QUESTIONING THE GOAL OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

The prominent call to legalise same-sex marriage in Australia raises questions concerning whether its achievement will result in amplified societal acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and on what grounds this acceptance will take place. Same-sex marriage may not challenge heteronormative and patriarchal features typically associated with marriage, and may serve to reinforce a hierarchy that promotes traditional marriage as the ideal relationship structure. This may result in only assimilationist acceptance of LGBT people. However, the consequence of inclusion to marriage ought to reflect social acceptance of LGBTs as people worthy of equal treatment in dignity and in rights, regardless of perceived differences or similarities to a supposed majority standard. This article argues that justice would be best served by introducing and promoting a variety of State-sanctioned unions whilst simultaneously introducing same-sex marriage. This ‘pluralisation strategy’ would increase awareness and legitimacy of other relationship-recognition options, promoting respectful acceptance of LGBT and heterosexual people alike.     

Case note: Same-sex Marriage in South Africa –the constitutional Court's Judgment

Late last year the Constitutional Court of South Africa decided that the exclusion of same-sex couples from the common law definition of marriage and the statutory marriage formula was unconstitutional as it violated the rights of such couples to equality. The Court suspended the declaration of invalidity for one year to allow Parliament to enact new legislation to correct the defects, failing which certain words would be read into the legislation to accommodate same-sex marriage. A single judge dissented on the issue of remedy, finding that the Court should have developed the common law to include same-sex couples within the definition of marriage and read the necessary wording into the legislation with immediate effect. The decision is the culmination of a legal struggle by gays and lesbians for recognition of their relationships and the protection of their rights. While the scope of the right to marry may have been extended, the rights of domestic partners lag behind, often to the detriment of women in these relationships.     

‘Do not forget your bit wife’: love,marriage and the negotiation of patriarchy in Irish Presbyterian marriages,c. 1780–1850

Drawing on the marital correspondence of Isabella Marshall and William John Campbell Allen, an Ulster Presbyterian couple, alongside a number of other Presbyterian families, this article explores how patriarchy was negotiated within Irish Presbyterian marriages, c. 1780–1850. It begins by framing the Campbell Allens as a case-study, and examines how the couple negotiated three elements of the patriarchal marriage ideal: love, obedience and the control of economic resources. Next, it uses the family papers and personal correspondence of two other Presbyterian couples, and considers how typical their examples are of love, marriage and patriarchy. This article argues that patriarchy was not a fixed principle in marriage. Rather, it was subject to a constant process of negotiation and refinement during the course of marriage. The roles played by women and men in marriage were also fluid and elastic.     

Freethought,Free Love and Feminism: secularist debates on marriage and sexual morality,England c. 1850–1885

This article examines the previously unexplored current of Freethinking feminism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Active in the women’s movement of this period, Freethinking feminists were nonetheless viewed as a liability—an attitude that contributed to their exclusion from much of the subsequent historiography. Such marginalisation was due not only to their vocal opposition to all forms of religion, but also their openness to discussing new ways of organising heterosexual relationships. This article focuses on Freethinking feminist critiques of marriage and support for free unions. It demonstrates that these issues continued to be debated in the Secularist movement at a time when many other radical organisations—including much of the women’s movement—kept silent on such topics. In this way, Freethinking feminists kept alive the more radical and libertarian critiques of traditional sexual morality developed by Owenite feminists in the 1830s and 40s. The author argues that the ideology of Freethought propelled its adherents to readdress questions of sex within a new ‘Secularist’ ethical framework. Fierce debate ensued, yet commitment to freedom of discussion ensured that ‘unrespectable’, libertarian voices were never entirely silenced. Freethinking feminism might, then, be viewed as the ‘missing link’ between early nineteenth‐century feminist visions of greater sexual freedom and the more radical discussions of sexuality and free love that began to emerge at the fin de siècle.     

Doing gender in Spanish same-sex couples. The distribution of housework and childcare

Housework and childcare have been considered mechanisms for ‘doing gender’ through the allocation of different functions to women and to men. Women continue to devote more time and effort to this type of work, in spite of their progressive incorporation into the labour market. Same-sex couples escape this gender binarism, and so this study set out to learn the distribution criteria work, as well as the influence of gender socialization when it comes to establishing this distribution. A qualitative investigation was carried out with 21 Spanish same-sex families. The results indicate that the majority of couples position themselves in an egalitarian discourse based on the absence of differentiated gender roles and a low level of specialization. No differences were found between male and female couples. Nevertheless, the female couples show higher levels of discontent when the distribution was not egalitarian. In conclusion, it is proposed that the effects of gender socialization are perpetuated beyond heterosexual relationships and also affect same-sex couples.     

