This paper examines age patterns of first marriage and motherhood and covariates of early marriage, delayed consummation of marriage and early motherhood in Nepal using data from the 2000 Nepal Adolescent and Young Adult Survey (NAYA). Both unmarried and married male and female youths (age 14s education, region of residence and ethnicity. The main covariates of delayed consummation of marriage are age at first marriage, region of residence and ethnicity. The study highlights the (...) need to focus on less educated female youths in the Terai region in order to reduce the reproductive and child health risks associated with early marriage and early childbearing. (shrink)

Early marriage rates in Indonesia, particularly in West Kalimantan, contribute significantly to the stunting problem. Progress is slow despite a decline from 11.21% in 2018 to 8.06% in 2022. Kapuas Hulu District has the second-highest stunting rate in the province. This research aims to develop a strategic partnership model to control early marriage and prevent stunting in Kapuas Hulu District. The model involves local government, health institutions, NGOs, the private sector, and local communities. Using the Four-Pillar (...) Strategic Partnership Model by Thomas (2012) and Bryson (2013), the study engages stakeholders in planning, organizing, implementing, and monitoring. The local government leads, the private sector provides resources through CSR, the community is empowered in decision-making, and academia offers research support. This integrated approach aims to prevent early marriages and reduce stunting effectively. Based on research and analysis of the Kapuas Hulu District Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMD), it can be concluded that the issue of early marriage or child marriage is not explicitly included or a focus in the regional development planning document. Ease of dispensation is a gap and has the potential to weaken efforts to implement policies to prevent child marriage. The level of public awareness greatly influences the practice of child marriage. The effectiveness of Law Number 16 of 2019 concerning Marriage, especially regarding the implementation of the minimum age limit for marriage, still faces many major challenges. (shrink)

This research explores the causes of early marriage and assesses the consequences of early marriage on maternal and child well-being in a district of Nepal. A two week long field operation was carried out to collect data where 126 respondents were selected through convenience sampling methods on the basis of two criteria, including 1) being a married women only who got married before 19 years of age; and 2) those who have children below three years. The (...) interviews were mainly focused on those who have a neonatal child. A structured interview schedule found that early marriage is still prevalent among the illiterate group. A paradigm shift was found in some aspects, such as the shift in decision-making from parents to children, a shift from arranged to love marriages, and from parental pressure to marry to love and fulfillment of sexual desire as reasons for marrying. Most of the respondents have no idea about the legal marriage age and punishment for underage marriage. Most of the respondents suffered from different physical health-related problem including poor maternal and child well-being, weakness, immaturity, miscarriage, sexual problems, no prenatal check up, and/or low birth weight. To deal with the problem a number of strategies have been suggested, mainly providing economic opportunities to young girls, improving the strictness of legal strategies about marriage age, promoting education of girls, and using mass media to increase the awareness of the whole community about the consequences of early marriage on girls themselves and on her children along with their family. Efforts need to be made in the community and other parts of Nepal where early marriage and child marriage is prevalent. (shrink)

This article tries to understand the role of marriage in the religious lives of women during early Buddhism through the narrative of a relatively understudied text, Pāli Vimānavatthu. Marriage played a significant role in the lives of Buddhist laywomen as opposed to laymen since greater emphasis was placed on the third lay precept—prohibiting sexual misconduct—and the Buddhist ideology of patibbatā. However, complications arose when the ideal wives—in whose lives domesticity and family issues played an important role—were placed (...) in problematic marital situations. This article explores three such situations: the difficulties of marrying into a non-Buddhist family; the difficulties of being falsely accused of adultery; and the difficulties posed to merit-making by the state of pregnancy. In addition to all of the ordinary virtues that allowed a layperson to acquire merit, being an ideal wife and successfully resolving marital problems constituted a special category of merit-making virtue for Buddhist women. At the same time, whilst merit could be helpful to a woman in resolving marital difficulties, her commitment to Buddhism was finally meant to take precedence over any marital difficulties she might have. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper explores the background to Mill’s feminist thought by relating his Subjection of Women to his early piece ‘On Marriage’ and three contemporary essays that were written among the radical Unitarian community of South Place Chapel by Harriet Taylor Mill, William Bridges Adams, and William Johnson Fox. It seeks to demonstrate that Mill’s Subjection of Women still has close ties with the earlier feminist thought of the South Place Chapel circle. Specifically, it will show that key (...) arguments like the characterisation of marriage as slavery, the pernicious moral effects of gendered education, and the social benefits of women’s liberation feature in the early essays by Mill himself, Harriet Taylor Mill, William Bridges Adams, and William Johnson Fox as well as in Mill’s Subjection. (shrink)

Janelle Pötzsch ABSTRACT: This paper discusses Mill’s early essay on marriage and divorce and gives two possible sources of influence for it: Plato’s arguments on the appropriate scope of the law in book IV of his Republic and Unitarian ideas on motherhood. It demonstrates that Plato’s Republic and Mill’s essay both emphasize the crucial ….

