also follow the same religious rules to stay moral and faithful
toward their wives. This is in stark contrast to the way that the patriarchal Arab culture
treats the subject.
Many reputable Islamic scholars, clerics, and conservative, “fundamentalist” Mus-
lim groups have publicly denounced this cultural practice, as it contradicts Shari’ah
(Islamic law)—“the king’s adviser on Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Izzeddin al-Khatib al-
Tamimi, of Jordan, has condemned Article 340 which includes two clauses that reduces
a perpetrator’s penalty (Husseini, 2009, p. 33). Furthermore, Dr. H. E. Nawal Faouri, a
female Islamist, has suggested that “the law (340) has encouraged misguided individ-
uals to kill, an act forbidden by God” (Husseini, 2000). In February 2000, the al-Azhar
Ifta Council, a prominent Sunni religious law body, issued a fatwa (legal religious rule),
holding that “individuals do not have the right to kill adulterous female relatives”
(Warrick, 2005, p. 331). Yet, implicitly and explicitly, there has not been much change
regarding the public attitude toward honor crimes (Hussain, 2006, p. 6).
Furthermore, extremist religious groups and leaders oppose the fact that honor
crimes are a cultural practice conflicting with religious doctrines and teachings. They
target young members of the community who are considered “religious” by lecturing
that these crimes are a result of zina, which is condemned in religious scriptures, and
stating that those who engage in it should be punished immediately. Those leaders
manipulate the usage of religious scriptures (the Quran) to indoctrinate members of the
community to follow their rules. Houmanfar et al. (2001) highlighted the importance of
the perceived derivation from what is a divine or powerful source, in order for the
Behavior and Social Issues

“manipulation of the opportunistic circumstances for religious practice [to be] more
effective” (p. 27). This is depicted in “the sociological impact of leader’s opportunistic
approach” to honor crimes. Houmanfar and Ward (2010) argued that “religious prac-
tices rest on a number of ultimate metaphysical constructions which, in turn, are subject
to manipulation by religious as well as social authorities,” where “the justification of
religious practices is appreciably vulnerable to manipulation by self-professed religious
figures” (p. 68).
The resulting rules tend to be passed verbally from one member to another, and over
time they become so rooted in culture that many will confuse them with actual religious
rules. This is reflected in individuals committing honor crimes who are governed more
by the social-cultural tribal rules than by actual religious doctrines (Wilson & Daly,
1998). A

person who has been exposed to the promise of heaven and the threat of hell may
feel stronger bodily states than one whose behavior is merely approved or
censured by his fellow men. But neither one acts because he knows or feels that
his behavior is right; he acts because of the contingencies which have shaped his
behavior and created the conditions he feels. (Skinner, 1974, p. 213)

In other words, some divine religious or social authoritative figures (leaders)

may manipulate scripture to give seemingly valid justification for engaging in
the cultural practice of honor crimes. The manipulation of rules through the
leaders’ function not only influences the maintenance of socio-IBs and associ-
ated aggregate products (e.g., legislative procedures and laws) but also affects
the ways in which individuals (i.e., consumer practices) interact with these
products. In short, the resulting maintenance of the cultural practice of honor
crimes is also mediated by leadership practices.

Cultural Rules Mediated by Leadership Practices

Group rule generation mediated by a leader is part of the metacontingency selection

that governs a person’s behavior at the individual level such that cultural practices are
conditioned by verbal influence (Houmanfar et al., 2001). “The organizational leader-
ship, therefore, is involved in the selection of both its socio-IBs and its group-rule
generation” (Houmanfar, Rodrigues, & Ward, 2010, p. 98). This selection of a

product at the sociological level often result in the selection of the socio-IBs that
generated it. This might be viewed as similar to the situation where the conse-
quences produced by a behavioral product can affect the behavior responsible for
that product. (Houmanfar et al., 2010, p. 90)

Tribal law is usually instituted and stated by a male leader called a sheikh who is
supported by a council of other men representing different families within the same
tribe. Those rules add contingencies to maintain the survival of the culture and the
survival of the group and have “been selected [for their] contribution to the effective-
ness of those who practice it” (Skinner, 1974, p. 224). In other words, cultural rules are
a form of socially mediated verbal rules that govern individuals’ behavior and enhance
 Behavior and Social Issues

overall social control. Verbal rules place contingencies on the listener’s behavior as a
reflection of shared values, as explained by Houmanfar and Ward (2012):

These relations are based on an imagined, verbally constructed future that, for the
leader at least, bears some sensible connection with the current situation. How-
ever, these relations ought not to make sense just for the leader, but also for the
rest of the people in the organization (culture) in they are to behave in accordance
with said relation. (p. 72)