Unveiling the Forbidden: Same-sex Love as a Motif in Lydia Wahlström’s Writing

This article investigates how the historian and writer Lydia Wahlström (1869–1954) wrote about same-sex passions in a time when homosexuality was forbidden by law and tabooed in literature. There were of course also, during the first decades of the 1900s, many people who lived in same-sex relationships, some of them openly enough that this can still be discerned in the historical material. Lydia Wahlström was among them. She was active in the suffragist movement and one of its most prolific leaders, speakers, and writers. Wahlström was awarded a doctorate in history in 1898 and then became the director of studies at the Åhlinska School for girls in Stockholm. Alongside this, she wrote numerous articles and non-fiction books on a wide range of subjects as well as three romans-à-clef. In these novels, she wrote about the love that dared not speak its name, but she had to draw a veil over the forbidden motif in order to write about it. The interesting thing is that Wahlström did not mask the controversial motif more than that the observant contemporary reader could understand the underlying meaning in the novels and that it becomes even clearer to those who read her autobiography that was published many years later. This article deals with writing about same-sex love in a profoundly homophobic time.     

Caged tigers: ‘First wave’ feminists in India

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War, Indian women began to voice their grievances, form organizations for women only and formulate a women's rights ideology. Between the time when the three major all-India organizations were formed, 1917–1927, and Independence in 1947, women worked for female education and for legislation that would free women from traditional restrictions. This article examines their treatment of three issues: child marriage, purdah and the Hindu Code. The Conclusion evaluates the feminist ideology, the relationship between this ideology and nationalism, and the impact of this movement.     

企业社会工作 ：解决农民工婚恋问题的新路径

改革开放以来,随着城市化的深度发展以及工业化进程的加快,出现了数以亿计的农民工群体。农民工群体是社会工作重要的服务对象,农民工问题是关系国计民生的重大问题。农民工婚恋问题是农村劳动力向城市转移过程中出现的各种社会现象中的一个重要方面,因而成为一个值得研究的领域。研究认为,农民工婚恋问题与企业社会工作关系密切,企业社会工作在解决农民工婚恋问题方面存在先天优势。研究建议,企业社会工作机构和社会工作者应该通过企业、社区场域,并依托工会和党建资源,不断完善社会工作模式,实现以企业社会工作路径解决农民工婚恋问题的常态化。     

Intimacy and the life cycle in the marital relationships of the Scottish elite during the long eighteenth century

Traditionally marriage has been treated as one step in the life cycle, between youth and old age, singleness and widowhood. Yet an approach to the life cycle that treats marriage as a single step in a person's life is overly simplistic. During the eighteenth century many marriages were of considerable longevity during which time couples aged together and power dynamics within the home were frequently renegotiated to reflect changing circumstances. This study explores how intimacy developed and changed over the life cycle of marriage and what this meant for power, through a study of the correspondence of two elite Scottish couples.     

Intersections and Inconsistencies. Framing Gender in Right-Wing Populist Discourses in Austria

The paper contributes to the discussion on (re)framing processes of gender equality focusing in particular on right-wing populist discourses in Austria. Our frame analysis of 50 texts published by four right-wing (extremist) parties and movements reveals that traditional (family) values, women's “free choice”, and LGBT rights play important roles in right-wing populist (re)framing processes of gender equality. Our data also show notable inconsistencies with regard to the meanings attached to gender and gender equality within the discourses studied. For instance, right-wing populists are, on the one hand, concerned with the protection of “the traditional family”—which means being against e.g. same-sex marriage and emphasizing women's wish to stay at home. On the other hand, these same actors argue against immigration by using gender arguments in a different and even contradictory manner, claiming that e.g. Muslim men are bound by their “culture” to discriminate women and LGBT people. Our intersectional approach, analytically focusing on different meanings that gender equality acquires at the intersections with ethnicity, nationality, religion/culture, and sexuality, shows that within right-wing populist discourses inconsistencies in the framing of gender and gender equality arise in relation to the shifting meanings attributed to the essential dichotomy of “us” versus “them”. While the discursive construction of antagonistic positions is essential for right-wing populism, the groups/people designated to fill these “slots” might differ according to topic. We argue that “intersectionality from above” is one of populists' instruments to gloss over inconsistencies and to (re)frame gender equality in an on-going process of (re)negotiations of meanings.     

Love and the State: Gay Marriage in Spain

On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage. This formal equality measure put Spain in the spotlight of the international media. It is the culmination of a series of developments spanning from the last years of the Franco regime (which ended in 1975), through the enactment of anti-discrimination measures in 1995, to the recent fight for kinship recognition. It also follows a recent shift, from 1998 to 2005, towards the enactment of same-sex partnership laws at regional level, the approval of same-sex marriage and finally, the approval of a ‹gender identity law’ (2007). This legislative note assesses the context in which the new law on same-sex marriage has been enacted. I argue that although same-sex marriage has been represented by many activists and politicians in Spain as a gender neutral contract, it has the potential for differential impacts on lesbians and gay men, and further research and debates are needed in this area.     