Moderata Fonte's dialogueThe Worth of Women(1600) contains stinging critiques of marriage and the dowry system as well as of women's inequality. I argue that Fonte's critique of male dominance, particularly in marriage, employs a modern method of argument, which anticipates the later contractarian critiques of political authority. Given that women are naturally men's equals, Fonte argues that men's de facto authority over women is illegitimate and based on force. Moreover, by treating marriage as an artificial institution rather (...) than as a natural institution, Fonte anticipates later feminist arguments that criticize the modern contract tradition for its failure to extend its critique of other forms of authority to patriarchal marriage, instead positing a natural basis for women's subordination to men. In light of this history, Fonte's critique of patriarchy is especially interesting: it challenges the patriarchal family structure and the institutions that collude to diminish women's agency, and this challenge to male authority is similar to later (male) challenges to de facto political authority. (shrink)

SummaryThe aim of this study was to investigate marriage behaviour from 1825 to 1924 in an Alpine valley inhabited by Ladin speakers, where the particular geographic, linguistic and economic characteristics may have influenced the level of reproductive isolation. A total of 2183 marriage acts from the two main parishes of Santa Cristina and Ortisei were examined. Birth and residence endogamy, inbreeding coefficients from dispensations and from isonymy, birth place distribution of the spouses and isonymic relationships were analysed in (...) four 25-year sub-periods. All the indicators considered point to a lower level of reproductive isolation at Ortisei, a main centre for the woodcarving industry, which appeared to be experiencing an early and effective breakdown of isolation. Marriage behaviour in the Gardena Valley between 1825 and 1924 seems to have been mostly influenced by socioeconomic factors rather than linguistic and cultural ones. (shrink)

Marriage patterns of California's eighteenth and nineteenth century Spanish-Mexican families are analysed using data from genealogies and mission records. A shortage of women among the military based colonists led to an unusual marriage pattern with a large age differential between husbands and wives. The average age at marriage was 18·4 years for women and 28·4 years for men. Spatial mobility was high for both sexes, particularly for men. More husbands than wives were born in Mexico. The Monterey (...) presidial district of central California was the birthplace of a disproportionate number of husbands and the southern California districts were a source of wives. The transition between a founding population predominantly composed of Mexican immigrants and a population of native-born Californians occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Marriage is one of the most important topics in the education field since life in this world is structured by interaction among families and between families and other social institutions. Dissatisfaction and unsustainability of marriage have led the urgency of premarital education in various countries. The problem is that the spread of virtual reality has made marriage itself to become more complex and experience reinterpretation and reconfiguration, moreover with the emergence of new kind of marriage in (...) the digital era, i.e. virtual marriage. Everybody who has observed, known, or even tried, certainly asks the question, “Could (or: should) I accept virtual marriage?” . This study was aimed to investigate the role of tolerance of ambiguity and illusion of intimacy in online dating in predicting the acceptance of virtual marriage. There were 420 adolescents and young adults (212 males, 208 females; Mage=21.10 years old, SDage=1.459 years; 338 students, 82 employees or entrepreneurs) in the Greater Jakarta, Indonesia, participated in this study. It was found that the acceptance was not predicted by the ambiguity tolerance, but by the illusion of intimacy in online dating. The psychometric issues, substantive discussion, and recommendation are presented at the end of this article. The trend of virtual marriage should not be allowed to roll away, by autopilot, without loaded by strategies in designing an online game as one of the pivotal educational technologies that needs to shape appropriate character and attitude for it. (shrink)

