The controversy over the rapeof a woman by her father-in-law has raised many pertinent issues. After thehorrendous incident, the woman, a mother of five children, was told to considerher husband as her son by the local village council of elders. The initialresistance of this edict by the woman and her husband soon gave way to immensepressure put on them by the fatwa of Daral Uloom, Deoband, which gave very nearly the same verdict, as that of thevillage council. It stipulated that the women in question could no longer livewith her husband, since she ‘had sex’ with her own father-in-law.