Freethought, free love and feminism: secularist debates on marriage and sexual morality, England c. 1850-1885

This article examines the previously unexplored current of Freethinking feminism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Active in the women's movement of this period, Freethinking feminists were nonetheless viewed as a liability—an attitude that contributed to their exclusion from much of the subsequent historiography. Such marginalisation was due not only to their vocal opposition to all forms of religion, but also their openness to discussing new ways of organising heterosexual relationships. This article focuses on Freethinking feminist critiques of marriage and support for free unions. It demonstrates that these issues continued to be debated in the Secularist movement at a time when many other radical organisations—including much of the women's movement—kept silent on such topics. In this way, Freethinking feminists kept alive the more radical and libertarian critiques of traditional sexual morality developed by Owenite feminists in the 1830s and 40s. The author argues that the ideology of Freethought propelled its adherents to readdress questions of sex within a new 'Secularist' ethical framework. Fierce debate ensued, yet commitment to freedom of discussion ensured that 'unrespectable', libertarian voices were never entirely silenced. Freethinking feminism might, then, be viewed as the 'missing link' between early nineteenth-century feminist visions of greater sexual freedom and the more radical discussions of sexuality and free love that began to emerge at the fin de sicle.     

revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari

Marriage practices, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and the politics of sexuality are relatively under-researched themes in the study of Bengali communism. Historical scholarship on the revolutionary politics of the extreme left Naxalbari andolan of the late 1960s–1970s, the object of this piece of study, is no exception. The article engages with women and men's narratives on the practice of ‘revolutionary’ marriage in the movement through the prism of contemporary popular memory studies and narrative analysis. Drawing on field interviews with middle-class male and female activists, the article draws attention to the contestatory nature of marriage in the collective memory of the movement. Narrative contestations over marriage in the Naxalite movement underscore, I argue, a tension between a utopian ideal of transgressive interpersonal relations and dominant middle-class codes of sexual morality. At the same time, individual attempts to ‘compose’ (in storytelling) socially recognizable and acceptable subject positions are grounded upon the silencing and abjection of more risky memories. Given the discrepancies and contradictions within the narrative repertoire from which individuals construct their identities, these ‘marriage stories’ are a tremendous resource for investigating the politics of love, sexuality and subject-formation in middle-class Bengali society.     

Colonial sedentarisation and subjugation: The case of the Banjaras of Berar 1850–1900

The Banjaras were a mobile community of central India. Portage of goods and services was their primary occupation. This brought them in contact with a whole spectrum of population from the plains to the hills. It also generated tremendous diversity within the Banjara society in terms of language, customs, beliefs and practices. It developed in them a rather casual, unorthodox and open attitude towards religion, family, and women. Many of the practices which were prohibited in the mainstream orthodox Hindu and Muslim society were freely practised in the Banjara Community. Practices such as courtship and pre‐marital sex; late marriage; widow re‐marriage and so on, were common social practices much to the suspicion of religious orthodoxy and the colonial state. Since the colonial state was ever suspicious and fearful of the moving people, the Banjaras became the target of colonial wrath. The main aim of the colonial state was to coerce the Banjaras to sedentirise into settled agriculture. The entire colonial police, bureaucracy and legal institution was organized to monitor and force the Banjaras to abandon their traditional lifestyle. This resulted not only in their cultural loss but also in their demographic decline. The Banjaras became the worst victims of colonial persecution and oppression. The famine cycle of 1890s hit the Banjaras the hardest. Even the mainstream Hindu and Muslim orthodoxy joined the colonial state in Banjara persecution. But the Banjaras struggled and resisted all attempts to exterminate their society and culture.     

Losing the Feminist Voice? Debates on The Legal Recognition of Same Sex Partnerships in Canada

Over the last decade, legal recognition of same-sex relationships in Canada has accelerated. By and large, same-sex cohabitants are now recognised in the same manner as opposite-sex cohabitants, and same-sex marriage was legalised in 2005. Without diminishing the struggle that lesbians and gay men have endured to secure this somewhat revolutionary legal recognition, this article troubles its narrative of progress. In particular, we investigate the terms on which recent legal struggles have advanced, as well as the ways in which resistance to the legal recognition has been expressed and dealt with. We argue that to the extent that feminist critiques of marriage, familial ideology, and the privatisation of economic responsibility are marginalised, conservative and heteronormative discourses on marriage and family are reinforced. Our case studies include two pivotal moments in the quest for legislative recognition of same-sex relationships: the Hearings of the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-23, The Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act, in 2000 and the hearings on Same-Sex Marriage in 2003. We find that the debates operated within a narrow paradigm that bolstered many existing hierarchies and exacerbated conditions for those who are economically disadvantaged.     