Les stratégies matrimoniales élitaires entraînent des migrations d’individus des deux sexes, non seulement du conjoint qui rejoint l’autre, mais aussi de toutes sortes de personnes de milieux sociaux différents qui l’accompagnent. Ces migrations ne touchent cependant pas de la même manière hommes et femmes, même si certains aspects présentent des points communs. Il s’agit donc de les analyser, en plaçant le genre au cœur de la réflexion. Elles seront envisagées, dans le royaume des Francs du haut Moyen Âge, d’abord en (...) amont, pour comprendre comment elles sont décidées et réalisées, puis en aval, pour en saisir les conséquences en matière d’identité et d’intégration. (shrink)

Child marriage is still a massive problem in many developing countries. The issue is more concentrated in countries of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. This paper, through literature review attempts to assess the situation, the consequences, various programmes and recommendations on the reduction of child marriage. In this article it is reinforced that, consequences of child marriage put the girls at risk of early pregnancies with life-threatening conditions. This paper suggests that each country should set (...) up its own mid-term and long-term goals to bring about significant reduction in child marriages. (shrink)

The netherworld marriage or the wedding for dead persons is a folk religious ritual in ancientChina. It is based on ancient Chinese folk belief of afterlife in the netherworld. Through a textual research and investigation based on relevant historical records and other ancient documents, as well as some archeological discoveries, this paper tries to give a brief account of the origin and development of netherworld marriage and its cultural and ideological background in ancient China. It finds that netherworld (...) marriage might originate from human sacrifice in early ancient times, and its name varies in different periods. It has gone through its prevailing in the Tang Dynasty, declining in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and reviving again in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. During the long history, this custom was generally criticized and condemned by orthodoxy Confucian intellectuals, yet it was practiced and sometimes even prevailed among both noble class and common people, due to its deep root in the folk belief. The paper also intends to clarify some misconceptions and misunderstandings concerning the study of this unique cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to present the philosophical explanation of the marital relationship according to the Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyła. In our research, our attention was focused mainly on his book Love and Responsibility; the early philosophical work of a young, 37 year old Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. In his writings, Karol Wojtyła—the future Pope John Paul II—presents marriage as a monogamous, indissoluble relationship between a man and a woman, (...) which grows out of mutual love for the purpose of procreation. Such a relationship is ruled by the „personalistic norm" which says that a person can never, under any circumstances, be a mere object of enjoyment for another person, but can only be the object of love. Love is a self-giving for the good of one's counterpart, so Marriage as a personalistic unity persists as long as these persons are alive. Because love is fecund from its very essence, so it is fruitful from its nature. Thus, procreation belongs to the principle ends of marriage. Such an attitude—as K. Wojtyła proves—is opposed to the utilitarian point of view of man and Marriage. According to the utilitarian conception, a person can be used as a means for achieving the highest good, i.e., pleasure. (shrink)

Citizenship and marriage are legal statuses that generate numerous privileges and responsibilities. Legal doctrine and argument have analogized these statuses in passing: consider, for example, Ted Olson’s statement in the Hollingsworth v. Perry oral argument that denying the label “marriage” to gay unions “is like you were to say you can vote, you can travel, but you may not be a citizen.” However, the parallel between citizenship and marriage has rarely been investigated in depth. This paper investigates (...) the marriage-citizenship parallel with a particular focus on three questions prompted by recent developments in law and policy: -/- 1) Should we provide second-best statuses? Some couples — in particular gay and lesbian couples — have been offered permanent statuses, like civil unions, that bear legal privileges but fall short of full marriage equality. In contrast, similar differentiations within citizenship are generally resisted. The history of citizenship may presage the increasing unacceptability of differentiations within status in the gay marriage context. Meanwhile, the history of marriage equality efforts may help present-day citizenship advocates choose legal strategies. -/- 2) Should statuses be a gateway to rights? Some early gay rights advocates unsuccessfully argued that advocates should challenge the primacy of marriage, rather than seek access to the institution. Advocates attempting to expand the rights of current noncitizens face similar choices: should they seek to give current noncitizens greater access to citizenship, or challenge the reservation of important rights to citizens? -/- 3) Can status relationships be plural? Many critics of dual and multiple citizenship argued that allegiance to multiple states was immoral, unadministrable, or both. More recently, polygamous marriage has become a topic of legal and political discourse, first as a foil in anti-gay marriage arguments and later as a political possibility in its own right. I consider whether polygamous marriage advocates can profitably draw on arguments for multiple citizenship, and how multiple-citizenship advocates should responsibly respond to the analogy with polygamy. (shrink)

Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam. By Lev E. Weitz. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 340. $65.

