Why some Muslim societies demand the wearing of hijabs and why others do not (and why, therefore, hijabs are not appropriate in Ireland)

I TWINED a wreath of heather white
To bind my lady’s hair,
And deemed her locks in even light
Would well the burden bear;
But when I saw the tresses brown,
And found the face so fair,
I tore the wreath, and left the crown
Of beauty only there.
- Corona Inutilis by James Lister Cuthbertson

SHAKE back your hair, O red-headed girl.
Let go your laughter and keep your two proud freckles on your chin.
Somewhere is a man looking for a red-headed girl and some day maybe he will look into your eyes for a restaurant cashier and find a lover, maybe.
Around and around go ten thousand men hunting a red headed girl with two freckles on her chin.
I have seen them hunting, hunting.
Shake back your hair; let go your laughter.
- Red-headed Restaurant Cashier by Carl Sandburg

Her eyes, they shone like diamonds,
I thought her the pride of the land,
And her hair it hung down o'er her shoulders,
Tied up with a black velvet band!
- The Black Velvet Band, trad. folk song

As we all know, many Muslim societies require or put pressure on women to wear hijabs/headscarves (parts of Indonesia) or burqas (Afghanistan) or niqaabs (Saudi Arabia), etc. Others do not (Morocco, Turkey). Many Muslims argue that the wearing of the hijab (or other coverings) is required by their religion. Some say that, while it is not necessarily required by Islam, many women choose to wear the hijab (or other coverings) as an expression of their faith (this is the argument we see here frequently in Ireland). Still others see it more as a political statement -- as a reaction to Western materialism.

However, most people are not at all aware of the biological drives that motivate their actions. As Razib over at Gene Expression has many a' time pointed out: "Most importantly, we do not have easy access to our own subconscious mental processes which shape the course of our decisions, though we freely manufacture explanations which give us a sense of the reasoning behind our decisions." [Example.] Our ideologies -- including all of the religious dogma out there -- could very well be (I believe most likely are) "rationalisations" for our actions:

Of course, I can't universalize my own experience -- but that experience does give me pause when people talk about the immense power of religion to make people do extraordinary things. When people say that they are acting out of religious conviction, I tend to be skeptical; I tend to wonder whether they're not acting as I usually do, out of motives and impulses over which I could paint a thin religious veneer but which are really not religious at all. [link]

My working theory, then, for why some Muslim societies demand wearing of the hijab (or other coverings), and why others do not, is based in biology -- specifically in reproduction drives and control of reproduction within groups.

Looking at hijabs (khumur or headscarves) only -- the head coverings that have become an issue here in Ireland -- the image and poems at the top of this post are there to illustrate that head hair -- very much women's head hair -- is one part of the whole human corporeal package that attracts the sexes to one another. We all know this -- women (especially young women) spend LOADS of time and Euros in the hairdressers to get their hair looking just right in order to attract Mr. Right. There's dyeing and extensions and perms (does anyone do that anymore?) and straightening and what not.

A fine head of hair on a (good looking) woman is sexy. (Am I right, fellas?)

THIS is why many Muslim societies demand that their women cover their hair -- and sometimes even the rest of their selves -- to stop men from being attracted to them -- and, most importantly, to stop women from being able to attract a man (i.e. of her choice). The members of those societies are attempting to control their women's reproduction.

Control of reproduction is common in social mammals. In wolves, only the alpha male and female of a group are allowed to reproduce -- all the other members of the pack (typically relatives) must assist in the raising of the alpha female's pups. In gorillas, alpha males try to keep lower ranking males away from the females (usually all related) in their harems -- not always successfully, but they do try. In meerkats, which live in extended-family groups, only alpha females are allowed to reproduce. Any other female in the group that has pups risks being expelled from the group (deadly for a meerkat) or having her pups killed. It's often the grandmother meerkat that does the killing.

Control of what we've now come to call reproductive 'rights' of women in Ireland (and the West in general) is, obviously, not uncommon. Think of the debates over the availability of contraception and abortion in Ireland. All of you parents out there, think of how you approve or disapprove of the fellow your daughter is dating! Control of reproduction is common in humans -- it simply differs in degree in different societies because (I think)...

...because the individuals within some groups of people are more closely related to each other (i.e. some groups are more inbred) than in other groups and, therefore, have more at stake to lose when the female members of their group reproduce.

I've discussed several issues surrounding "cousin marriage" or consanguinity (degree of genetic relatedness) within groups several times before on the aul' blog. To repeat my oft-quoted quote of Steve Sailer:

One of the basic laws of modern evolutionary science, quantified by the great Oxford biologist William D. Hamilton in 1964 under the name "kin selection," is that the more close the genetic relationship between two people, the more likely they are to feel loyalty and altruism toward each other. Natural selection has molded us not just to try to propagate our own genes, but to help our relatives, who possess copies of some of our specific genes, to propagate their own. [link]

Not only do we want to help our relatives propagate the genes we share with them -- we often want to have a say in their choice of mate (i.e. with whom they will propagate their/our genes). We don't want our genes to go to waste, after all! This is typically true of parents who, obviously, share a full half of their genes with their children. Grandparents may also be intent on steering their grandchildren's mate choices since they share a quarter of their genes with their grandkids.