Feminism, suffrage and the nineteenth-century English women's movement

The nineteenth-century English women's movement has usually been studied in terms of its attempts to increase the access of women to the public and political spheres. This approach to the movement ignores the immense concern amongst its members with the private and domestic lives of women. Within the movement there were widely differing views as to how reform in the private sphere and in the public sphere should be integrated.This concern is most clearly evident in the many discussions of marriage which accompanied not only the campaign to reform the legal status of married women, but all the educational, suffrage and employment campaigns as well. These differences came to the fore in the early 1870s in the controversy aroused by the Contagious Diseases Acts. The split within the suffrage movement over this issue reflected differing views as to whether political rights or sexual and moral questions ought to be the primary concern of the movement.     

“It's a Silent Trade”: Female Same-Sex Intimacies in Post-Colonial Ghana

While in many places same-sex cultures revolve around politically charged subcultural understandings, this paper explores conceptualizations of female same-sex desire beyond constructions of lesbian identity. It looks at a set of practices forged by women who are involved in intimate same-sex relationships in southern Ghana and examines how their self-understandings resist and intersect with the derogatory media representations that frame them. A key term to these representations is the term supi. It implies a close friendship between two adolescent girls, whether or not their relationship has a sexual dimension. In spite of rising tides of homophobia that impact such female intimacies, two factors still allow for the creation of niches for same-sex intimacy: first, southern Ghanaian cultures draw on norms of verbal indirection and discretion, which allow for the concealment of non-normative sexual conduct. Secondly, homosocial spaces of intimacy provide an environment in which female same-sex bonds are expressed through a language of allusion rather than a specialist, subcultural vocabulary. Erotic context is formed through practice and performance and is not discursively named or understood as a social identity. Rather, these understandings of female same-sex passions revolve around the notion of secrecy and are based on tacit but vibrant forms of knowledge.     

Zombie Law: Conjugality,Annulment, and the (Married) Living Dead

This article deploys and extends Ulrich Beck’s critique of ‘zombie categories’ (Beck in J Consum Cult 1 (2):261–277, 2001) to consider how conjugal relationships are brought into being before the law. The argument presented here is that sexual performatives relating to marriage—and especially, in this instance, consummation—continue to produce a kind of social-legal magic, even as the social flesh of their enactment is rotting. Rules concerning annulment relating to wedding ceremonies, consent, disclosure, and consummation demonstrate that certain frameworks of conjugality involve a kind of corporeal magic animating the privileged place of heterosexual marriage. Thus, rules and regulations pertaining to weddings continue to produce and protect heterogendered, sexually dimorphous bodies, even though this privileging is—or at least, is becoming—socially obsolete.     

The Project for the Education of Israeli Children in the Kibbutz Movement

Summary

In Israel there are various settings in which children can be raised if for various reasons they cannot live with their families. This article describes one of these programs, The Project for the Education of Israeli Children (Mif'al Lehahsharat Yaldei Israel) (Brashi, 1994), and focuses on the role of the kibbutz movement. The Project is special in that children are placed in foster families (or family homes), offering them not only warmth and love but also the opportunity for a remedial experience of family life in functioning families that provide physical and emotional support. The first part presents a general outline of the Project, and the second part describes the development of the Project in the kibbutz movement: the absorption procedures, the foster families and foster family homes, and the advantages and difficulties of absorbing children within a kibbutz framework.     

Heterosexuality and Race in the Australian Same-Sex Marriage Postal Survey

ABSTRACT

This article argues that race and class are central aspects of sexual citizenship in a Australia. It does so by investigating representations of heterosexuality that were produced and circulated during the 2017 same-sex marriage postal survey. Engaging with feminist and critical race theorists, we position same-sex marriage as not exceptional but part of a wider distribution of sexual citizenship within Australia's ongoing settler colonial history. We do so by introducing a number of illustrative examples of representations of heterosexuality produced during the survey. These representations reveal how same-sex marriage perpetuated heterosexual authority by asserting claims to authenticity and the occupation of space. We observe how heterosexuality in the survey material reproduced fantasies linking these three themes, for example, in an authentic white heterosexual family who speaks from their suburban backyard. It reveals that ceding to a bifurcated view of either progressive or conservative voices forestalls rather than advances other visions which may exceed the limited imaginings of sexual citizenship offered by the white liberal settler colonial state.