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)

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 Marriage Restraint Act 1929 has been abolished and it has been replaced by the Act of 2017 preserving article 2 of the previous statute, the legal age for marriage for a boy 21 and for a girl 18.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)

This article investigates the discourse on child marriage as reflected in the entire corpus of official investigations Statens Offentliga Utredningar and government bills proposing legislative measures against child marriage in Sweden since the first motions on the issue were drafted in 2001. It analyzes them as instances of sexularism: a form of secularism where the secular is construed in relation to sexual emancipation and gender equality rather than in relation to politics or the public sphere. It (...) then connects the effects of legislation against child marriage on the right to family reunification to the racialization of migrant populations and religious minorities in Sweden. (shrink)

The elimination of child marriage is a goal that ranks high on the agendas of civil society organizations, national governments, and multilateral institutions. To date, however, there has been very little scholarship on the historical debates over the definition of child marriage. This article examines the history of age-restricted marriage as it was debated during the development of human rights instruments in the post-World War II era. Using archives of the United Nations and affiliated organizations, (...) we detail how and why efforts to establish a universal minimum age for marriage were repeatedly unsuccessful. We illustrate how the current, commonly used definition of child marriage—as marriage before the age of 18—has never been agreed upon in a legally binding international convention but was seemingly established through a discursive innovation that borrowed principles from the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. (shrink)

The implementation of international human rights laws at the national and local levels relies on the framing of norms. Recent research has shown that international norms regarding child marriage have shifted from setting a minimum age limit to building the agency of girls to resist the practice, which can be either active or passive. Active agency requires taking action for its purpose, whereas passive agency involves acting in situations with limited options. The dominant discourse on child (...) class='Hi'>marriage often portrays girls as victims, and this article adds to the existing literature on how child brides exert agency utilizing semiotics approach. Based on an extended qualitative study conducted at _Quarit Woreda_, the Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia, the article explores how the girls have been exerting transformative agency to resist the practice, or at least exercise limited agency to enforce their marital choice. It also contrasts them with female parents, where the latter are found to uphold mythical signification being one among the central norm holders. By doing so, the contribution seeks to understand the semiotic system—the structural resources that support versus socio-cultural factors that constrain their agency. This article also discusses the multifaceted difficulties faced by girls in challenging the well-established norm and the creative strategies they use to overcome impediments through networking and collaboration pathways. Lastly, the article suggests potential future interventions that aim to enhance girls’ transformative agency which in turn supports the effective enforcement of child marriage law in the study area. (shrink)

The greatest mandate which God entrusted to human beings since creation is keeping and sustaining the creation. Human beings are responsible towards making the creation glorify God the creator. Another important task is to bring forth other human beings—children—who will also become responsible towards creation in their adulthood. It means that the responsibility of humanity towards creation is continuous. Children are gifts from God through marriages and have to be reared to adulthood in order for them to become fully responsible (...) to God’s creation. This article examined the perceptions of church leaders and normal Christians towards child-rearing in both African traditional and Christian settings. Being guided by Ainsworth and Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, the article addressed the following questions: How is child-rearing understood and practiced in the research area? Is there any laziness in the rearing of children that hinders their proper development to adulthood? In response to these questions, a qualitative study was conducted at Isongole Ward, Ileje District, Songwe region in Tanzania. Interviews were conducted to eight research participants selected purposefully after their informed consent. Data were analyzed qualitatively to obtain themes which were the basis for the presentation and interpretation of findings. Results indicated that laziness to rear children properly was one of the major hindrances for children to realize their adulthood potentials in the future. The article suggests that to have an ethical church and ethical society, child-rearing basing on proper Christian foundation is of paramount importance. (shrink)

For nearly a century, and until very recently, the majority of U.S. states required a blood test for marriage license applicants. The tests identified people with conditions formerly designated as "venereal diseases," most importantly gonorrhea and syphilis. Those who tested positive were barred from civil marriage. Although the premarital testing requirement is no longer a feature of state law, numerous related enactments are common features of law in most states.The historical literature describing the rise and fall of laws (...) prescribing marriage restrictions related to VD has treated those enactments as public health measures, meant primarily to forestall the spread of disease to intimate partners. But laws to... (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)

After four decades of China’s family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults’ responses to such pressure by examining their concerns about elder care, attitudes toward nursing homes, and living arrangement after marriage in a sample of 473 Chinese working young adults from six cities in China. Results showed that although most of the young (...) adults reported to have thought about the issue of parents’ elder care, the majority did not worry a lot about it. Only children expressed similar levels of worrying as those with siblings did. However, educational level, rather than sibling status, was systematically related to concerns about parents’ elder care and attitudes toward nursing homes. People with higher education tended to worry less about elder care, and were less likely to consider placing parents in nursing homes as a violation of filial piety. Analyses of the married sub-sample revealed that only children were more likely to co-reside with parents after marriage than those with siblings. And the main reason for co-residence was that the younger generation needed their parents’ help for childcare, rather than to better take care of their parents. Implications for parents’ elder care among Chinese only children were discussed. (shrink)

The forced marriage of minors is child abuse, consequently duties exist to stop them. Yet over 14 million forced marriages of minors occur annually in developing countries. The American Bar Association concludes that the problem in the US is significant, widespread but largely ignored, and that few US laws protect minors from forced marriages. Although their best chance of rescue often involves visits to health care providers, US providers show little awareness of this growing problem. Strategies discussed to (...) stop forced marriages include recommendations from the UN, the ABA, and the UK. The author anticipates and responds to criticisms that first, no duty to intervene exists without better laws and practice guidelines; and second, that such marriages are not child abuse in traditions where parental rights or familism allegedly justify them. (shrink)

