Familienpolitik

When I blogged about the little Yemeni girl who filed for divorce from her 30-year-old husband by herself here, the story hadn’t been picked up by many major news outlets.  Now the New York Times has an in-depth story on how that girl and another are changing the way Yemenis look at child marriage.

“Voices are rising in society against this phenomenon and its catastrophes,” said Shawki al-Qadhi, an imam and opposition member in Parliament who has tried unsuccessfully to muster support for a legal ban on child marriage in Yemen in the past. “But despite rejections of it by many people and some religious scholars, it continues.”

Current law in Yemen allows girls to be married at any age as long as they do not live with their husbands until they have reached puberty.  As the two girls’ experiences described in the article underscore, this law is often not followed.  A total ban on underage marriage would protect girls better than the current situation, say activists.

Tags: Divorce, family policy, Underage marriage, Yemen

In Albania there is a code of conduct called the Kanun of Leke Dukagjini that has been passed on orally for more than 500 years. This code of conduct has traditionally put a woman’s value at half that of a man’s and limited her role to taking care of children and the home. But when a family had no male heir, the code allowed for women to take an oath of virginity and become men.

This fascinating New York Times article looks at this dying practice of women who become heads of their families by swearing off sex, cutting off their hair and taking on a male swagger. As gender roles become more equal and the violence that led to a shortage of men subsides, the number of sworn virgins is shrinking.

The article also includes a slide show with photographs of two of the last Albanian sworn virgins.

Tags: Albania, gender, virginity

Perhaps with all the excitement over California, not much attention was paid to the fact that an entire country legalized same-sex marriage this week.  Effective January 1, 2009, Norway joins Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada and South Africa in allowing complete parity between heterosexual and homosexual marriages.  Read about it here, in this brief New York Times article.

Key to the new legislation is that same-sex couples will be allowed to adopt and lesbians may be artificially inseminated.

Tags: Norway, same-sex marriage

Surely in response to the first same-sex weddings in California this week, Redbook has an interesting article profiling nine different married couples.  The author uses the couples as examples of nice marriage types:

• Covenant marriage
• Second marriage
• Polyamorous marriage
• Average marriage
• Long-distance marriage
• Child-free by choice
• Same-sex marriage
• Late-in-life marriage
• Married young

The one marriage type I was unfamiliar with was the covenant marriage.  Legal provisions for covenant marriages exist in Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona.  In response to the rise in no-fault divorces, covenant marriages make it more difficult to get divorced, require counseling, and emphasize that marriage is for life.  Divorce is only allowed in cases of abuse, adultery, commitment of a felony or abandonment.

This kind of seems like a step in the wrong direction in that divorce reform is meant to provide individuals with an out from unhappy marriages, without having to accuse their spouse of abuse or adultery.  Yet it isn’t hard to get the impression that some people do take marriage and divorce too lightly.

Would you ever consider a covenant marriage?

Tags: family policy, Marriage, same-sex marriage

Today in California the court ruling opening the door to same-sex marriage kicks in at 5:01 pm.  Some county offices plan to stay open late to accommodate eager grooms and brides.  According to this cnn.com article, however, the bride and groom terms have been replaced in the paperwork with “Partner A” and “Partner B.”

Looking forward to seeing the first photos of the first weddings!