Sex and marriage in utopia

where he has also taught history since 1964. He is author of Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communitiesand A Frontier Town Grows Up in America.     

摩梭婚俗与其适应性文化

摩梭人特殊的母系大家庭和走婚习俗,是其独特文化适应性灵活调适的结果,对于外来文化一边吸收一边整合,使其成为自己文化的一部分,使其为自己的文化服务。摩梭文化高度灵活的适应性使其保持了"依度"为核心的家屋文化,特殊的走婚方式就是满足其生存和发展的最佳选择。     

Women, marriage, and Social Security benefits

The majority of women Social Security beneficiaries receive at least part of their benefit based on their status as the wives or widows of entitled workers. This article discusses the impact of past and present marital status of women as a factor in establishing eligibility for monthly benefits and the amount of the benefit payment. The data are drawn from the 1980 and 1985 June Marital History Supplements to the Current Population Survey. Whether or not they are currently receiving auxiliary benefits, most older women are potentially eligible for them based on their current marital status or past marital duration.     

The political consequences of transitions out of marriage in Great Britain

This article uses British Household Panel Survey data to estimate the effects of divorce and widowhood on political attitudes and political behavior. In contrast to previous research, which mostly relied on cross-sectional data, a matched propensity score analysis does not find any effects of transitions out of marriage on policy preferences, party identification, or vote choice. The results also show that divorce (but not widowhood) substantially reduces electoral participation. Some preliminary evidence suggests that this effect of divorce on turnout is partially attributable to the increased residential mobility that accompanies divorce.     

Sex and the genuine marriage: consummation and conjugality in Canadian citizenship

The idea of consummation as definitive of a marriage seems antiquated today. Yet, consummation operates as a central criterion in determinations of a ‘genuine marriage’ in Canadian immigration law. Drawing on the marriage and migration literature, theorizations of sexual citizenship, and critical multiculturalism, we explore recent judicial considerations of consummation in Canadian family sponsorship adjudications. We searched the CanLII database (a Canadian database of legislation and judicial records) for the keywords ‘non-consummation’ and ‘genuine marriage’ and identified 68 cases. Of these cases, three primary themes emerged: the use of consummation as a ‘technology of love’ – a requirement for assessing the authenticity of the spousal relationship and hence the worthiness of sponsorship; the discursive construction of sexual and gendered norms in expectations around marital intimacy, and the articulation of liberal tolerance and the cultural other in the assessments of genuine marriages among primarily racialized Canadians or permanent residents and their foreign spouses. We challenge these discursive narratives and conclude by arguing that instead of consummation as the basis for genuine marriage, the Law Commission of Canada’s ‘close personal relationship’ model is a better way to assess the ‘genuineness’ of relationships for determining Canadian citizenship.     

International marriage in East and Southeast Asia: trends and research emphases

This paper gives an overview on international marriage in East and Southeast Asia. It first reviews the available data on the incidence and trends of transnational marriage. It then discusses the factors generally cited as contributing to the rising incidence of international marriage in the region: the increased mobility of population, particularly with respect to tourism, business travel, short-term employment and international study; and marriage market issues in a number of countries of the region, leading to deliberate and targeted search for spouses in other countries. It also reviews the types of international marriages in the region, including the national, ethnic and social characteristics of spouses in such marriages. Finally, it discusses the issues and problems covered and not (or inadequately) covered in the literature of international marriage in East and Southeast Asia in relation to the questions of rights and of the boundaries and sovereignty of the state.     

Citizenship,reproduction and the state: international marriage and human rights

The relationship between citizenship, marriage and family has often been overlooked in the social and political theory of citizenship. Intimate domestic life is associated with the private sphere, partly because reproduction itself is thought to depend on the private choices of individuals. While feminist theory has challenged this division between private and public – ‘the personal is political’ – the absence of any systematic thinking about familial relations, reproduction and citizenship is puzzling. Citizenship is a juridical status that confers political rights such as the right to carry a passport or to vote in elections. However, from a sociological point of view, we need to understand the social foundations and consequences of citizenship – however narrowly defined in legal and political terms. This article starts by noting the obvious point that the majority of us inherit citizenship at birth and in a sense we do not choose to be ‘Vietnamese’ or ‘Malaysian’ or ‘Japanese’ citizens. Although naturalisation is an important aspect of international migration and settlement, the majority of us are, as it were, born into citizenship. Therefore, the family is an important but often implicit facet of political identity and membership. In sociological language, citizenship looks like an ascribed rather than achieved status, and as a result becomes confused and infused with ethnicity. This inheritance of citizenship is odd given the fact that, at least in the West, there is a presumption, following the pronouncements of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, to think of citizenship in universal terms that are ethnically ‘blind’, but it is in fact closely connected with familial or private status. These complex relations within the nation-state are further complicated by the contemporary growth of transnational marriages and this article considers the problems of marriage, reproduction and citizenship in the context of global patterns of migration.     

Is epistemic accessibility enough? Same-sex marriage,tradition, and the Bible

ABSTRACT

In Liberalism’s Religion, Cécile Laborde argues that a liberal state has to be a justifiable state: state action can only be legitimate if it is publicly justified, that is, if it is based on accessible reasons. These accessible reasons, she argues, are reasons that can be understood by all citizens. She defends a purely epistemic conception of accessibility. On Laborde’s account, accessible reasons are identified by particular epistemic features, and not by their substantive content. In this paper, I argue that Laborde’s account of epistemic accessibility cannot deliver on its promise of public justification. To illustrate this argument, I examine the case of the prohibition of same-sex marriage and look at two potential reasons that could be used to justify this prohibition: the non-accessible reference to the Bible and the accessible appeal to the value of tradition.     

International marriage and the state in South Korea: focusing on governmental policy

With globalization, the number of individuals traveling, working or studying abroad is rising globally, and so is the number of international marriages. However, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of ‘mail-order brides’ through matchmaking since the 1970s in the Western world and since the 1990s in several Asian countries. The so-called ‘mail-order bride’ phenomenon has become an important route for international migration, especially for gendered migration. Since official relations with China began in August 1992, the number of Korean Chinese women who came into Korea for marriage with native Korean men is about 100,000 between 1990 and 2005. The number of Japanese women who married Korean men is approximately 17,000, while the numbers of Filipino women who married Korean men is about 6000. Recently, the nationalities of these foreign wives of Korean men have expanded to include women from Vietnam, Russia, and Uzbekistan. In 2005, among a total of 250,000 foreign spouses in Korea, 160,000 of them were women. The Korean state had contributed to initiate these international marriages by importing Korean Chinese women for their unmarried rural citizens. As international marriages have become a social issue, the state tries to cope with these new issues through changing the laws and policies. Utilizing several government statistics, a nationwide questionnaire survey of nearly 1000 foreign brides with various nationalities, which was conducted in May and June 2005, and some interviewed data of foreign wives and government personnel, this paper analyzes (1) patterns and trends of marriage migration to Korea; (2) the issues and problems of foreign brides, such as their status and citizenship, economic situation, access to social security and ‘fake marriages’ issues; and (3) recent changes in governmental policies towards them. Special focus will be on what factors influenced the recent governmental action and how the ideology that ‘A married daughter is no longer a daughter ()’ is still reflected in recent policies even in today's more progressive society.