Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 138, 4 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-137).

Thesis (M.A.(Social Work)--University of Pretoria, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-226).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Frankfurt am Main. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Logos Evangelical Seminary, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 257-271).

Diss. (sammanfattning), Stockholm : Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, 2006. / Härtill 5 appendix.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

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'Honour', an undefined notion in a patriarchal society like Pakistan, is used as a tool to justify the crime of murder. Violence in the name of honour is not a new phenomenon. Historically, it has been justified in the name of culture but the scope of this tradition has broadened with time and there is an enormous increase in the number of its victims. This cultural notion is interpreted in a way to control women's sexuality and to keep women subordinate to men. Honour killing is not legally sanctioned but the judiciary, the administration and the society often condone it one way or the other. In the tribal areas of Pakistan where such murder is not considered a crime, honour killing is a punishment for those who contravene against the traditional honour code. / The wide acceptance of honour killing has made women suffer as a whole against their basic rights; human, constitutional and Islamic. This thesis focuses on the judicial redress against the crime of honour killings, which could be achieved by proper administration of justice. It contests that to control the crime in the patriarchal society of Pakistan, legislative measures are not enough. There is a dire need to eliminate the inadequacies of the administration of justice. The State could build a judicial framework to eliminate the inequality and discrimination against women. The judiciary could play an important role in bringing justice to the victims and in curbing this heinous crime.

Multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracies face the challenge of constructing accommodative arrangements that can both facilitate cultural diversity and ensure women's rights within religio-cultural groups. This thesis is an investigation of the Indian state's policy of legal pluralism in recognition of religious family laws in India. The Indian state has adopted a model of what I have termed "shared adjudication" in which the state shares its adjudicative authority with internally heterogeneous religious groups and civil society in the regulation of marriage among Hindus and Muslims. / Combining theoretical frameworks of state-society relations, feminist theory, and legal pluralism, and drawing from ethnographic research conducted in state courts, caste and sect councils, and "doorstep law courts," I pay analytical attention to state-society interactions at the interface of religious family laws. State and non-state sources of legal authority construct internally contested and heterogeneous notions of the conjugal family, gender relations, and religious membership, and they transmit them across legal spheres. These dynamic processes of communication reconstitute the interiors of religious, state, and civic legal orders, and they fracture the homogenised religious identities grounded in hierarchical gender relations within the conjugal family. / Within the interstices of state and society---which are used imaginatively by state and societal actors---the Indian model points towards an open-ended and process-oriented conception of state-society relations that encompasses not only the binary of conflict and cooperation, but also communication between state and society. The "shared adjudication" model facilitates diversity as it allows the construction of hybrid religious identities, creates fissures in ossified group boundaries, and provides institutional spaces for ongoing inter-societal dialogue between religious groups, civil society, and the state. This pluralized legal sphere, governed by ideologically diverse legal actors, can thus increase women's rights in law, and despite its limitations, the transformative potential of women's collective agency effects institutional change.