Guardians of honor
The concept of honor, more often found in cross-cultural contexts, is useful to understand certain sources of gender inequality that lead to violence and usually involve women (Lamboley, 2016). Although this concept has been used to analyze situations in different religious communities (Mojab, 2012), it has seldom been used to understand life in groups that could be considered to be cults. This article addresses this knowledge gap by comparing the daily lives of women living or having lived in immigrant communities and those in cult-like groups. The comparison of the experiences of women living in these two types of communities makes it possible to determine whether the concept of honor-based violence is relevant in both cases and helps to understand the kinds of violence experienced by these women. To achieve these objectives, interviews were conducted with immigrant women (n=11) and with women who had lived in a polygamous Mormon community (n=30). Four common themes related to the realities of life for these women were identified and are at the heart of the analysis : patriarchal community control, the control exercised by women over other women, self-control, and help-seeking strategies.