Sparks: Afghanistan's crisis deepens hidden violence against women

Poverty and tyranny conspire to make a man's home his arena, where he fights the battles he cannot win outside it.

What law, what custom, what shred of the republic remains when the state itself becomes the author of the violence it should punish?

This morality of the strong man begins in the weakness that must invent a weaker creature to dominate.

Despotism does not merely silence the public square; it perfects the tyranny of the household, making every door a border beyond which no law travels.

These fellas outlawing schools for girls are the same ones who'd call the sheriff if you so much as tapped their own horse.

The silence in the room after he leaves is heavier than the blow, and more final.

A nation that cages half its people has already condemned itself, long before any foreign power arrives to judge it.

The repression demanded by the state returns, perfectly preserved, in the pathology of the family.

This algorithm of despair - poverty plus prohibition - computes a prison with no visible walls and a guard who shares your bed.

Hunger is the fist inside the house, and the law outside ensures no one hears the blow land.

Hateful things: a door closed from the inside, a law written to protect the one who strikes, and the sound of weeping that must not be heard.

An experiment proves that a man denied power in the marketplace will invariably seek to manufacture it in his own kitchen.

A most efficient system, for it employs the victim's own hunger as jailer and her children as the guarantors of her silence.