Of women, chattel and our law courts
Yesterday we celebrated Women's Day, a useless pandering to the gods of commerce that's only rivalled by Valentine's Day.
Yesterday, in Malta, we also celebrated the fact that a man can pretty much do whatever he feels like to a woman that is considered "his property" and get away with it.
Because yes, we may roll our eyes and make tut-tutting noises at "those Muslims and the way they treat women", but man oh man does Maltese law give them a run for their supposed money.
Yesterday, a man was found guilty of attempting to murder his wife - read the judgment here: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160308/local/jurors-start-their-deliberations.605007 .
And, yet, he got away with a piddling seven-year jail sentence.
The reason? Jurors found that he acted "under the transport of sudden passion".
In other words, his wife provoked him enough to make him lose all reason. And in other words still, trying to shoot her was not quite as reprehensible an act as, say, cultivating cannabis, for which got Daniel Holmes a ten-year-sentence.
Of course, the words I use are not quite what the court said upon delivery of sentence. On the contrary, the judge made it a point to state that...