The way many human rights advocates frame the international norm against child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM) has shifted in the past decade. While CEFM has historically been framed as driven by poverty and underdevelopment, advocates have more recently discussed the problem with a feminist sexuality frame. What leads advocates to change their framing about an international norm? We build an argument that stresses how (a) the nature of the frame, (b) the characteristics of the advocates, and (c) (...) the characteristics of the discursive environment interact to determine whether and to what extent advocates will adopt an alternative frame. We use a multi-methods approach (machine-learning text analysis, process tracing, and interviews) to examine the process of frame adoption around an international norm. Our theoretical understanding of international norms requires a better grasp on the role of framing, especially framing among the very norm entrepreneurs that are critical to international norm diffusion. (shrink)

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority society with more than 163 million people. Most Bangladeshis hold the ideals of Islamic norms and values which is manifest in all sorts of socio-cultural behaviour. In reference to such values, the tradition of legitimizing child marriage in Bangladesh is the issue that needs to be addressed in a holistic yet rigorous approach. Currently Bangladesh ranks 4th in the world and 1st in Asia in terms of child marriage. Recently the Child Marriage Restraint (...) Act 1929 has been abolished and it has been replaced by the Act of 2017 preserving article 2 of the previous statute, the legal age for marriage for a boy 21 and for a girl 18. This Act adds article 19 which legalizes minors (below 18 years of age) to be married off with the consent of the parents/guardians at the presence of a magistrate under “special circumstances” deemed with securing the best interest for them. The law artfully coincides with the Muslim Marriage Law which allows participants of 15 years and above to get legally married and as such contradicts the international law and the Act of 2017 itself. In the West intimate relationships including extra-marital cohabitation before reaching 18 years of age are culturally accepted. In contrast, such extra-marital and intimate relationships are strictly prohibited in Muslim-majority societies, which are dearly adhered in Bangladeshi Muslim culture. This study examines how the religious cultural and socio-economic realities influence child marriage practice in Bangladesh. Along with secondary documents, we interviewed 22 individuals including the Deputy Commissioner, the District Women and Children Affairs Officer, elected Union Parishad Chairman and Members, Social Workers, married couples and their parents/guardians at Manikganj district. In addition, we also conducted a mass survey with 62 randomly selected participants, and a voluntary online survey where the opinion of another 53 young students were collected to find broad opinion. We also collected stories of how marriages take place at the rural, urban and sub-urban areas in Bangladesh. The study has revealed that Bangladeshis does not support marriage at early ages but socio-economic reality often pushes poor into getting their children married at early ages. Many view that the special provision may encourage child marriage in the country. This study suggests that the government of Bangladesh should redefine public policy in regard to finding a middle ground between Islamic ethics and international values by exploring isomorphic mimicry and other socio-culturally accepted measures with a view to abolishing child marriage successfully. (shrink)

The question of Russell’s engagement with feminist ideas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is helpfully illuminated, I argue, by comparison to some of his feminist contemporaries—namely, Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838–1927) and Emma Goldman (1869–1940). Like Woodhull and Goldman, Russell argues for women’s right to vote, a new sexual ethic, and a significant revision to marriage. These are paradigmatic feminist projects, and so would seem to suggest that Russell, particularly within Marriage and Morals, has significant (...) philosophical overlap with some of the feminist philosophers of his time. His similarities with feminist thinkers and activists Woodhull and Goldman on the classical feminist concerns of sex, suffrage, and marriage suggest that Russell’s views may yet find a place in the history of feminism, even if he does not. (shrink)

An overview of core phenomena and processes leading to Freud’s establishing his psycho-analytic method and early metatheoretical concepts is followed by the author’s revision of his topographical model into a seamless biosemiotic theory of mind and human communication. A careful methodological analysis of the semantic/referential scope; speech/listening processes, and semiotic features, of a dialogue designed to make the unconscious conscious, reveals an epistemological bridge between psychoanalytic methodology and the biosemiotic agenda within a unifying inter-penetrative paradigm.