[Opening sentences:]What business does the government have in sticking its nose into people’s private affairs? What affairs could be more legitimately private than relationships involving sex and love? LOCKEAN LIBERTARIANISM These questions resonate with many individuals across a wide range of ideologies and beliefs. For many of us these questions will strike us as rhetorical questions to which the obvious answers are “none” and “none.” These responses reflect a Lockean libertarian strain in the social thinking of many intelligent and thoughtful (...) people. But of course matters are more complex, even as viewed from a Lockean libertarian perspective.1 Sex and love tend to bring about new children, and causing a child to exist is a social act with wide consequences for other people who could not be supposed to consent to bear these consequences. Libertarians will regard with equanimity the showering of externalities in the form of benefits that typically accompany the creation and upbringing of a responsible competent person who becomes a useful member of society. The libertarian will insist that the receipt of such benefits does not generate any reciprocal obligations to benefit those who benefit us in these unconsented to ways.—at least, not obligations that are legitimately enforceable and that justify forcible imposition on people’s liberty to lead their lives as they choose. But bringing children into the world can and often does impose net costs on people who do not consent to bear these costs. The introduction of one extra person may strain scarce resources... (shrink)

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)

This chapter expresses that radical feminist perspectives on marriage and motherhood are in danger of being lost in the quest for equal rights. For more than a decade, feminist philosophers and lesbian/gay activists have been optimistic about the potentialities of legal marriage and legitimated motherhood. Feminist philosophers are taking as valuable theoretical paradigms for ethics many kinds of caring relationships that have been salient in women's lives. "Family" is itself a family resemblance concept. Apart from the institution of (...) marriage and historical ideals of the family, it is uncertain what characteristics mother‐child relationships would have, for many alternatives are possible. Historically, motherhood has been a core element of patriarchy. Moral philosophy might also be transformed by greater attention to the fact that adult experience and its potentialities are significantly conditioned by the childhoods of adults and of those children's relationships to adults. (shrink)

Sexual exploitation of children is a worldwide problem and Bangladesh is not immune from it. Children are being exploited sexually in various ways in Bangladesh and this trend is alarmingly increasing. The study is an attempt to analyze the nature and types of child exploitation as a victim in different contexts, such as housemaid, paedophilianism, child marriage and so on. It also tries to reveal the causes and consequences of the sexual exploitation of the child in (...) Bangladesh. The data and information for the study have been collected from field investigation and personal observation. The paper ends with some recommendations to redress the problem. (shrink)

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)

In this article I consider whether there a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the "marriage" business by leveling down to a universal civil union or "registered domestic partnership" status. Removing the symbolism of the term "marriage" from political conflict, privatizing it in the same way as religion, would have the advantage of both consistency and political reconciliation. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal (...) and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient. One potentially surprising conclusion of this inquiry is that far from creating strong reasons for tolerating these practices, religious or cultural reasons for valuing incest (as well as polygamy) actually seem to count against tolerating them. The reason is that from a liberal perspective, tolerating polygamy and incest involves the assumption that it is possible to disassociate polygamy and incest simpliciter from abusive practices associated with them, including environments where children are raised to devalue their own sexual (and other) autonomy. However, the presence of comprehensive doctrines which include polygyny or incest as part of a good life actually makes it harder to justify disassociating polygamy and incest themselves from the likely abuse and coercion practiced by those who would value polygyny or incest. (shrink)

An evolutionary theory of socialization suggests that children from father-absent families will mature earlier, and form less-stable pair bonds, compared with those from father-present families. Using a sample of about 1,000 persons the recent study focuses on elements of father-absent children’s behavior that could be better explained by a Darwinian approach than by rival social science theories. As a result of their enhanced interest in male competition, father-absent boys were found to engage in rule-breaking behavior more intensively than father-present boys. (...) Compared with father-present children, adolescents from widowed households (both boys and girls) showed a higher intensity of various kinds of noncompliant behavior, which can be linked to their earlier maturation. School attendance, age at marriage, and marital success proved to be influenced by the children’s early family experiences, governed by adapted evolutionary strategies. Father-absent daughters conceived more children than those whose fathers were present during their childhood. As evolutionary theory predicts, reproductive behavior of individuals from divorced households differed from that of individuals who grew up in widowed households. Finally, the strong correlation found between spontaneous abortion/stillbirths and family arrangement indicates that father absence has certain direct impacts on the neurohormonal processes of child development. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the UNICEF report entitled ‘Ending Child Marriage: Progress and Prospects’, there are 700 million women who were married as children, and 280 million girls are at risk of becoming child brides. In Turkey, according to the reports written by feminist organisations 1 in 3 marriages there is a child. These figures are alarming and signal the need for further and urgent research in the field. In 2016 I made my first ever film entitled Growing (...) Up Married. The film explores what happens after child marriage by focusing on the stories of four women from Turkey and making their experiences visible and audible, in an attempt to contribute to and advance debates around this significant, complex and emotionally charged human rights issue which has often been discursively silenced. Working on a documentary film on forced marriage in Turkey poses challenges to me as a UK-trained and based academic, who focuses on theories around feminism and media rather than filmmaking practice. In this article, I critically reflect upon the process of making a documentary film, and theories around interviewing women to examine the tensions inherent within representing forced marriage on screen. (shrink)

In this paper I use measures of childhood growth to assess from both an evolutionary theoretical and an applied public health perspective the impact of polygyny on maternal-child welfare among the Datoga pastoralists of Tanzania. I report that the growth and body composition of children varies in such a way as to suggest that polygyny is not generally beneficial to women in terms of offspring quality. Cross-sectional analysis of covariance by maternal marriage status revealed that children of first (...) and second wives in polygynous marriages grow relatively poorly, that this is correlated with maternal physical status, and that the pattern is not modified by household wealth. I discuss how the dynamics of sexual conflicts operating during the formation and maintenance of marriages may be important factors in the etiology of poor child growth in this population, leading to complex patterns of variation in anthropometric indicators of both women and children. The theoretical conclusion is that improved evolutionary models of polygyny should be designed to examine the potential for adaptive tradeoffs between the currencies of offspring quality and quantity for all types of parents in a polygynous population. The practical conclusion is that a better understanding of the relationships between marriage practices and health outcomes would assist in the development of culturally appropriate health and nutrition interventions. (shrink)