Most tribal laws focus on giving more value to certain cultural practices. These rules
were verbally transmitted from one generation to the next. The factors involved are the
result of many participants working both independently and cooperatively, which
results in the practices constituting a “culture.” According to Hayes (1988), the strength
of an individual behavior is measured by its longevity and probability within the
individual’s repertoire, whereas the strength of a cultural practice is measured by its
prevalence in a group. Therefore, in the case of this cultural practice, the effort to
change community practices is a matter of affecting a critical mass of the population
needed to change the group rule generation, which functions as institutional stimuli for
the legislative process. Group rule generation is, in effect, guiding value alignment,
which is critical in managing collective behaviors in a persistent manner. This is a
depiction of how leadership practices that are coherent with the historical context also
manipulate shared values and may impact socio-IBs maintaining honor crimes as a
cultural practice. Cultural milieu factors such as honor and shame, religion, and cultural
rules mediated by leadership practices function as shared stimuli in rule generation,
which organizes individuals within the legal system of Jordan (socio-IBs) and the
associated legal practices (aggregate products) of a patriarchal society. This
metacontingency sets the context for the stimulus function of the tribal system to
influence the macrocontingency pertaining to honor killings, and the dynamics of
meta- and macrocontingency interactions occur in cultural milieu factors acting as
shared stimuli with respect to the individuals engaging in this crime (Figure 2).
In sum, the influence of the cultural milieu on metacontingencies is observed in the
recurrence of socio-IBs of the members of the legislative and judicial systems and the
associated aggregate products (laws and sentences for the perpetrators). Moreover, the
products of these metacontingencies are influenced by leadership practices because the
judge’s interpretation of the law is influenced by his own values related to honor and
shame.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

This paper provided a systematic identification and description of the key

metacontingencies that serve critical functions in the maintenance of honor crimes in
Jordan. The description of selected metacontingencies allows for the recognition of the
associated aggregate products influencing honor crimes and the way by which this
practice can, in turn, be analyzed in a macrocontingency relation. Moreover, our
descriptive analysis provided an overview of the ways the cultural milieu affects
macrocontingencies and metacontingencies in different manners. First, honor crimes
Behavior and Social Issues

CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONAL MILIEU

Tribal Elected Foreign Judicial Legislative

Macroconngency
Governmental
Customs Governor System Macrobehavior (socially-learned operant
Officials Affairs Structure System
behavior observed in the repertoires of
several/many members of a cultural system)
on the part of consumers interacng with
aggregate products forms part of the
cultural environment that generates an
accumulave effect.

Group Rule Generation

Institutional Stimuli Honor
Laws
AGGREGATE PRODUCT Crime
Socio IB’s Laws and enforcement
Committee deliberation
Products of Leadership Proposing Laws
Behavior
Voting
• Values
Lenient
• Instrucons Laws
(Constuon) COMMUNITY Sentences
• Leadership statements PRACTICES
Honor Crimes
Lenient Sentences
Oppressing Women
Obedient Women Laws Obedience
FEEDBACK

Fig. 2 The interaction between metacontingency and macrocontingencies

are a cultural practice influenced by honor and shame seen as shared values present in
the overarching cultural milieu. Certain practices in Jordan may be described as
“honorable,” such as generosity; however, honor crimes are influenced not only by
honor but also by shame to the extent that whereas honor may be a shared value of
families or small cultural groups, shame is a shared value of the larger cultural groups.
Macrocontingencies may be analyzed as several layers of cultural practices wherein
each cultural group is influenced by particular milieu factors (i.e., shared values). In this
case, a practice carried by one family is necessarily going to be influenced by the
practices of the larger community. Thus, honor cannot be separated from shame to the
extent that these two values are shared at different levels by the community at large.
We may also highlight that shared values at the system level (milieu) of most
potential perpetrators and victims strengthen the motivating operations at the individual
level according to the cultural group to which the individual belongs—for example,
coming from poor extended families, having a basic level of education, being unem-
ployed in general, and, in particular for victims who are not allowed to work or seek a
higher level of education, being expected to stay home and not being allowed to leave
without being chaperoned by their mother, father, or brother.
In short, the survival of honor crimes as a cultural practice has to do with a particular
cultural milieu influencing both organized cultural groups (metacontingencies) and commu-
nity practices (macrocontingencies). As such, honor crimes are currently part of the Arab
culture that must be considered when making recommendations that may assure the survival
of this culture without engaging in these practices. For example, influencing the reduction of
this cultural practice, or other similar ones—such as depriving women from inheritance,
education, and work; by adding incentives, awards, and public social recognition for those
who “buy in” on the level of tribal leaders or other known male figures who are considered to
be influential role models for younger youth generations by the royal family, international or
local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or other prestigious respected organizations—
may have only a gradual effect yet in the long term will have better maintenance.
A more immediate impact may result from altering cultural “verbal” contingencies in
the form of rules associated with this cultural practice and may eventually lead to a
 Behavior and Social Issues

