Understanding honor in religious, cultural, and moral experience: Commentary on “Diasporic Virginities: Social Representations of Virginity and Constructions of Identity amongst British Arab Muslim Women” by Howarth, Caroline; Amer, Amena; and Sen, Ragini

Abstract

An important and timely topic in the study of the connections and divergences between culture and religion is the construction of concepts of honor in moral experience, and how these are expressed symbolically and socially. How can a moral concept such as honor be a sign of distinction and belonging at once, and why does honor remain important in a diasporic community, though not identical in meanings to honor in some other “home” cultures? How does one decide which beliefs, practices, and institutions to call religious? Which ones to call cultural? In this commentary, I pursue these questions from ethnographic and cross-cultural comparative perspectives, inspired by post-structural interpretive anthropology of religion, semiology, and phenomenology. Culture, not solely theological doctrine or dogma, defines religion. It is important to ask how particular definitions emerge and come to objectify their referents. The elaboration of context is a central feature of interpretation; a religion may look very different from one society and culture to another, and it may also look very different within the same culture and society, from one context to another. Yet moral experience remains central. Those among the British Arab Muslim women studied by Howarth et al. who value virginity in their concept of honor are creatively re-enacting their cultural/ethnic identity through their choices in sexual mores. Honor, as expressed in virginity, is in effect performed in the Goffmanesque sense of presentation of self in everyday life.