“How social norms change” is not only a theoretical question but also an empirical one. Many organizations have implemented programs to abandon harmful social norms. These programs are standardly monitored and evaluated with a set of empirical tools. While monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of changes in objective outcomes and behaviors is well developed, we will argue that M&E of changes in the wide range of beliefs and preferences important to social norms is still problematic. In this paper, we first present (...) a theoretical framework and then show how it should guide social norms measurement. As a case study, we focus on the harmful practice of child marriage. We show how an operational theory of social norms can guide the design of surveys, experiments and vignettes. We use examples from existing research to illustrate how to study social norms change. (shrink)

It is estimated that 15% of the world’s population experiences some form of disability. Disability itself is a hurdle in living and surviving. The vulnerable is always a victim of the situation. Discrimination in accessing human rights is experienced very commonly and again the condition of physically challenged women is worst. In India, still, a girl child is looked upon as unwanted and if she is disabled then is more avoided and neglected. Divyaang women and girls face double standards, (...) which lead to gender-based violence, sexual harassment, injustice, exploitation, and abuse. They face inequalities in education, health care, employment as a means of livelihood and social, civic opportunities and community participation, social stigma, lack of housing, and lack of spouse. This paper aims at knowing the marital status of disabled women/girls. Whether the disabled men accept Divyaang women/girls as wives, and how their husbands, children, and in-laws treat Divyaang women/girls is also an aim of the paper. (shrink)

Stereotypes within any society have consequences that are sometimes harmful and also affect targeted group of persons or ethnic group in a common way. One of the cultural stereotypes about Efik women is that they hardly believe in ‘…till death do us apart’ promised during monogamous marriage rite, that is, they walk out of marriage when conditions are unbearable. The misinterpretations of some exhortations given to the couples at Efik traditional marriage rite seem to support this claim. (...) For example: ‘Eyen mi nyamkkenyam, nnọ ke ndọ; ebot ebot edi unyam. Mm’ ifonke mendiyak, abang okubomo ikim okuwaha utong’. This exhortation is translated as: ‘I have not sold my child but given her to you in marriage; only goat is for sale. If she is no longer good for you bring her back. Let nothing malevolent happen to her.’ This implies that the life of one’s daughter is priced over marriage. One of the aims of this article is to investigate the context of this statement and how it has shaped people’s perception of marriage among the Efiks in Nigeria. In addition, this paper seeks to deconstruct some of the stereotypical views on Efik traditional marriage with regard to the female gender. Theories of Correspondent Inferences and Attribution in Social Psychology are used in understanding how women in Efik culture respond to marriage. Data from quantitative analysis of questionnaires and oral interviews threw more light on how cultural changes influence marriage institution among the Efiks. The findings of the research show that intermarriage, education, peer group influence, Western religious cultures, socio-economic conditions, etc., have necessitated the reconsideration of stereotypical views on marriage in Efik culture. (shrink)

Mommsen, writing in 1866,1 dated the marriage of Tiberius Gracchus and Cornelia to 165/4 on the basis of this passage, understanding it to mean that their twelve children came in an alternating series of boys and girls. Tiberius, with his father's praenomen, would then be either the first or second child of the marriage, and as he was born in 163/2, Mommsen concluded that the marriage must have taken place not much more than two years before (...) that date. (shrink)

Based on historical data pertaining to the Krummhörn population (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Germany), we compared reproductive histories of mothers according to whether the maternal grandmother (MGM) or the paternal grandmother (PGM) or neither of them was resident in the parents’ parish at the time of the mother’s first birth. In contrast to effects of PGMs, we discovered conditional differences in the MGM’s effects between landless people and wealthier, commercial farmers. Our data indicate that the presence of the MGM only (...) lowers the woman’s age at marriage (AAM) and her age at the birth of her first child (AFB) in the case of landless families. However, among commercial farmers, who can generally be characterized by a lower AAM and AFB, we found opposite tendencies for the MGM’s effect leading to a relatively small delay in AAM and AFB. Moreover, we also analyzed differences in the completed fertility (i.e., children ever born: CEB). Results indicate that landless families in general do have fewer CEB compared with commercial farmers except for those families in which the MGM has been present. Emphasizing that the adaptiveness of investment decisions should depend on the interaction of genetic, lineage-specific (intrinsic) and ecologically imposed (extrinsic) constraints, we conclude that kin strategies consequently address different fitness components under different conditions. (shrink)

abstract In this article I consider whether the legalization of sex‐same marriage implies a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the ‘marriage’ business by leveling down to a universal civil union status. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible (...) types of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first‐degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of controlling population growth and the probable problems with old-age security and female infanticide, the one-child program in China could have latent ramifications. It could drastically reduce the size and significance of the patrilineal lineage, promote the popularity of uxorilocal marriage, and encourage women to make nontraditional career choices. The sum of these effects could finally allow China to make major advances in achieving its unrealized goal of eliminating gender-based inequality.

