Writing the Story of the Last Nawab of Bengal’s English Family

On 15 May 1870, the Nawab of Bengal married Sarah Vennell, a seventeen-year-old English chambermaid, in a Shia Muslim wedding ceremony, making her his fourth permanent or Nikah wife. They lived in England for ten years, and had six children. The Nawab’s liaison with what British officials called ‘a woman of mean extraction’ was a contributing factor when he was persuaded by the British government to abdicate in1880, give up many of his claims and allow the permanent abolition of his title. In that same year the Nawab formed a liaison with another maid and later returned to India with this maid and his and Sarah’s four surviving children, leaving Sarah in England. Their youngest son, my grandfather, changed his name and emigrated to Australia in 1925. This essay describes my gradual discovery in Australia of my Indian ancestors and the issues I confronted when trying to write their story. It includes an extract in which I describe my grandfather’s childhood in India.     

对婚姻法司法解释(三)的反思

"最高人民法院关于适用《中华人民共和国婚姻法》若干问题的解释(三)"对婚姻房产归属做出了许多新的规定,因其对我国传统婚姻伦理构成挑战,对女方权益保护不足,广受质疑。《婚姻法》对夫妻财产关系的规定,是司法解释和司法审判的基本法律依据,"解释三"只能补充性地适用,其适用不是孤立的,要放在《婚姻法》的基本制度框架下来理解和适用,不能与婚姻法的基本规定相违背。     

Barriers to marriage and motherhood: the experiences of disabled women in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The conceptualisation of disability is contested globally and issues in gender studies further complicate the movement towards the development of an inclusive and equal society. However, most disability and gender research studies are based on the data collected in the Global North, and little is known about disabled women in the Global South. The data presented here is from a bigger study focusing on the lived experiences of women with disabilities. This paper sets to explore how disabled women in Malaysia experience their lives in terms of marriage and motherhood prospects. The data of this qualitative study was collected from a set of in-depth interviews involving 32 women in Malaysia with physical (mobility) impairment. Over a period of 6 months, 16 Malays, 8 Chinese and 8 Indian women were interviewed twice. The analysis proposes both retrospective and introspective accounts on marriage and motherhood. The data gathered from the in-depth interviews was transcribed and analysed thematically with the help of NVivo software. The findings indicated that most participants have experienced significant barriers concerning individual constraints, familial control, and societal barriers. These were discussed with the intrinsic aspects and contextual factors of living in a patriarchal and traditional society that significantly undermined the wellbeing of disabled women in this study. Nevertheless, many of those interviewed refused to give up their hope of having a family life despite the constant struggles they encountered in their pursuit of happiness. However, their aspirations to experience family life were restricted and this caused them to experience significant psycho-emotional problems. They were constantly reminded that they were ‘disabled’ and not worthy of experiencing life like other women. The paper will discuss these challenges and negative societal attitudes towards the issue.     

海峡殖民地婚姻法立法考察（1867—1941年）

英国殖民统治海峡殖民地①100多年，在此期间颁布了大量法律法规，婚姻法是其中的一类。海峡殖民地婚姻法有由判例组成的不成文婚姻法和在立法会通过议案形成的成文法两种形态。二战前海峡殖民地形成了世俗婚姻法和宗教婚姻法两种平行的婚姻制度。海峡殖民地婚姻立法改变了当地居民的家庭婚姻习惯，形成了多元法律文化。对它的考察有助于认识独立后新马法制和族群关系。     

The impact of disability on partnership formation in Sweden during 1990-2009

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that disability negatively affects people’s propensity to find a partner. Persons with disabilities that eventually find a partner do so later in life compared to the average population. There is a lack of studies on the differences in partnership opportunities for persons with disabilities compared to those without disabilities in Sweden. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of disability on partnership formation and to assess whether partnership formation varies as a function of individual demographic and socio-economic factors. We use nationwide data available in the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in Social and Medical Sciences (Umeå SIMSAM Lab). We follow persons born from 1973 to 1977 when they were from 16 to 37 years of age and analyze their data using logistic regression. Our findings indicate that regardless of whether a person started to receive a disability pension at an early age or later, it was associated with lower odds for partnership formation. For persons who started receiving disability pension from 16 to 20 years of age, chances for partnership formation reduced with increase in age of partnership. Individuals that started to receive disability pension later were more likely to form partnership prior to receiving disability pension. Partnership formation was less likely among persons born outside Sweden, in persons with mothers born outside Sweden, in individuals born by unmarried mothers and in persons, whose mothers had a high level of education. Partnership was high among women and among persons who had many maternal siblings. In conclusion, receiving disability pension was associated with reduced chances for partnership formation. Receiving disability pension might imply financial constraints that negatively influence partnership formation supporting Oppenheimer’s theory on the economic cost of marriage and the uncertainty hypothesis.     

