O le tama’ita’i o le ua faalanuma’ave’ave.

The lady is the rain that washes salt from the breadfruit leaves. This saying of ours is an apt metaphor for the role that men have accorded our women folk.

Our story of Lufasiaitu (Lu) and his war with Sa Tagaloa (Tagaloa Clan) illustrates this role quite well. 

Lu lived at the foot of the mountain range called Lagisautuasefulu o Tagaloaalagi (Heaven-level-ten of Tagaloa of the heavens). 

Lu raised a number of protected chickens which he prohibited anyone to catch. 

However, one day, after a fishing trip, Sa Tagaloa came upon the protected chickens, caught them and took off with them.

Lu was enraged when he found out and took chase. Starting at heaven-level-one, Lu caught and bludgeoned members of Sa Tagaloa as they climbed up towards the top of the mountains.

Tagaloaalagi heard the commotion and suspected trouble. He quickly got Lagituaiva, his daughter, to come down with him to see what was going on. His suspicion was right, it was deep trouble; it was a war. 

When Lu got to Heaven-level-nine, he found Lagituaiva, Tagaloaalagi’s very beautiful daughter, lying stretched out in his path. Lu stopped, glared at Tagaloaalagi and then looked down at Lagituaiva’s beautiful body. Anger turned to love or was it lust?. Tagaloaalagi says, “Lu this is Lagituaiva; Sa Tagaloa should live. That is my dearest daughter, let her be saviour of my people.”

Lufasiaitu replies, “Tagaloaalagi, the offence is cleared; it is difficult to do otherwise since the lady Lagituaiva has prostrated herself in submission for your people’s misdeed.”

The Bible story of Adam and Eve has exactly the same message. 

The man offends, the woman pays.

God makes the man, planted a garden and put him in it to work and look after it. God told him that he was free to eat any of the fruits of the garden except the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ The man was called Adam. 

Later God decided that it was ‘not good for the man to be alone’ and made a woman to be his helper out of one of the man’s ribs. God gave the woman to the man to be his wife. Adam called his wife Eve. 

Later still, God visited and called for the man and the woman saying, “Where are you?”

Adam answered that they were hiding because they were naked.

“ Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said,” The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

So the Lord God said to the serpent,” Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

To the woman he said, “I will make your pain in childbearing very severe, with painful labour you will give birth to children.

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it’

‘Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

‘It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 

 I doubt anyone believes there were talking snakes, but I know many males believe the bit about the husband ruling over the wife.

Is this the basis for some, if not most, of the violence against women and girls?

 It is certainly the basis for the patriarchy; the social organization in which a man or men rule and descent is reckoned through the male line.

As for the capital punishment of children, there is little doubt that the old “spare the rod, spoil the child” has misled hundreds if not thousands in the last hundred and seventy-eight years since the Bible was translated into Samoan.

It’s a pity that many believers in that phrase have not taken the time to check whether it is in fact from the bible.

The senior justice of the Supreme Court, His Honour Vui Clarence Nelson, was reported recently as being “disheartened by the rise in cases of violence against children.”

Judge Alalatoa Rosella Viane Papalii in a keynote address at a regional workshop was even more specific: ‘I need not mention that violence against women/girls and gender inequality remains specific in our respective societies.

‘We live, see, hear, walk and breathe it.

‘The corridor of the Family Violence Court is flooded with cases of this nature.

Now that we know just how serious the problem is, the question is:

What do we do about it? 

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