Was this action justified? Can you blame it on anger?

By Nic
@academic2 (7000)
Uganda
April 20, 2007 5:02am CST
A young man out of rage did the most unthinkable thing! He was 25 years old and ready for marriage. He did not have any resources except his energy his mother and the little piece of land they had. He had 3 sisters, but each time they were married with cows, his father would instead use the dowry to marry another wife! When the last sister got a wiling suiter, the young man made it known to his mother, father and the clan leader that he would not allow his father to use the bride wealth for amassing more women to himself ever again. He reminded his father that he had become of age an needed a wife for himself and that his younger sister's bride wealth would be used for his marriage! When the sister finally go married, the father again got a 4th wife and made marriage arangement using the available bride wealth. The son soon discovered that all the cows and the money he hoped to use for his own marriage had been used up by his father yet again, to marry a fourth wife! Just as the boy was still wondering what next to do, the father came to the home where the son and his abandoned mother lived and dropped yet another bomb shell! He told his aggrieved son and the mother that he was building a house for the youngest wife he had just married and wanted all the fruit trees in the compound as wood fuel to burn the bricks for his construction! The son told him all the injustices he had already committed against him as a first son, and finally reminded him that the plan of cutting the fruit trees in the comound could only happen over his dead body! The father thought the son was joking! When he showed up early the following morning to cut up the trees, the son descended on him and chopped his head off! The clan blamed the deceased.But the boy was arrested all the same, for murder.Could this action of brutal murder be justified? Do you blame the boy copletely for his actions?
2 people like this
2 responses
• India
22 Apr 07
While I'm frankly appalled by the callous attitude of the father, the son could have taken up the matter with a social court or with the elders of the clan and could have come to an amicable solution. How is killing anyone going to help anybody? Now that the father was killed, who would support the women who were married to him? The son might see himself as the victim, but what about his father's widows? How did he have the right to cause them hurt and suffering? Having been a victim of his father's thoughtlessness, one would expect him to be more sensible and thoughtful, but apparently he just let his anger and hatred get the better of him. He deserves neither pity nor mercy. He is to be punished to the fullest extent of the prevailing law.
• Philippines
20 Apr 07
There is a premeditated intention and that is murder under Philippine laws. I don't know where you are but the laws of the country should be enforced. There might be some mitigating circumstances, but then killing a father is a grave offense, no matter what the father could have done. There might have been other solutions to problems. Too bad to happen to the family.