decrease in violence against women in general. Tribal and religious leaders, for example,
who promote and approve of these violent practices among their tribes and community
could be approached by respected members of the community (to stress the importance
of promoting better conditions for women) to give their word of honor publicly to
denounce these long-standing, rooted cultural practices. This may have some immediate
effect on the younger generation. Having new rules associated with different values
stated by the rule generators (leaders) may support different consumer practices, which
in turn may influence the institutionalization of values such that individuals interact in a
new manner with the milieu and the aggregate products of the legal system.
For example, 2017 had remarkable milestones regarding women’s rights across a number
of countries in the Arab region: Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon. After years of campaigning
by women activists, the long-standing Article 308 that permits pardoning rape perpetrators if
they marry their victims was repealed in Jordan. Historically, in a gesture to protect families’
honor and to keep the culture’s image unscathed, rapists were pardoned by a governor if they
married whom they raped for at least three years. Repealing this law altered the community
practices and the resulting macrocontingencies by allowing women to take legal action
against their rapists. This in turn affected rule generation to be more in line with behaving
with respect to rape as if it were a crime as opposed to a minor inconvenience.
Many political officials in Jordan and other countries in the Arab region oppose giving
attention to honor crimes. They claim that this attention will support the stereotypical image
of Arab Muslim societies as backward and barbaric. This is demonstrated by accusing
activists of being advocates of Western thought who are trying to uproot Arab values and
replace them with new “modern” ones that will lead to spreading immorality and resulting in
demolishing what makes Arab culture a unique one. Accordingly, anyone supporting the
cancelation of existing articles promotes a “call to spread corrupt morals and obscenity and
will bring total destruction to our society” (Mohammad Oweidah, quoted in Husseini, 2000,
n.p.). Many officials in Parliament will vote against such amendments to escape being
shamed by “legalizing obscenity and is detrimental to the morals of women” (Hamdan,
2000, n.p.). In response, Asma Khader, a leading women’s rights activist and lawyer, said
that her organization, the Sisterhood, is a global institute, and other NGOs worked hard to
“provide parliamentarians with the right information about victims of this article.” The
second step is to change the aggregate product of the legislative system through “work on
amending the complete set of laws that affect the status of women in Jordan—specifically
the personal status law and other laws that impact the life of women in Jordan and affect their
rights in terms of equality.” Taking advantage of the resulting community practices (to
educate women about their rights, how to take legal action and seek help from authorities,
and stand up for what is right) will potentially modify current metacontingencies to empower
women and restructure the cultural milieu to form a new order where women are seen as
equal rather than subordinate.
Another suggestion would be providing more job opportunities and better income for
those with limited access to education (on an individual level). Adding more industrial
factories in rural areas would provide individuals with a more stable income and influence
the ways in which they respond to the products of the legal system (legislative and judicial).
For example, they may be discouraged from the act of honor crimes because potential
perpetrators may have more to lose if convicted. Similar to the consequences of better
education, individuals will hesitate before accepting their family’s “nomination” to cleanse
everyone’s honor, as there will be more at stake compared to being unemployed, single, and
Behavior and Social Issues

having minimal education. To further promote new group rule generation, prominent Muslim
and Christian religious figures can explain (via media, in schools, and in other public settings)
ways that the practice of honor crimes are against religious scripture by emphasizing respect
for women, which can be directly quoted from the Quran and Bible, respectively.
Honor crimes as a topic and as a cultural practice are very complex, and in many parts of
the Arab region, it is still considered taboo to be discussed publicly. In many regions and
countries, accepting the fact that there are crimes committed in the name of honor indicates
ethical deterioration in the values of that region, country, and Arab culture in general—
something many families will neither admit nor accept. However complex or taboo a cultural
practice might be, we can still perform scientific analyses that offer tools and a road map on
how to study cultural phenomena that go against human rights and, more specifically, against
women. The five-term metacontingency provides a vantage point to look into the relation
between the metacontingencies and the macrocontingencies depicted in the cultural milieu.
We recommend future analyses look into why Jordan can be viewed as one of the
countries in the Arab region with the highest honor crime rates. Answering this question was
outside the scope of this paper, yet further investigation and analysis are encouraged to
confirm if this hypothesis is true—to investigate how Jordan is different from other countries
in the region, where data are neither documented nor available. Considering Jordan is one of
the most modern countries in the region, we speculate this assumption is not data based.
A final recommendation is to have an official translation of Jordan’s law into English—
it is only written and published in Arabic, although many Jordanians speak English (see
Ministry of Justice of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, n.d., for a full copy of Jordan’s
law). We noticed great contradictions in a number of translations that entailed inaccurate
representation and discussion of the law (mainly the two codes related to honor: Codes
308 and 98). Inaccurate descriptions of the law may lead to inaction in its implementation
(Todorov, 2005). The laws written in Arabic address both the rights of the victim and those
of the perpetrator equally. But there is no official translation of the law. Moreover, the
problem is not in the law; it is in its implementation. Without changing the way this silent
patriarchal alpha-male code is passed on from one generation to the next, women’s
conditions in Jordan and around the world will remain the same.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of
interest.

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