The most interference is usually directed towards girls (think of how guarded fathers can be of their teenage daughters!) because females have limited reproductive chances compared to men and pay a heavy price (more so than men) each time they have a child (9 months of pregnancy, child-birth risks, taking care of the child, etc.).

And so, we arrive back at the Muslim societies that demand that their women cover up to some degree or another (and, btw, African societies that practice female circumcision as well -- another attempt to control reproduction, a fact which many in sub-Saharan Africa understand and freely admit).

Several Muslim societies have very high levels of cousin marriage or inbreeding -- much higher than other areas of the world, particularly Europe and the West. It appears that those Muslim societies that have the highest levels of genetic relatedness within families (i.e. high coefficients of inbreeding) have the strictest regulations on modesty for women (niqaabs, burqas), while those that have lower levels of inbreeding have milder modesty requirements (hijabs/headscarves) or even none at all. Some (very!) preliminary data:

Saudi Arabia - 50%+ consanguinity rate - Abaya and ħijāb are required for all women; the niqāb is optional.
Parts of Pakistan (esp. Punjab/NWF) - 50%+ consanguinity rate - Many parts of the country where there is strong social pressure for women to observe ħijāb, or purdah.
Afghanistan - 40-49%+ consanguinity rate - "Under the Taliban, the burqa was obligatory. Under the current government, it is technically optional but in southern Afghanistan it is de facto obligatory."
Yemen - 40-49%+ consanguinity rate - full coverings (sharsharf, balto).
Iran - 30-39%+ consanguinity rate - Loose-fitting coats or cloaks in public such as the chador, as well as a head scarf that covers the hair. Lots of rebellion against the chador and head scarf in Iran, though, possibly reflecting the comparatively lower/diverse consanguinity rates.
Turkey - 20-20% consanguinity rate/higher in the east than in the west - headscarves quite common in eastern Turkey, but not in the western part of the country.
Bangladesh - 10-19%+ consanguinity rate - "There are no laws which require women to cover their heads, and it is not encouraged by the government. [M]ainly it (the headscarf) is worn by people in rural areas such as Sylhet and other towns.
Malaysia - 5-9% consanguinity rate - "The headscarf is known as a tudung. Muslim women may freely choose whether or not to wear the headscarf, except for religious rites and ceremonies when the tudung must be worn."

[Note that the consanguinity rates above (taken from Consang.net) do not clearly indicate the levels or the types of genetic relatedness (coefficients of inbreeding) within groups. For example, Saudi Arabia and parts of Pakistan both have very high rates of consanguineous marriages (50%+), but it's likely that Saudi Arabian societies have been practicing a certain type of cousin-marriage (father's brother's daughter) for much longer than Pakistani societies. Thus, the genetic relatedness of males within extended families in Saudi Arabia is probably closer on average than between males in extended families in Pakistan. This may account for why Saudi coverings for women are some of the most extreme, going so far as the niqaab -- everything covered but the eyes -- while Pakistani coverings are not so extreme.]

Once-upon-a-time (early medieval period and before), cousin marriage was also very common in Ireland. Thus, all of the "clans" and battles between clans (just like Afghanistan today but without the AK47s) -- and thus Ireland was barely or never united as one nation until more recent times -- and, thus, back in the early medieval period (and before) the value of women was counted in head of cattle.

But we, the Irish, have moved on from all that. That is our past. The Catholic Church put a stop (or a damper on) on cousin marriage in Ireland (to the initial shock of the locals). Our current consanguinity rates are now less than 1%. We're still a nation that has numerous provincial interests, though, no doubt because our ancestors married locally (i.e. not-so-distant cousins) up until very, very recently and so we're probably still a bit inbred compared to other populations.

Hijabs (and female circumcision) simply have no place in modern Ireland because we are simply no longer marrying our cousins on a regular basis and, therefore, are no longer interested in controlling the reproductive rights of our women so strongly. Sure, Da and Mammy will still want to have a say on who ye marry (or with whom ye mate), but those decisions are largely left up to the individual nowadays -- unless, that is, we want to step back several centuries into our past.

See also: Veil of Fears and Why She Veils

Previously: Hijab problems in Irish schools and New York Times politically correct drivel on female genital mutilation (FGM)

Sources: Consang.net and Wikipedia.

Update >>

See also: Hibernia Girl On Cousin Marriage And Veils @ Parapundit.com

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