Marriage relationships among households in the mid 19th century Tama,Japan

This paper studies the formation of marriage relationships between households in 19th century, Tama, Japan. Previous studies on marriage market or partner selection in the Japanese past tended to rely either on information from a single village in case of statistical analysis, or on collection of oral histories. By using the information from a household register that covers 35 villages, and applying a method of social network analysis, this paper goes beyond the limitation of previous studies. Our empirical results show that there was a tendency for socioeconomic homogamy and endogamy (within kinship and within village) among peasants in the mid 19th century Tama, Japan.     

Family relationships in comic postcards 1900–1930

This paper discusses how comic postcards circulating in Europe and North America between 1900 and 1930 featured various aspects of family life. A range of situations were considered amusing involving babies, children, parents, mothers-in-law, servants and the elderly. The four situations that were pictured most frequently were flirtations, fertility, the struggle between husband and wife for dominance in the household, and courtship. The presence of widely shared attitudes to family life within the western world is suggested by the fact that the same sort of humour featured in cards sent and received in different European countries and in North America. On the other hand, the text on the back of the cards indicates that some writers had ignored or misunderstood the humour represented on the front of the card, whereas others had chosen their cards with care.     

Muslim marriage (non) recognition: implications and possible solutions

Differences between traditional Muslim marriage practice and the statutory formalities required for entry into a legally recognised marriage in England and Wales have resulted in serious question-marks hanging over the legal status of a seemingly significant proportion of Muslim marriages. This article places the spotlight on the vulnerability of spouses who remain unaware of the lack of legal status which may attach to their marriage or who may have been misled by their spouse as to the latter’s intention to obtain legal recognition for the marriage. The article first considers the statutory formalities required under English law for entry into a legally recognised marriage before drawing on the most up-to-date empirical research to highlight the apparently widespread non-compliance with the formalities within the Muslim community. The article then reflects on the various practical implications which may arise for parties to an unrecognised Muslim marriage before considering how the situation may be ameliorated.     

Reproduction and family building strategies in early modern Japan: Evidence from two northeastern farming villages

Drawing data from the local population registers called “ninbetsu-aratame-cho," this study examines the patterns and covariates of reproduction and family building in two farming villages in northeastern Japan in 1716–1870. Marriages in these villages were very early and universal for both sexes, but reproduction within marriage was very low, due in part to curtailment of reproduction at relatively young ages, but also to long intervals between recorded births. Stopping and spacing of family building were achieved primarily by an extensive use of sex- and parity-specific infanticide, which enabled peasant couples to control the size and gender-sequence of their progeny. Women's positions within their household and in the village also influenced their family building processes. Peasant couples in these preindustrial Japanese farming villages were active planners of their reproductive life.     

家务责任法律化的思考与立法建议

家务是家庭存续的重要方式,长期以来一直处于由女性承担的不公平状态。家务劳动的繁重性与无偿性严重阻碍女性进入社会生产领域,限制女性的发展,并成为引发家庭矛盾的重要原因。但我国相关法律对此还少有提及。家务责任法律化在我国不仅重要,而且将会具有特别的意义。     

我国夫妻约定财产制及其登记的必要性探析

我国现行的婚姻法对夫妻财产约定的主体、形式、内容、效力等一系列问题做了明确的规定,但由于法律在有些方面的规定不够明确,在实施过程中还存在着一定的困难,本文主要对夫妻约定财产制度的内容和夫妻约定财产制的不足进行了分析,在此基础上,对现行夫妻约定财产制度的完善和登记的必要性提出了自己的看法。     

‘Rioting in goatish embraces’: Marriage and improvement in early British Jamaica

Marriages were relatively infrequent among the white population of early British Jamaica. This article examines the ideological implications of the failure of whites to marry with sufficient regularity to ensure that white population increase would allow Jamaica to become a settler society on the British North American model. It looks, in particular, at the tendency of whites to live in irregular unions, either with other whites or with black or brown concubines, and the effect that such arrangements had on perceptions of white Jamaicans as especially immoral. It connects these views with other discourses on settler societies in which improvement and frequent marriage were linked.     

《婚姻法》中的社会变迁

婚姻立法是对一个社会的家庭、婚姻状况现实的描述及理想表达,本文通过建国后几部婚姻法的变化,把婚姻和家庭制度放回到社会、政治和文化背景中,把握半个多世纪以来我国婚姻家庭关系变化的特点,理解国家对家庭这一社会设置的治理路径：从全面介入到有限度退出。     

新《婚姻法》5年实践之评析

本文通过对2001年新《婚姻法》五年多来的实际运行做考察和评析,认为2001年修改《婚姻法》虽然在立法上、理念上及法律规范层面上取得非常大的进步,但实际社会效果有限,没有完全实现其立法目的。要有效地调整婚姻家庭关系,需要在完善法律体系时重视法律规范与社会规范等其它社会调控体系的协调,在法律与社会规范的和谐共生、相互促进、相互补充中实现调整目的。在加强立法的同时,也应该高度重视规范的可行性,研究其实际运行效果。     

“To establish a community of property”: Marriage and race before and during the Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the greatest social upheaval in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. The paper presents results from the first systematic study of marriage during this event, which included slave rebellion (1791), general emancipation (1793) and political independence from France (1803). The article focuses on a single colonial parish, leveraging a sample of roughly 1000 contracts by comparing them with similar documents from same region in the 1760s and 1780s. Ironically, amid a revolution that was ostensibly eliminating slavery and racism, the interracial marriages that had once been common in this parish virtually disappeared. The wealthy “mulatto” families who had been free long before 1791 intensified their pre-Revolutionary pattern of endogamy and cousin-marriage. In the meantime, French male immigrants of the sort who, before the Revolution, had allied with these established clans, now shunned these marriages.