The central thesis of Susan Okin's Justice, Gender, and the Family—that the ideology of the traditional family is the linchpin of contemporary gender inequality in the US—remains significant more than a quarter-century after the book's publication. On a political register, Okin's insistence on structural analysis of gender inequality is an important corrective to recent mainstream feminist emphasis on individual women's choices. On an academic register, her work reveals the incoherence of scholarly classifications of feminist theories as “liberal feminist” or “radical (...) feminist” by confounding such distinctions. I argue that her thesis is best understood in relation to the early radical feminism of Juliet Mitchell's Woman's Estate, a book Okin praised. Placing Okin's work in the context of its radical roots clarifies her “linchpin thesis,” but also reveals the limitations of her argument: in her emphasis on what Iris Young has termed the “distributive paradigm of justice,” Okin unnecessarily adopts a much narrower definition of the family than did Mitchell, and overestimates the influence of economic vulnerability after divorce on women's capacity to exit marriage. I suggest modifications to her theory, and conclude by showing the continuing relevance of her argument for analyzing recent legal, policy, and demographic shifts. (shrink)

The paper develops a conception of marital love as a complex recognitive relation, which I articulate by juxtaposing it against other recognitive relations that figure in Hegel's theory of modern civil society (i.e., respect and esteem). Drawing on Hegel's early writings, I argue that, if love is to provide its unique sort of recognition, it must obtain between “living beings who are equal in power”—a peculiar form of equality that I name (drawing on Stanley Cavell's work) “dynamic equality.” I (...) conclude that it is by Hegel's own lights that we should reject his notorious conception of the sexual difference. However, I also offer reasons why, from Hegel's early 19th century perspective, he could consider the following two conditions as compatible: (1) equality within marriage and (2) sexual hierarchy outside marriage, namely, in civil society. (shrink)

From 17 to 22 October 1955, Madrid hosted the UNESCO Festival of Science. In the early years of the Cold War, in a dictatorial country that had recently been admitted into the international community, the festival aimed to spread science to the public through displays of scientific instruments, public lectures, book exhibitions, science writers professional associations, and debates about the use of different media. In this context, foreign visitors, many of whom came from liberal democracies, seemed comfortable in the (...) capital of a country ruled by a dictatorship that had survived after the defeat of fascism in the Second World War and was struggling to gain foreign recognition after years of isolation. This article analyzes the political role of science popularization in Madrid at that time. It approaches the apparently puzzling marriage between UNESCO’s international agenda for peace and democracy and the interests of the Francoist elites. Shared views of technocratic modernity, the fight against communism, and a diplomacy that served Spanish nationalism, paved the way for the alliance. (shrink)

Fātima is an important figure in Islamic society, both religiously and historically, and is regarded as a symbol of innocence and sanctity, especially in the Shīʿa faith. In this context, her marriage to ʿAlī is considered in Shīʿa theology not only as the union of two great personalities but also as a divine covenant representing the beginning of the chain of imāmate. According to Shīʿa sources, this marriage took place in accordance with God's will and gained a sacred (...) dimension with the Prophet's approval. The marriage also came to the fore as an important element that reinforced the legitimacy of ʿAlī’s caliphate. This article aims to analyze the marriage of Fātima, one of the most important figures in Islamic history, to ʿAlī within the framework of Shīʿa sources and to determine the impact of the religious-political events of later periods on the narratives related to this marriage. While Sunnī sources written in the second and third centuries of the Hijri era contain limited information about Fātima’s biography, Shīʿa sources, especially from the fourth century onwards, contain a large number of narrations about certain periods of her life. From this century onwards, the influence of Shīʿa beliefs on the biography of Fātima became evident in the works of Shīʿa authors. In this process, the roles attributed to Fātima began to diverge from Sunnī sources. These narratives focus on the events of Fātima’s birth, her marriage, and her short life after the death of her father. While Sunnī sources present only a few narratives about her marriage, in Shīʿa literature, this marriage took on an ontological meaning and began to carry a divine character. In the narrations, the choice between the marriage of the first caliphs, who had requested to marry Fātima but were rejected, and ʿAlī’s marriage was reflected in the caliphate debates in the following period and became the starting point of the belief in imāmate. The marriage is seen as a symbol of the religious and political conflicts between ʿAlī and the first caliphs in the early periods and with the Shiite groups in the later periods. The marriage is seen as a symbol of the religious and political conflicts between ʿAlī and the first caliphs in the early periods and with the Shiite groups in the later periods. This article analyzes the marriage of Fātima in historical and theological contexts and reveals the religious and political meanings of this marriage. It critically evaluates how these narratives developed in line with sectarian differences and how they transformed over time in the context of the impact of sociocultural and political elements on these narratives. The analysis reveals that the marriage of Fātima and ʿAlī had a significant impact on religious and political events in Islamic history. While Shīʿa sources consider this marriage as the manifestation of a divine command, they present the characteristics of Fātima and ʿAlī as elements that reinforce the legitimacy of the imāmate. It has been determined that marriage constitutes the ontological foundations of imāmah and has become one of the cornerstones of Shīʿa belief. In Sunnī sources, on the other hand, marriage is treated more as a familial event, which reveals the different perspectives between the two sects. This situation clearly reveals the differences in the historical narratives of marriage. In the narratives, the rejection of the first caliphs who proposed to Fātima led to the formation of a sub-message that they did not deserve the caliphate. Over time, this idea led to marriage acquiring a divine character in Shīʿa theology and becoming a symbolic representation of imāmah. Moreover, the Sunnī sources' treatment of marriage in a simpler context contrasts with the deep theological analysis in Shīʿa sources. In conclusion, the marriage of Fātima and ʿAlī is a critical event that affected the religious and political dynamics of Islamic society and deepened the divergent understandings between the two sects. The differences in narratives about the marriage provide a powerful example of how religious and historical narratives are shaped by social and political factors. (shrink)