If a state with liberal political and justificatory commitments extends benefits of various kinds to persons forming families, what qualifications may such a state place on the right to access to those benefits? I will make two assumptions for the purposes of this paper. The first is the political and justificatory terrain of some form of political or otherwise non-perfectionist liberalism. The assumption is that we are considering the resources and limitations of a community of persons who accept moral pluralism (...) (if not a specific doctrine like the "burdens of judgment"), some priority for individual freedom, and the obligation to justify public coercion and exclusion in terms accessible and fair to all members of morally and culturally diverse society. The second is that it is justified for a liberal state to recognize some forms of domestic partnerships or families in the first place and extend further benefits to them such as tax credits or laws extending (or facilitating the extension of) medical or social insurance. It is, of course, possible to imagine the argument that the liberal state gets out of the marriage business by getting out of it entirely - by extending no recognition or positive rights to families whatsoever beyond negative non-interference rights. I am interested in the dilemma of a society broadly like existing liberal ones which is committed both to subsidizing families and also to justificatory neutrality (expressed in American constitutional legal terms as the requirement of providing a "rational basis" for unequal treatment). Given these assumptions, I believe that the most justifiable policy on liberal grounds is not the institution of "marriage" increasingly open to new constituent relationships but rather a status of "registered domestic partnership" which fulfills the social and moral aims behind subsidizing the family but is entirely neutral not only to the gender or even to the numbers of the partners, but also to the affective and emotional content of domestic life and the purposes behind contracting domestic partnerships. So is there a right to polygamy and incestuous marriage? There is not a specific right to either and thus there is no a priori reason why some restrictions or even prohibitions on them might not be justified, but the same is true for every specific act where a general right to the freedom exists. I argue in this paper, however, that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. I argue that objections to polygamy from (1) female autonomy, (2) damage to children, (3) fairness in the marital market, and (4) the unfair burdening of society are serious and worth refuting, but do not establish a victorious case against multi-member relationships. As to incest, there are two separate questions. The first is whether the new institution of "registered domestic partnerships" should be open to them. The answer to that, given the state's lack of interest in citizens' reasons for forming partnerships and in what they do whilst being registered in one, is clearly "yes." The second is whether, entirely separate from the issue of legal recognition of domestic partnership, the state has a legitimate rational interest in deterring, preventing or punishing consanguineous sexual relations between close blood relations (first-degree incest). Here, the objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient. (shrink)

In this article I consider whether the legalization of sex-same marriage implies a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the 'marriage' business by leveling down to a universal civil union status. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types (...) of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient. (shrink)

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends couple human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) counselling and testing (CHCT) as one of the beneficial and cost-effective means for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV within couple’s relationships. However, CHCT within the PMTCT of HIV settings in Zimbabwe remains low. This study explored adult men and women’s views from a rural district of Zimbabwe regarding the possible factors that facilitate or inhibit the uptake of CHCT for the PMTCT of HIV. The study (...) utilised qualitative methods. Data were collected by conducting eight focus group discussions among adult men and women, as well as eight in-depth interviews with pregnant women admitted in antenatal wards in local hospitals. Thematic analysis was used for analysing the data with the aid of NVivo software. The study revealed that CHCT initiatives were hampered by certain patriarchal behaviours and beliefs that make it acceptable for men to have multiple sexual partners, thereby exposing their marriages and relationships to HIV. Social constructions around gender roles tend to prescribe women as the sole custodians of children’s health, and this led to stigmatisation against men who participated in PMTCT programmes. In addition, certain religious practices do not allow the use of medicine, which makes CHCT a nonevent. However, engaging men on platforms that advocate for progressive masculinities and raising awareness of this practice through information dissemination were identified as enablers in increasing CHCT. Contribution: The significant contribution of this study is that it demonstrated the importance of acknowledging the societal, cultural and religious practices inherent in a community, as they are central to their responses to HIV prevention interventions. (shrink)

The emerging phenomenon of genetic paternity testing shows how good science and useful social reform can run off the rails. Genetic paternity testing enables us to sort out, in a transparent and decisive way, the age-old but traditionally never-quite-answerable question of whether a child is genetically related to the husband of the child's mother. Given the impossibility of settling this question for certain, British and American law has long held that a biological relationship must almost always be assumed (...) to exist. According to what is known as the “marital presumption” or “presumption of legitimacy,” a child born to a woman within a marital relationship is assumed to be the biological child of the woman's husband unless he was absent, impotent, or sterile. In other words, if paternity was not a physical impossibility for the husband, there was a nearly irrebuttable presumption that he was the father of the child. The husband was locked into the role of fatherhood. a. (shrink)

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends couple human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) counselling and testing (CHCT) as one of the beneficial and cost-effective means for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV within couple’s relationships. However, CHCT within the PMTCT of HIV settings in Zimbabwe remains low. This study explored adult men and women’s views from a rural district of Zimbabwe regarding the possible factors that facilitate or inhibit the uptake of CHCT for the PMTCT of HIV. The study (...) utilised qualitative methods. Data were collected by conducting eight focus group discussions among adult men and women, as well as eight in-depth interviews with pregnant women admitted in antenatal wards in local hospitals. Thematic analysis was used for analysing the data with the aid of NVivo software. The study revealed that CHCT initiatives were hampered by certain patriarchal behaviours and beliefs that make it acceptable for men to have multiple sexual partners, thereby exposing their marriages and relationships to HIV. Social constructions around gender roles tend to prescribe women as the sole custodians of children’s health, and this led to stigmatisation against men who participated in PMTCT programmes. In addition, certain religious practices do not allow the use of medicine, which makes CHCT a nonevent. However, engaging men on platforms that advocate for progressive masculinities and raising awareness of this practice through information dissemination were identified as enablers in increasing CHCT.Contribution: The significant contribution of this study is that it demonstrated the importance of acknowledging the societal, cultural and religious practices inherent in a community, as they are central to their responses to HIV prevention interventions. (shrink)

