Informed powerlessness: child marriage interventions and Third World girlhood discourses

Child marriage has gained increased international prominence over the past decades. Organisations working with the issue have promoted empowering girls as the best strategy to address it. Informed by postcolonial feminist theory, this article will locate these discourses in broader ‘turn to the girl’ and ‘turn to agency’ in international development, analysing how Third World girlhood, agency, resistance and voice are conceptualised. Girls are constructed as threatened by their families and communities, with agency exercised through resistance and materialised by their voice. I argue that this ignores the complexity of decision-making processes and broader structural factors related to child marriage, so that interventions providing ‘empowerment-as-information’ for girls to be agents of change instead leave them in a state of informed powerlessness.     

Frequency,timing and intensity of remarriage in 19th century Flanders

The article addresses the belief that the Early Modern period and the early 19th century were characterized by “many” remarriages. The confusion in the analysis, however, between proportion and intensity has led much research down the wrong track. The evolution in remarriage intensity and in some other sociodemographic remarriage characteristics was measured for the period 1800–1913 in Leuven, Aalst, and Bierbeek—three areas with different socioeconomic structures and cultural climates. Comparison of the age-specific ratios shows that the remarriage probability of widowed people was often lower than first-marriage probability of those not previously married, even in the first half of the 19th century. In so far as our data are representative of the Early Modern period, the claim that “many” remarriages took place then must be put into perspective. In fact—with the exception of young widowers—fewer remarriages than first marriages often occurred. The proportion of remarriages fell from 20–25% in the first half of the 19th century to 10–15% by the end of the century. The most frequently occurring remarriage type was that between a widower and an unmarried woman; the least common was between a widower and a widow. An additional cultural factor was that from approximately the mid-19th century on, first marriage was so central to the development of a private social environment and was so highly valued that a watered-down version, in the form of remarriage, was held in low esteem and even rejected.     

新生代农民工婚姻家庭研究的理论与前瞻

有序推进农业转移人口市民化是当前的社会目标,也是解决好"三农"问题的重要方向。分析新生代农民工的婚姻家庭问题可以找到市民化的可能突破点。由于社会流动、婚姻挤压、双重边缘人的身份尴尬、婚姻策略的盲目调整等方面的原因,新生代农民工婚姻家庭表现出传统与现代的融合特性,丰富了婚姻内涵的同时又带来了很多的社会管理难题。因而以婚姻家庭为突破口,对新生代农民工进行分层化、专门化研究,探索在新型城镇化和市民化的进程中如何缓解成婚难问题,改变婚姻迁移循环式流动的窘境,减轻抚幼赡老维持家庭的经济压力,是当前新生代农民工研究的重要内容。     

事实婚姻的立法冲突及解决

事实婚姻不仅是婚姻法的调整对象,也是刑法认定重婚罪的重要基础。在法律规则和司法解释的具体展开上,刑法和婚姻法基于不同的立场从而有所不同,并最终导致在重婚罪的认定上产生冲突。刑法领域内的事实婚姻有其独特的含义,刑法领域内事实婚姻的推定有效和认定无效不同于婚姻法领域内的事实婚姻有效与无效,具有重婚罪构成要件的作用和意义。尊重多元的情感生活方式,公法和私法的融合与重整,都可以为事实婚姻在刑法和婚姻法上的冲突提供解决方案。     

评完善我国的无效婚姻制度——兼议修改后的《婚姻法》

无效婚姻是现实生活中较为普遍的一种社会现象 ,同时也是一种违法的民事关系。本文通过对无效婚姻原因的分析和各国无效婚姻制度的比较 ,结合修改后的《婚姻法》关于无效婚姻的规定 ,提出了进一步完善该制度的构想。     

‘Marrying light’: skin colour,gender and marriage in Jamaica,c. 1918–1980

ABSTRACT

While historians have increasingly examined inter-racial marriage, they have so far paid scant attention to intraracial marriage. This article tries to fill this gap in the scholarship by examining the practice of ‘marrying light’ in Jamaica from c. 1918 to 1980. Based on a wide range of sources, including memoirs and autobiographical fiction, it is particularly concerned with the motives for cross-colour marriage and the ways in which African-Jamaican children learned that ‘marrying light’ was an ideal to aspire to. It shows that colour, gender and class intersected in complex ways in ‘marrying light’ and that in most instances cross-colour marriages in Jamaica, like elsewhere, were a trade-off between one high-ranking variable and another. Due to the limitations of the source material, the article does not fully explore the extent of ‘marrying light’ and the quality of cross-colour marriages.     

Negative reactions to the sexually abused victims,withdrawing the complaint and outcomes of the litigation: the first data from Turkey

In order to provide psychosocial services to children with sexual abuse (SA) histories, their needs and problems should be initially identified. In this study, it is intended to determine the psychosocial problems of victims. Participants were 73 victims between aged between 16 and 21. A telephone interview form was used to collect the study data. It is found that there were several problems noted by victims, including underage marriage (15.1%), teenage pregnancy (6.9%), revictimization (13.7%), need for psychiatric support (21.9%) as well as negative social reaction (84.4%) and not being supported by family (41.1%). One-third of the victims (30.1%) had withdrawn the complaint for reasons such as SA being heard among social circle, the negative effect of court process on psychological well-being, make a new beginning and reasons related to the suspects. Finally, it was found out that 21.9% of the parents did not know the outcome of the litigation, 34.2% of them were satisfied with the case result, 43.8% of them were not satisfied with the penalty, 43.8% of the litigation process was ended in favor of the suspect and 43.9% of the suspects were punished. This study shows the need for prevention and intervention studies to solve the problems of SA victims, and it is essential to make the justice system child-friendly.     

婚姻自由的思考

婚姻自由原则是我国婚姻法的首要原则。婚姻自由包括结婚自由和离婚自由 ,二者不可偏废 ,共同构成了婚姻自由的完整内容。婚姻自由体现的是自然人对自己自由意志的支配 ,是婚姻内在价值的体现 ,是对婚姻自主权的肯定和界定。     

新婚姻法的进步性与缺陷

修改后的婚姻法具有极大的进步性:体现了法律与道德的融合,克服了原有婚姻法的一些弊端,完善了法律体系。修改后的婚姻法仍存在缺陷:内容不够全面,有些制度不够完善,法律条文存在逻辑上的错误。本文对修改后的婚姻法的进步性与缺陷进行了分析,并希望立法机关制定单行法或最高人民法院作出司法解释弥补缺陷。     

关于婚检中知情权与隐私权的思考

在我国,拟缔结婚姻关系的男女双方当事人必须接受婚检,这是新<婚姻登记条例>实施前的通例.而条例实施后,婚检在实践中由必选变为自选.但无论从法理还是从社会伦理的角度看,强制婚检都是必要的.首先,要求婚检正是<条例>有关条文的题中之义,同时,<条例>无权擅自改变其上位法所规定的强制婚检义务;其次,当知情权与隐私权发生冲突时,应以社会利益的最大化为原则,强调知情权而淡化隐私权.