From 1538 the new Protestant church of Henry VIII provided a system of registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials in all parishes of England and Wales. This chapter re-examines the original motives behind the creation of this system, and explores the reasons for its effectiveness and persistence over the ensuing three centuries in Britain by surveying the comparative history of identity registration systems among the British overseas in the early modern period. A review of the variety of measures for (...) registration set up in the North American and Caribbean colonies during the course of the seventeenth century confirms the importance of the security of property-holding in an increasingly commercial world as a motive for creating such systems. However, this review also indicates the importance of whether or not effective social security systems, giving entitlements to relief, accompanied these early identity registration schemes. (shrink)

_Misapprehensions of culture and religion are used for the early marriages of women in Pakistan, which generates few significant challenges for women to pursue their higher education. The present study identifies such challenges for married women in higher education. These challenges are relevant to women’s post-marriage lifespan in rural Pakistan. Building upon Fredrickson’s (2001) and Hobfoll’s (2001) theories focused on post marriages issues, the study has developed open-ended questions for collecting in-depth information. Therefore, 43 in-depth interviews with married (...) women were conducted and through qualitative data analysis using NVIVO software, the study has highlighted that early marriages of girls have become a cultural norm, and education priorities of the girls are insignificant for parents to decide the marriage date. Married women pursuing education at marriage do not get any support from husbands and in-laws as the patriarchal norms prohibit women from stepping out from home. In these circumstances, women may get subject to the victim of many unlawful practices, including intimate partner violence (IPV). Thus, the present study findings imply that married women's participation in higher education is negligible due to weak legislation on women’s rights and strong illegitimate tribal practices._. (shrink)

During the eighteenth century, the discovery of sexual reproduction in insect species prompted the demise of spontaneous generation and new developments in natural history, theology, and political economy. The sexual lives of insects prompted debates on whether insects were governed by desire, free will, and even marital tendency. Fuelled by the democratisation of microscopy, early modern entomology took a new turn and breadth: the study of insects and of their sexual lives provided unexpected new insights into human sexuality, reproduction, (...) and Malthusian fears of overpopulation. This article surveys the intellectual culture of entomology and natural history during the crucial decades when entomologists worked to quantify the reproductive capacities of insect species. Assessing the influences these entomological works had within political economy and theology, we argue that the sexual lives of insects − once analysed and delineated − influenced familiar ideological features of the intellectual landscape of the late Enlightenment, particularly in the theological philosophies of northern Europe and in the political economy of population in Britain. (shrink)

Zaolian (literally means “early love,” “zao” for “early”, “lian” for “love”) refers to courtship or dating among young people in elementary and secondary school systems. In today’s China, it is regarded as a serious social problem related to minors/adolescents. To safeguard their moral, hygiene and promising future, it is believed that zaolian should be prevented and controlled by school regulations, family pressures, and even state laws. This paper attempts to provide a historical explanation to origins of this specific (...) juvenile delinquency in China’s long twentieth century. Firstly, it offers a critical discussion on current scholarships, which dismiss zaolian either as a Freudian sexual repression by the Chinese Communist regime since 1949 or as a product of this regime’s social control efforts in the early 1980s. Unconvinced by these explanations, it then presents a new approach to examine “moral, ideological and structural” origins of zaolian. The moral and ideological origins include traditional Confucian patriarchy and its sexual norms, a new regime of western medical sciences, and the sexual repressive regime of the Chinese Communist Party, and all of them could be traced at least in the early 20th century. Lastly, it turns to the more crucial structural origins, or the three institutional-buildings responding to globally circulating discourses since the early 20th century: modern marriage against zaohun (early marriage), family planning policy against zaoyu (early childbirth) and modern educational system. Zaolian as a social problem was fledged in the 1980s when the three institutions had been well-established in China. (shrink)