This paper considers the ethics of routine antenatal HIV testing and the role of informed consent within such a policy in order to decide how we should proceed in this area—a decision that ultimately rests on the relative importance we give to public health goals on the one hand and respect for individual autonomy on the other.A recent illuminating qualitative study by Zulueta and Boulton1 explores the practicalities of informed consent in routine antenatal HIV testing. Its results support what I (...) have argued1 is inevitable with routine testing policies of this kind: that routine antenatal testing regimes are incompatible with requirements for informed consent. It has become clear that intervention could reduce the risk of transmitting HIV from mother to child from 15–20%2 to around 8%,3 or possibly as low as 2%.4,5 The evidence of this possibility produced a general trend towards introducing routine antenatal HIV screening in developed countries worldwide.6,7,8,9,10 The aim was to dramatically reduce the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child by encouraging universal antenatal HIV testing. The UK has been no exception, and in 1999 the government instructed health authorities to implement a policy of offering and recommending an HIV test to all pregnant women.11This UK antenatal screening policy and others like it, although well-meaning, are problematic in their formulation. In order to reflect contemporary ethical and legal practice, such policies attempt to marry the public health aims of maximising uptake of testing with a commitment to respect the choices of patients by requiring informed consent before they participate in screening. Thus, in the case of UK policy, health professionals are instructed to recommend the HIV test to all pregnant women in order to achieve the target of a 90% …. (shrink)

The Chinese traditionally have valued sons over daughters, depending on their sons to support them in old age. Recent changes, however, suggest a shift toward greater gender equality, with daughters also keeping elderly parents. The present study, undertaken in 1979 in the People's Republic of China, assessed attitudes of 48 university staff members toward financial support for aged parents and living arrangements in old age, with an emphasis on gender differences. We found that most sons and daughters gave financial support (...) to their parents regularly and most men and women still believed adult children should share housing with their aged parents. In this sample, the sons assumed this responsibility far more than the daughters, and few of the respondents believed their parents should live with a daughter. However, when asked to project their own preferences in old age, sons thought they would prefer to live with a son, but daughters feel they would like to live with a daughter. These results are discussed in terms of two important cultural changes, the new marriage laws and the one-child policy, that were implemented at the time of the study. (shrink)

What drives moral revolutions like the legal abolition of slavery and women’s right to vote? The importance of having an answer to this question lies in the hope of it being able to help us create moral progress in the future. This can be changing harmful practices and traditions like honour killing, child marriage, genital mutilation and political corruption. Furthermore, a wrong or insufficient picture of the dynamics of change, held by e.g. politicians or NGOs and incorporated into (...) laws and institutions, can lead to misfired inventions, wasted resources and possibly human harm. If we lack conceptual clarity and empirical insights, we will have trouble making good decisions. However, before answering the above question we need to consider what answering it entails. This article therefore discusses which form an understanding of the dynamics of moral revolutions should take in order to best help us create progress. I do so by critically investigating one currently dominant way of approaching this issue, namely the idea that we should produce a general explanatory theory of the fundamental dynamics of change. In order to expose the problems in this approach, I engage with a contemporary example of it, namely Appiah’s work on moral revolutions, and demonstrate that honour codes cannot have the explanatory role, which Appiah claims for them. The article concludes by pointing to alternative models of understanding the dynamics of moral revolutions and changes. (shrink)

In Mozambique, poverty is pervasive because of factors such as the civil war and its aftermath, political instability, food scarcity and natural disasters. This article elucidates the situation of post-civil war Mozambique from a socio-political perspective with a specific focus on children and the youth as a particularly vulnerable group. Many children and young people have been displaced and are subject to work exploitation and sexual abuse. Female children also fall victim to the cultural practice of child marriage. (...) The absence of comprehensive social measures for the protection of vulnerable young persons has a detrimental effect on their welfare and future prospects. The aim of the article is to explore the role that faith communities and church institutions can play in this context. From an inclusive congregational perspective, the inclusion of youth in all aspects of faith communities as a strategy for development is discussed. From a human rights and theological perspective, participatory action is required for faith communities and church institutions to contribute to making a life of human dignity possible for children and young people. (shrink)

Introduction: Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) has unfavorable consequences for women as well as for newborn babies, which is very serious and preventable public health problem. It is believed to have an excessive occurrence in lives of women in South Asia. The objective of this study is to describe the prevalence, risk factors and consequences of IPV in Bangladesh. Methods: A scoping review was carried out based on the past 12 years of posted and gray literature about IPV in Bangladesh using (...) Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. Only the literature addressing abuses or violence in households or outside including physical, sexual or mental violence on the married woman in Bangladesh were taken into consideration for the study. Results: The overall prevalence of IPV in Bangladesh, the latest reviews of rates ranging from 15.5-82.7%.Most of the IPV in Bangladesh was based totally on the experience of legally married women. The main risk factors of IPV in Bangladesh were women being younger, from lower socioeconomic reputation, from lower academic attainment and lower education of husband, dowry, child marriage, perceived disobedience of wives, family conflict, children had recently been ill, and incapability of to furnish sexual satisfaction. Maternal depressive symptoms, signs of stress, anxiety and constraint to the better health of young children are the main consequences of IPV in Bangladesh. Besides, IPV causes unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy loss in the form of miscarriage, induced abortion, or stillbirth and termination of pregnancy in Bangladesh. Conclusions: Woman’s empowerment may reduce IPV and understanding attitudes towards IPV in cultural context could be crucial for developing interventions to reduce IPV and its consequences. (shrink)

