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Discourses on Marriage, Religious Identity and Gender in Medieval and Contemporary Islamic Preaching: Continuities and Adaptations

Linda G. Jones

in Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond: Historical and Contemporary Case Studies

Because homiletics has been associated with marriage since the origins of Islam, analysing sermons on marriage from different historical periods allows us to identify continuities within the ... More

Because homiletics has been associated with marriage since the origins of Islam, analysing sermons on marriage from different historical periods allows us to identify continuities within the homiletic tradition and detect developments reflecting the preacher’s adaptation of his message to suit the needs, expectations and values of his audience. This chapter explores Islamic homiletic discourses about marriage, gender, and marital relations in an anonymous sixteenth-century Egyptian hortatory sermon (mawʿiẓa) on ‘the inalienable rights of the two spouses’ and a contemporary Friday khuṭba on ‘the path to a healthy marriage,’ preached by a Los Angeles-based American Muslim in 2016. This cross-cultural diachronic analysis seeks to explain how each preacher interprets the meaning of marriage, represents spousal relations and defines gender identities and roles for his audience. It then addresses the broader question of how to account for the continuities and adaptability of Islam as a religious tradition in light of changing circumstances.Less

Crafting Legitimate Marital Relations

Chigusa Yamaura

in Marriage and Marriageability: Marriage and Marriageability

This chapter examines suspended and declined visa cases, analyzing how marital relations became sites of regulation. Some forms of migration depend on relatives as sponsors. Others rely on employers, ... More

This chapter examines suspended and declined visa cases, analyzing how marital relations became sites of regulation. Some forms of migration depend on relatives as sponsors. Others rely on employers, an applicant's “skills,” or specific qualifications. Marriage migration, however, rests on a different manner of validating a legitimate entry. Certificates of residency and spousal visas are not simply issued based on an individual's status or attributes. To gain a spousal visa, what is important for the immigration officers is to inspect the kind of relationship presented in the paperwork. The chapter then illuminates the ways cross-border marriages came under suspicion and participants were forced to perform marital relationships that were more “ideal” and “normatively acceptable” than those expected of couples in Japan. Even if partners have chosen married life with one another, they still require the approval of the state.Less

The Sexes and the Household

M.N. Srinivas

in The Remembered Village

This chapter notes that sex difference provided an important basis for division of labour, and this was true for all the castes. Among all castes, the kitchen was a recognized sphere of feminine ... More

This chapter notes that sex difference provided an important basis for division of labour, and this was true for all the castes. Among all castes, the kitchen was a recognized sphere of feminine activity, but the extent of participation in a man's traditional occupation varied from caste to caste, and household to household. Generally, women from the richest households and the highest castes remained confined to their homes while women from the poorest households and lowest castes worked outside for cash wages. It was the male head of the household who carried out the traditional caste occupation—be it agriculture, smithy, trade, or priesthood. Meanwhile, sex was regarded as a natural urge just like hunger. It is said in Rampura that no ordinary man could control his sexual urge except perhaps for brief periods.Less

The Nationalization of Marriage in Monarchical Egypt1

Hanan Kholoussy

in Re-Envisioning Egypt 1919-1952

This chapter extends empirically and conceptually one of the most dynamic categories of Egyptian historiography related to gender roles. It focuses on the post-1919 state's unparalleled intervention ... More

This chapter extends empirically and conceptually one of the most dynamic categories of Egyptian historiography related to gender roles. It focuses on the post-1919 state's unparalleled intervention in marital relations. Making extensive use of debates in the press, in the legislature, and among intellectuals, this chapter argues that Egyptian nationalist reformers sought to redefine marriage in order to create a nuclear family as the foundation for a nation free of the perceived social ills of polygamy and male-initiated divorce. Likewise, it reveals how Egyptian writers used marriage to critique their society through prescriptions for modernity. This chapter contributes to the historical understanding of marriage in monarchical Egypt; it also demonstrates how this important social institution can be used to reconceptualize Egyptian nationalism, with theoretical ramifications for other national contexts.Less

Serial monogamy and clandestine adultery: evolution and consequences of the dual human reproductive strategy

Helen E Fisher

in Applied Evolutionary Psychology

Considerable data suggest that humans have evolved a dual reproductive strategy: life long and/or serial monogamy in conjunction with clandestine adultery. This paper explores the underlying ... More

Considerable data suggest that humans have evolved a dual reproductive strategy: life long and/or serial monogamy in conjunction with clandestine adultery. This paper explores the underlying biochemical and genetic mechanisms likely to contribute to this flexible, yet specific human reproductive system, and explores some of the implications of this dual human reproductive strategy for contemporary partnerships. Critics of evolutionary psychology fail to find the profound value of this budding discipline, yet it yields important insights that could be of use to medical and legal professionals, researchers and therapists.Less

“The Letter Said That My Wife Had Died”: Bigamy in Argentina in the Era of Mass Migration

Marìa Bjerg

in Emotional Landscapes: Love, Gender, and Migration

Based on two trials for bigamy involving European immigrants in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Argentina, this chapter illustrates how emotions affected transnational marital relations ... More

Based on two trials for bigamy involving European immigrants in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Argentina, this chapter illustrates how emotions affected transnational marital relations and how different meanings of love, and its mutations into myriad less positive feelings, shaped migration. In the context of migration and family—a site of intimacy and affection, but also one of disagreement, contest, deceit, and heartbreak—the experience of bigamists and their betrayed spouses reveal the multiple complexities of leaving one’s family and of being left behind, and shed light on the encounter of immigrants with the emotional standards of the Argentine society.Less

Revising the Sexual Contract

in Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism

This chapter demonstrates some men's struggles to produce more equitable property arrangements and marital relations, concentrating especially on the problem of the femme coverte, or legal status of ... More

This chapter demonstrates some men's struggles to produce more equitable property arrangements and marital relations, concentrating especially on the problem of the femme coverte, or legal status of the married woman. The radical men who took up the cause of marriage reform with the goal of curbing male authority were engaged in a delicate operation. The “companionate” model of marriage gained increasing popularity over the course of the eighteenth century. It is noted that the laws regarding women and regulating the domestic site, contra Blackstone, were highly contingent. The proposals for legal reform of marriage were the efforts to awaken the family so as to mirror the contractual arrangement founded between the ruler and the people one hundred years earlier.Less

In the Shadow of Patriarchal Authority

Mark E. Kann

in Taming Passion for the Public Good: Policing Sex in the Early Republic

This book examines how the nation's early elites legitimized and perpetuated patriarchal authority over the sex lives of the first few generations of Americans in a newly emergent liberal society. ... More

This book examines how the nation's early elites legitimized and perpetuated patriarchal authority over the sex lives of the first few generations of Americans in a newly emergent liberal society. More specifically, it considers how the new nation's political father figures were able to retain virtually uncontested legitimacy and power to regulate the terms of citizens' marital relations as well as their nonmarital sexual experiments. It shows how, regardless of the widespread rhetoric of liberty and the robust growth of individualism, civic leaders and public officials in the new Republic succeeded in reconciling core aspects of traditional patriarchal authority and the new liberalism. The book argues that local leaders policed people's sexual behavior based on patriarchal authority by exercising a caring paternalism in the name of people's welfare and liberty, thereby eliciting popular consent and keeping alive what it calls a “resilient patriarchy.”Less