Traditionalization,or the making of a reputation: women,weddings and expenditure in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article aims to show how traditionalization is enforced by women in Tajikistan in the realm of marriage, focusing on the economic dimension of life cycle rituals: ritual expenditure and gift-giving. It shows that from women’s points of view, performing ceremonial competition may itself be a resource to recover their reputation, for example when a matrimonial rupture has harmed it. Focusing on single mothers, it demonstrates how practices of traditionalization performed by women can be directed at addressing gender constraints and stereotypes, such as the normative relation between marriage and femininity, and how they may also secure women’s separate sphere of competence and relative financial autonomy.     

An Aristotelian paradox: Wollstonecraft and the implications of marriage as friendship

ABSTRACT

This essay argues that Mary Wollstonecraft interprets marriage in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman as a relationship reminiscent of Aristotelian higher friendship. This position presents an Aristotelian paradox: Wollstonecraft shows how marriage – an institution Aristotle explicitly viewed as a husband ruling a wife – can be the basis of the Aristotelian fulfilment political society structurally provides to the best men. Overall, Wollstonecraft suggests that marriage should be recognized as a concrete contract of friendship between two individuals as opposed to a male-female complementarity that ends in the propagation of the species through childbirth. Her work enables us to challenge ideas of marriage – from Aristotle to Rousseau to the new natural law tradition – that overlook how the structure of marriage dominates possibilities for partnerships. By thus dignifying marriage, Wollstonecraft both critiques eighteenth century marriage practices and broadens the scope of gender expression today.

Abbreviation: VRW - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman     

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.     

侵权纠纷中夫妻共同债务认定的困境与立法回应——以机动车交通事故责任纠纷为研究对象

侵权纠纷中夫妻共同债务的认定在裁判结果、法律适用、举证责任分配以及债务清偿方式等方面均存在诸多龃龉。对此,"数人侵权的侵权法进路"与"责任承担的婚姻法逻辑"均无法提供系统合理的解决方案。司法实践中的诸多困境渊源于既有立法规范混淆责任成立、责任承担与责任实行,缺失相应的立法原则、认定规则以及清偿规则。着眼于"民法典婚姻家庭编"的编纂,在区分责任成立与责任承担的维度上,夫妻共同债务认定应锁定于责任承担的范围内,遵循弱者保护原则,将夫妻一方的侵权之债认定为夫妻共同债务;在区分责任承担与责任实行的维度上,夫妻共同债务清偿应厘清共同债务与连带债务的区别,以夫妻共同财产承担清偿责任,不足部分以侵权人个人财产承担。在立法技术上,侵权纠纷中夫妻共同债务的认定规则应采兜底性条款形式,同时配套以夫妻共同债务的清偿规则。     

Religious difference,nationhood and citizenship in Turkey: public reactions to an interreligious marriage in 1962

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between religious difference, nationhood and secular citizenship in Turkey. Turkey is the only country in the Middle East which applies a non-religious and unified law to matters related to the family. The legislation of a secular civil law in 1926 has made interreligious marriages legally possible, removing institutional barriers to religious mixing in the private and intimate sphere of family. At the same time, religious difference remained central to the definition of who is included in, and excluded from, the nation. Against the backdrop of these seemingly competing understandings of religious difference, this article explores the arguments that ordinary citizens made in favor of or opposed to the second marriage in 1962 of Ülkü Adatape, the spiritual daughter of Atatürk, to Yeshua Bensusen, a Jewish citizen of Turkey. Drawing on the notes and proceedings of the Lausanne Peace Conference in 1922/23, parliamentary depositories and newspaper reviews, it demonstrates that a paradox stemming from an ethnoreligious formation of Turkish nationhood, which has denied non-Muslim citizens recognition as full members of the nation, and the secular understanding of the private realm, which has in principle made religious difference inconsequential to the governance of family, simultaneously produced resistance to and justification for interreligious marriages. If the first decades of the republic laid the foundations of this paradox, the period between the transition into electoral democracy in 1946 and the military coup in 1960 intensified it making the link between ethnicity and religion stronger.