As much as Zimbabwe is considered one of the highly literate countries in the Global South, with well documented succession and inheritance laws, womenfolk continue to be stripped of their assets after the death of their husbands. This trend became even worse during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when movement was restricted, making it difficult to access the courts of law. Using a mixed methodological approach of a desk research and qualitative interviews conducted in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, (...) Zororo Comfort circuit in Harare, it has been noted that women and girls face numerous horrific experiences, pushing them to wallow in the margins of society. This study therefore calls for the church to address the vulnerability of women and girls using a deviant theory. To date, there are increasing figures of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child marriages. Financial and communal disturbances corresponding through continuous pandemic challenges for women are aggravated, and those who survive find it challenging to hunt for fairness because of stockpiled court issues and freedom for the perpetrators. The fact that women are dispossessed of their belongings because of the cultural status of being a woman calls for a cultural cue. Using a deviant theory in the narrative of a tenacious widow in the gospel of Luke 18:1–8 from a sociological dimension, this study provides a critical edge into interpreting the action of this widow who deviated from expected societal customs. The study concludes by calling faith communities to re-read the widow’s story through deviant theory spectacles to raise questions on how this widow courageously represented herself from societal margin to undermine the centre (patriarchal standards) and to utilise the text as a resource for addressing the plight of women to be repositioned and be empowered in Zimbabwe.Contribution: This study contributes to the ongoing academic studies on women, pandemics, religion and gender, using the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, Zororo Comfort circuit as a case study. It concludes by an invitation to faith communities to re-read the widow’s story using a deviant theory in order to use the text as a resource to alleviate the plight of women and empower them to the position of equilibrium with men. (shrink)

This study investigated the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the women of Zimbabwe. Drawing from womanist perspectives, the study reflected on pastoral care, gender equality and proposed new ways of engaging the Bible while recognising the impact of hermeneutics on lived realities. The research examined situational analysis reports from government and nonprofit organisations, journal articles and other academic sources focusing on various aspects of Zimbabwean women’s contexts. Womanist perspectives were engaged to provide parameters for the reflection (...) and the recommendation of alternatives that have potential to contribute towards the enhancement of women’s lives. The study revealed a significant economic impact on those in the informal sector, which is largely occupied by women. Moreover, during periods of lockdown, there was a significant increase in the cases of gender-based violence (GBV), intimate partner violence (IPV) and child marriages. Churches were also impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted their operations even though many continued in their efforts to make a positive contribution to their members and society at large. While many churches had to discover creative ways to provide pastoral care for their flocks, when it comes to the complex challenges such as GBV, IPV, rape and child marriages, there is a lack of evidence demonstrating the church’s practical attempts towards addressing them. Contribution: This paper suggests that gender equality and the employment of gender-sensitive biblical hermeneutics are alternatives that have real potential to contribute towards efforts targeted at safeguarding the liberation, well-being and flourishing of women during the pandemic and beyond. It also introduces seMadzimai, a womanist African-Zimbabwean Bible-reading approach. (shrink)

Mahatma K. Gandhi's dedication to finding a path of liberation from an epidemic of violence has been well documented before. The central issue and the novelty of this book is its focus on what Gandhi wanted to liberate us for. The book also provides an assessment of how viable his positive vision of humanity is. Gandhi revolutionized the struggle for Indian liberation from Great Britain by convincing his countrymen that they must turn to nonviolence and that India needed to be (...) liberated from its social ills--poverty, unemployment, opium addiction, institution of child marriage, inequality of women, and Hindu-Muslim frictions--even more than it needed political freedom. Although Gandhi's legacy has not been forgotten, it has often been distorted. He is called "Mahatma" and venerated as a saint, but not followed and often misinterpreted. Predrag Cicovacki attempts to de-mythologize Gandhi and take a closer look at his thoughts, aims, and struggles. He invites us to look at the footprints Gandhi left for us, and follow them as carefully and critically as possible. Cicovacki concludes that Gandhi's spiritual vision of humanity and the importance of adherence to truth are his lasting legacy. (shrink)

This article studies the eugenic theories of Marathi sexological writer and novelist Narayan Sitaram Phadke, and his attempts to domesticate the modern ideal of the adult romantic couple as a yardstick of ‘emotional democracy’ in late colonial India. Locating Phadke's work against the backdrop of the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929) and its eugenicist concerns, I argue that he conceptualized romantic love as an emotion and a form of sociability central to the state's biopolitical schemes of ensuring modern (...) coupledom but as exceeding the state's capacity to rationally order Indian sex life. Consequently, he crafted literary supplements like the bildungsroman to circulate ‘English’ idioms of emotional and corporeal intimacy in Marathi; his novels domesticated eugenic sexology for its ‘vernacular’ audiences by advocating caste-bound romantic love as the blueprint for Indian marital coupling. As exemplified by Phadke's work, an emerging Marathi discourse of love demarcated a space for the young couple to operate as a vehicle of interpersonal openness within the constraints of the upper-caste joint family. By outlining the parameters of this Brahmanical aesthetic discourse, I show that the couple became the locus of a self-styled ‘democratic’ form of emotional attachment aimed at developing a necessary dynamism within endogamous caste-based marital arrangements without radically transforming them. The science performed through the Marathi novel in the 1920s and 1930s consequently explains the increasing prominence of romantic love as a form of developmental ‘democratic’ discourse at a time when both romantic love and democracy-in-practice were widely experienced as absent from Indian society. (shrink)

John 8:3–11 depicts the story of a woman who is condemned to death because she was caught in the act of adultery. The Pharisees and Scribes who condemned the woman cited Deuteronomy 22:23–24 and Leviticus 20:10 which prescribe death penalty for adultery. What begs answers through this hermeneutical study of the pericope from the lens of gender-based violence (GBV) in Johane Marange Apostolic Church, Ruwa District, in Zimbabwe, is why only the woman was picked for condemnation yet the cited Mosaic (...) Law provides that both the man and the woman who engage in the act of adultery face capital punishment. The article interrogates the text to identify limbs or tentacles on which the decision by the Pharisees and Scribes to condemn only the woman leaving out the man stands. An exegetical study of the text is conducted to explore possible reasons behind the relegation of women to the receiving end of misogynistic socially constructed gender stereotypes. A qualitative methodological praxis fusing socio-historical method and qualitative analysis is engaged in analysing the Biblical Johannine and Johane Marange Apostolic Church Ruwa District communities, respectively. The article mirrors patriarchal tendencies in the Johane Marange Apostolic Church into the selective application of biblical doctrine between males and females depicted in the Johannine text of John 8:3–11. The article argues and concludes that, as reflected in John 8:3–11, GBV practices in Johane Marange Apostolic Church have sentenced women to sexual exploitation, rape, early child marriages and high maternal mortality rate. Contribution: The study recommends ways of cutting the tentacles of the acts of GBV being imposed on women in general, and on the girl child in particular. (shrink)

