92 GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON TORTURE: Law and Practice a more effective means of social control than violence because violence is never fully monopolized and honor-systems provide a substantial incentive in the form of internal social valuation. Stewart (1994) articulates the division of honor into vertical and horizontal forms, as described below. Although respect gained through possessing horizontal honor can be lost, it cannot be increased. “Negative honor” is not considered to be respect that is due to an equal, as one person has a right to more respect than others. Horizontal honor may be contrasted with vertical (or positive) honor, that is, the right to special respect enjoyed by those who are superior, whether by virtue of their abili­ ties, their rank, their services to the community, their sex, their kin relationship, their office, or some other factor. According to Stewart (1994), horizontal honor is akin to shame, forming a base from which one can only lose honor. Here, female chastity as a source of potential negative value to fam­ ilies has been used as a point of comparison (Oner-Ozkan and Gencoz 2006). Adhering to the social norm represents inclusion in a group with a particular standard of conduct that affords a distinc­ tion both within the group and with outsiders. In contrast to horizontal honor, vertical or positive honor is the right to special respect enjoyed by those with superior status in the group. Class, rank, caste, or other overt distinctions of position are the most evident forms of vertical honor along a continuum, with corresponding rights and obligations both up and down the group’s hierarchical structure (Stewart 1994). Consequences of Losing Honor In honor cultures, aggression is an acceptable reaction to insults and threats to honor. Ethnographic and sociological research on diverse honor cultures, such as Iraqi Kurdistan (Begikhani, Gill and Hague, 2015), Spain (Gilmore 1987), rural Greece (Safilios-Rothschild 1969) and Turkey (OnerOzkan and Gencoz 2006), suggests that members of honor cultures consider retaliation to be a duty when a particular individual or family is insulted. Failure to retaliate connotes acceptance of the insult and an admission of being unworthy of honor. The most effective way to restore tarnished honor is to repudiate the insult by demonstrating a willingness to engage in physical aggression when necessary. Under certain circumstances, when the dishonouring insult is perceived by others as justified, such as when a female member of the family engages in a premarital or extramarital sexual affair, aggression is directed toward the “wrongdoer,” (in this example the woman), rather than the party who has by his/her action “insulted” the honor of the community (in this example, the man with whom she had the extramarital affair situation). Intra-familial honor killings embody the most extreme form of such aggression (Faqir 2005; Gill 2014). The willingness of people in honor cultures to take such radical measures, however painful and self-destructive, provides insights into the gravity of the consequences perceived by members of the group if action is not taken because these retaliatory measures can include actions such as shame, ridicule, loss of respect and social resources, and even complete ostracism (Gill 2014). In traditional societies where social mobility is limited, and where individuals’ social, psychological, and material prospects are closely interwoven with those of their family, tribe, or clan members, ostracism would mean the loss of not only social support, but also of the material resources neces­ sary for survival. A group’s projection of aggression against the offender or wrongdoer highlights the necessity of addressing problems of honor directly rather than peripherally. According to Pitt-Rivers (1966), losing honor by accepting humiliation cannot be repaired by demonstrating excellence. When someone has neither the ability nor the opportunity to take appropriate action, he or she will be subjected by the group to shame, which is acknowledged as