The article discusses the immediate post-war persistence and subsequent rejection of eugenics in East-Central European socialist states, exploring the case of premarital medical certificates. Building our analysis on published and archival sources, we show that immediately after the war, policies formulated at the governmental level were informed by eugenic ideas in medical expertise. Premarital medical certificates were aimed at combatting contagious diseases and thus securing a healthy population. Their legal status varied: in Poland, they were formally introduced; in the Soviet (...) Occupied Zone and East Germany, Nazi law was abolished, but local officials still advocated for the introduction of certificates; and in Czechoslovakia, medical certificates were planned but not introduced. Despite these differences, after a short period between 1949 and 1950, the attempts to put a measure into practice ended in all three countries. We argue that the communist takeover and consolidation of power played a decisive role. After 1950, premarital medical certificates were not discussed again in Czechoslovakia or East Germany; in Poland, the debate re-emerged in 1959–60 during political liberalization. (shrink)

Harriet Taylor Mill and Anna Wheeler are two nineteenth-century British feminists generally over-shadowed by the fame of the men with whom they co-authored. Yet both made important and interesting contributions to political thought, particularly regarding deconstruction of (i) the patriarchal institution of marriage; and (ii) the current property regime which, in dominating workers, unfairly distributing the product of labour, and encouraging ‘individualism’, they believed did little to maximize the general happiness. Both were feminists, utilitarians, and socialists. How they link (...) these elements is both interestingly similar, and interestingly different. This article has four aims. Firstly, to make a strong claim concerning their authorial hand in works often considered to be solely the work of their male co-author. Secondly, to sketch those co-authoring relationships, and consider whether Taylor and Mill may even have consciously constructed their early letters ‘On Marriage' based upon what they knew of Thompson and Wheeler’s relationship. Thirdly, to map out their shared (though not identical) claim that marriage was a form of slavery, and the proposals they offered to free women from the domination of patriarchal relationships. Fourthly, to explore the way in which both thought female emancipation would be most truly realized via cooperative socialism. (shrink)

Lying in Early Modern English Culture is a major study of ideas of truth and falsehood in early modern England from the advent of the Reformation to the aftermath of the failed Gunpowder Plot. The period is characterised by panic and chaos when few had any idea how religious, cultural, and social life would develop after the traumatic division of Christendom. While many saw the need for a secular power to define the truth others declared that their allegiances (...) belonged elsewhere. Accordingly there was a constant battle between competing authorities for the right to declare what was the truth and so label opponents as liars. Issues of truth and lying were, therefore, a constant feature of everyday life and determined ideas of individual identity, politics, speech, sex, marriage, and social behaviour, as well as philosophy and religion. This book is a cultural history of truth and lying from the 1530s to the 1610s, showing how lying needs to be understood in action as well as in theory. Unlike most histories of lying, it concentrates on a series of particular events reading them in terms of academic theories and more popular notions of lying. The book covers a wide range of material such as the trials of Ann Boleyn and Thomas More, the divorce of Frances Howard, and the murder of Anthony James by Annis and George Dell; works of literature such as Othello, The Faerie Queene, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The Unfortunate Traveller; works of popular culture such as the herring pamphlet of 1597; and major writings by Castiglione, Montaigne, Erasmus, Luther, and Tyndale. (shrink)

In this series of articles the early life and work of the young Julian Schwinger are explored. In the present article, we discuss Schwinger's winding up his work at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, being offered a tenured professorship at Harvard University, getting married, and settling down into a highly productive teaching and research career.