Çocuk evliliği, tarih boyunca farklı toplumlarda bilinen ve uygulanan sosyal bir olgu olsa da son zamanlarda, modern duyarlılıkları giderek daha fazla rahatsız eden bir hal almıştır. Son iki asır öncesine kadar, Avrupa hukuki düşüncesinde çocuklar yargı önünde farklı bir muamele görmelerine imkan veren istisnai bir statüye sahip değildi. Diğer taraftan, İslam hukukunun çocuklara, özel bir hukuki statü kazandırma konusunda bazı öncü adımlar attığını söyleyebiliriz. Nitekim, en eski İslam hukuku kitaplarının bile, insanın fiziksel ve zihinsel gelişim aşamalarına ve her bir aşamada (...) ortaya çıkan hukuki hükümlere dair son derece teknik ayrıntılarla dolu olduğunu görebiliriz. Ancak çocuk hakları konusundaki bu erken farkındalığa rağmen, çocuk evliliği olgusu hem İslam toplumlarında hem de İslam hukukunda kendini gösterebilmiştir. Çünkü, İslam çocuk hukuku, ilk ortaya çıktığı dönemin kültürel şartlarından ciddi şekilde etkilenmiştir. Üstelik bu kültürel şartlar, İslam dünyası boyunca İslam çocuk hukukunun temel zemini olma işlevini sürdüre gelmiştir. Bu çalışma, alimlerin çocuk evliliğini delillendirmek üzere yapageldikleri bazı aşırı yorumları ortaya koymaya ve konuyla ilgili âyetleri metinsel bağlamıyla daha uyumlu bir şekilde okumaya çalışmaktadır.Özet: Her bağlam için geçerli olabilecek, standart bir çocuk tanımı yapmak göründüğünden daha güçtür. Bu nedenle çocuk araştırmaları sahasında çalışan akademisyenlerin, muhtelif sosyal disiplinler tarafından yapılacak herhangi bir çocuk tarifi konusunda memnuniyetsizlik içinde olması doğaldır. Diğer yandan, İslam hukukunda baştan beri ayrıntılı bir çocuk hukuku teorisi mevcuttur. İslam hukuk düşüncesinde, insanlar doğum ile yetişkinlik arasındaki gelişim döneminde üç aşamadan geçerler: Çocukluk (küçüklük), buluğ ve rüşt. Bütün fıkıh mezhepleri, insanın doğumu ile ergenliği arasındaki dönemde küçük çocuk sayılacağı kanaatindedirler. Bu çocukların mallarının en iyi şekilde idare edilebilmesi için yasal temsilcileri bulunmak zorundadır. Fakîhler çocuğun velisinin, özellikle de baba veya baba tarafından dedenin, velâyeti altındaki küçük çocuklar üzerinde mücbir bir yetkisi olduğu (velâyet-i mücbire) konusunda geniş bir fikir birliğine sahiptirler. Buna göre veliler, velâyetleri altında bulunan çocukları uygun gördükleri kişilerle evlendirme yetkisine de sahiptirler. Fakat zaman zaman beşik kertmesi olarak da anılan bu uygulama bir ön sözleşmeden ibarettir. Yani bu sözleşme doğrudan doğruya fiziksel boyutları da olan müşterek bir evlilik hayatını meşru kılmamaktadır. Çünkü cinsel hayatın ancak buluğdan sonra gerçekleşmesi ön görülmektedir. Modernite öncesi İslam tarihi boyunca, İbn Şubrume (ö. 144/761), Ebû Bekr el-Esamm (ö. 200/816) ve Osman el-Bettî (ö. 143/760) gibi bir kaç fakih dışında küçük çocukların evlenmesine kategorik olarak karşı çıkan kimselere pek rast gelinmemektedir.Hanefi mezhebinde, herhangi bir zihinsel özrü olmaksızın buluğa eren erkek ve kız çocuklar evlilik konusunda mücbir velâyetin kapsamı dışına çıkarlar. Bu, evlilik sözleşmelerini bizzat gerçekleştirebilecekleri anlamına gelmektedir. Fakat veli, uygunsuz bulduğu evliliğe karşı dava açarak bunu yargı yoluyla geçersiz kılma yoluna gidebilir. Diğer üç Sunnî mezhep ise erkek ve kız çocuklar arasında bir ayrım yapar: Buluğa eren erkek kendi evlilik akdini yapabilme hakkını elde ederken aynı durumdaki kız çocuklar velâyet altında kalmaya devam ederler. Şâfiʿî mezhebine göre, velâyeti gerekli kılan illet (bekaret) hâlâ geçerliliğini korumaktadır. Dolayısıyla veli, kızları evlendirme konusundaki icbâri yetkisini elinde tutmaya devam etmektedir. Bu durumda kızın rızasının alınması, akdin geçerliliği için şart olmaktan ziyade sadece nezaket gereğidir. Rüşte ulaşmak veya fizyolojik olgunlaşma sürecini tamamlamak ise İslam hukukunda evlilik için şart görülmemiştir.Modern zamanlara kadar geleneksel İslam hukukunun erken evlilik lehinde gösterdiği bu yaklaşımda herhangi bir değişiklik olmamıştır. 1917 yılında çıkan Hukuk-ı Aile Kararnamesi daha önce benzeri görülmemiş bir dizi düzenleme getirmiştir: İlk olarak, evlilik yaşı erkek için on sekiz kız için ise on yedi olarak belirlenmiştir. On sekiz yaşın altındaki erkeklerin hakimden evlenme izni alması; on yedi yaşından küçük kızların ise hem veli onayı hem de hakim iznine sahip olması zorunlu hale getirilmiştir. On iki yaşın altındaki erkekler ile dokuz yaşından küçük kızların ise asla evlendirilemeyeceği kararlaştırılmıştır.Mantıkî bağlam ve sentaktik yapı elverişli olmamasına rağmen fakihler çocuk evliliğini desteklemek üzere bazı Kur’ân âyetlerine (Nisâ 4/3-6, Nisâ 4/127, Talâk 65/4) referansta bulunmuşlardır. Makale içeriğinde detaylı şekilde açıklandığı üzere zorlama yorumlamalarda bulunmuşlardır. Bu makale, söz konusu âyetlere daha tutarlı bir yorum getirmeye çalışmaktadır. Aynı şekilde, Kur’an’ın çocuk evliliğini kolaylaştırıcı bir tavır içerisinde olmadığını, çocukların evlendirilebilmesi yönündeki yaklaşımların tarihsel ve kültürel şartlara bağlı olarak yapılan bazı zorlama yorumlara dayandığını ileri sürmektedir.Hz. ʿÂişe’nin Hz. Peygamber ile oldukça erken bir yaşta evlendiğine dair nakledilen rivâyet de konuyla ilgili olarak ileri sürülen başka bir argümandır. Bu rivâyetin sahih olduğuna inanılmaktadır. Buna rağmen ilginç bir şekilde bu rivâyet çok az fakih tarafından kullanılmıştır. Bunun sebebi, fakîhlerin Hz. Peygamberin mahremiyetinden bahsetmek istememeleri olabilir. Rivâyetin hücciyeti konusuna kuşkuya kapılmış olmaları da mümkündür. Söz konusu rivâyete daha yakından bakıldığında, ifadedeki menfi üslup hemen dikkat çekmektedir. Çünkü rivâyette Hz. ʿÂişe, Hz. Peygamberle evlendiği günü anlatırken sürekli olarak fizyolojik ve psikolojik açıdan olumsuz koşullardan bahsetmektedir. Nitekim Hz. ʿÂişe birden bire oynamakta olduğu salıncaktan alınmakta ve kendisinin de bilmediği bir yere doğru götürülmektedir. Rivâyet, sadece çocuk evliliğinin cevazını ortaya koymakla yetinmemekte, sanki aynı zamanda çocukların uygunsuz koşullardaki evlilik taleplerine bile itaatkar olmaları gerektiğini salık vermektedir. İçerik yanında teknik olarak bakıldığında bu rivâyet, haber-i vâhiddir. Çünkü rivâyet, sadece Hz. ʿÂişe tarafından bilinebilecek detayları içermektedir. Tarihî açıdan bir öneme sahip olmasına rağmen dinî hükümlere kanıt olma niteliğinden yoksundur. Çünkü bu rivâyette, râvi konuyla ilgili Hz. Peygamber’e ait resmi bir açıklamayı nakletmemekte; sadece kendi zaviyesinden maruz kaldığı bir durumdan bahsetmektedir. (shrink)