From 1959 to 1969 the annual number of petitions for divorce in England and Wales increased by 133%, and the rate of divorce per 1000 married population increased by an estimated 100%. Traditional explanations for the historical increase in divorce, relying on such factors as increased legal and financial opportunity, wartime disturbances and demographic changes, seem inappropriate to deal with recent experience, and it is proposed that normative changes are involved. Cohort analysis suggests that the marriages of the 1960s are (...) more vulnerable to early divorce than those of the 1939/45 war, and that this vulnerability was increasing throughout the period. It seems likely that earlier divorce also implies higher proportions ultimately divorcing. (shrink)

Summary Whereas many aspects of the Augustan age continue to enjoy ongoing or renewed interest, the early careers of Tiberius Claudius Nero (born 16 November 42 BCE) and Nero Claudius Drusus (March/april 38 BCE), Livia’s sons from her marriage to Ti. Claudius Nero (pr. 42), have not been subject to much discussion or controversy of late. On the one hand, this could, perhaps, be explained in that they were quite young during the formative stages of the so-called Augustan (...) monarchy, the critical settlements being those of 27, 23 and 19 BCE, the eye-catchers par excellence in the political history of the early Augustan era. On the other hand, Livia’s sons only really emerge into the spotlight of both ancient sources and modern scholarship after the untimely passing of M. Vipsanius Agrippa in 12 BCE. This paper aims at revisiting the evidence for Tiberius’ and Drusus’ careers in the decade or so before the latter’s premature death in Germany in 9 BCE, the period preceding the rapid rise (and demise) of Gaius and Lucius Caesar. There are, indeed, strong indications that Livia’s sons played a far more important part than has hitherto been recognized, both in terms of their official position and their role in assisting Augustus with one of his most important political objectives, namely the imperial monopolization of the public triumph. (shrink)

Summary The main function of Hellenistic queenship is increasingly understood as contributing to the definition of the basileus. The early Ptolemies produced the most peculiar version of the ‘sister queen’, known throughout the Near East as an ideological construct, but taken literally in Egypt from the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphos and Arsinoe II Philadelphos, the ‘Sibling-Lovers’. The most famous example of a ‘virgin queen’ is Berenike, the daughter of Ptolemy III Euergetes and Berenike II, best known from the (...) Kanopos Decree, which regulated her posthumous cult. Often understood as a merely honorary title for some or potentially all princesses in Alexandria, the basilissa title of unmarried girls has found little scholarly attention so far. Altogether, there are surprisingly few royal daughters for whom we have clear evidence: besides the aforesaid Berenike, her sister Arsinoe III and previously Berenike, the daughter of the Philadelphoi. Claims that Arsinoe II or her sister Philotera had enjoyed the same status at the court of Ptolemy I Soter cannot be substantiated, so that their basilissa titles should be explained by marriage with a king. The phenomenon of virgin queenship was thus of limited duration. It is best interpreted as a ramification of an emphatically endogamous royal dynasty: Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III pledged their most distinguished daughter to the future successor even before he had been chosen from among his brothers. (shrink)

There is considerable evidence for the existence of a form of publicly recognized and institutionalized effeminacy or transvestism among males in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabian society. Unlike other men, these effeminates or mukhannarhiin were permitted to associate freely with women, on the assumption that they had no sexual interest in them, and often acted as marriage brokers, or, less legitimately, as go-betweens. They also played an important role in the development of Arabic music in Umayyad Mecca and, (...) especially, Medina, where they were numbered among the most celebrated singers and instrumentalists. Although they were subject to periodic persecution by the state, such measures were not based on any conclusions about their own sexual status – they were not assumed to be homosexual, although a few were – but on their activities as musicians and go-betweens, which were seen as corrupting the morals of society and especially of women. A particularly severe repression under the caliph Sulayman put an end to the mukhannarhiin's prominence in music and society, although not to their existence. (shrink)

This article examines the early Christian reception of the apocryphal book Tobit, focusing on Greek and Latin Christian interpretations from the 2nd to the 5th century CE. The study asks: how did early Christians read Tobit and for what purposes? The article provides an overview of how and why Tobit ended up in the Christian Bible, whether canonical or apocryphal. It then examines how the figures of Tobit and his son, Tobias, function as a moral exemplum in (...) class='Hi'>early Christianity, especially related to almsgiving and financial management, burials and the care of the dead, marriage and parenthood, prayer, the suffering and endurance of Tobit, and the role of Tobit in the Christian understanding of angels. The article demonstrates that Tobit had a rich and diverse reception in early Christian biblical interpretation, especially in the Latin church of the West. Contribution: This article investigates the historical reception of the apocryphal Book of Tobit in early Christian thought. The focus is especially on the varieties of thought regarding Tobit. The article provides an overview of how and why Tobit ended up in the Christian Bible, whether canonical or apocryphal. It then examines how the figures of Tobit and his son, Tobias, function as moral exempla. (shrink)