“Philosophy isn’t useful for changing the world,” parents of philosophy students and Karl Marx tell us (at least about non-Marxist philosophy). Cristina Bicchieri’s new book Norms in the Wild provides an impressive antidote against this worry. It stands to change of social practices as Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare stands to political revolutions. Bicchieri combines hands-on advice on how to change social practices with compelling theoretical analyses of social norms. She draws heavily on her influential earlier work on norms, but the (...) book doesn’t presuppose familiarity with it. Many of her examples stem from her work with UNICEF and other NGOs; they include female genital cutting, open defecation, child marriage, and many more. I cannot do full justice to Bicchieri’s rich book here, but will instead focus on three points. 1. Bicchieri offers a detailed and helpful botanization of collective behavior. Purely behavioral definitions of the relevant categories are inadequate. We must look at preferences and beliefs in order to know, e.g., whether something is a social norm. 2. Intentionally changing social norms is a complex process that requires several steps and extensive diagnostics. Simple information campaigns or provision of resources are unlikely to be successful. 3. Trendsetters and scripts often play a crucial role in norm change. Any approach that doesn’t look at psychological mechanisms and variables that are unevenly distributed across the population is inadequate. (shrink)

This chapter expresses that radical feminist perspectives on marriage and motherhood are in danger of being lost in the quest for equal rights. For more than a decade, feminist philosophers and lesbian/gay activists have been optimistic about the potentialities of legal marriage and legitimated motherhood. Feminist philosophers are taking as valuable theoretical paradigms for ethics many kinds of caring relationships that have been salient in women's lives. "Family" is itself a family resemblance concept. Apart from the institution of (...) marriage and historical ideals of the family, it is uncertain what characteristics mother‐child relationships would have, for many alternatives are possible. Historically, motherhood has been a core element of patriarchy. Moral philosophy might also be transformed by greater attention to the fact that adult experience and its potentialities are significantly conditioned by the childhoods of adults and of those children's relationships to adults. (shrink)

_Families of Virtue_ articulates the critical role of the parent-child relationship in the moral development of infants and children. Building on thinkers and scientists across time and disciplines, from ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers to contemporary feminist ethicists and attachment theorists, this book takes an effective approach for strengthening families and the character of children. Early Confucian philosophers argue that the general ethical sensibilities we develop during infancy and early childhood form the basis for nearly every virtue and that (...) the parent-child relationship is the primary context within which this growth occurs. Joining these views with scientific work on early childhood, _Families of Virtue_ shows how Western psychology can reinforce and renew the theoretical underpinnings of Confucian thought and how Confucian philosophers can affect positive social and political change in our time, particularly in such areas as paid parental leave, breastfeeding initiatives, marriage counseling, and family therapy. (shrink)