Lost boys,invisible girls: stories of Sudanese marriages across borders

Forced migration challenges and changes gender relations. The transnational activities of refugees resettled in the West create gender asymmetries among those who stay behind. This article explores the transnational marriages of young southern Sudanese women (‘invisible girls’), who either stayed in Sudan or remained in refugee camps in Kenya, to Sudanese men who were resettled to America, Canada or Australia (‘lost boys’). Incorporating gender as a relational category into the analysis of transnational practices that migrants and refugees engage in is important. The article argues that there is a need to put feminist analysis at the centre of transnational processes resulting from (forced) migration. It looks at the connections between different geographical locations, the impacts of the migration of young refugee men on bridewealth and marriage negotiations and the gender consequences for young women, men and their families. It is argued that transnational activities, such as marriage, contest, reconfigure and reinforce the culturally inscribed gender norms and practices in and across places. Transnational marriage results in ambiguous benefits for women (and men) in accessing greater freedoms. Anthropological analyses of marriage need a geographical focus on the transnational fields in which they occur. The article seeks to deepen understanding of the nuanced gendered consequences of transnationalism. It shows how gender analysis of actions taken across different locations can contribute to the theorisation of transnational studies of refugees and migrants.     

Problematic Conjugations: Women’s Agency,Marriage and Domestic Violence in Indonesia

Abstract:

This paper examines women’s experience of domestic violence within marriage in Makassar, South Sulawesi. It analyses the meaning of marriage for men and women, the roles of men and women within marriage, shifts in marriage practices – particularly the shift from arranged to “love” marriage – and unequal gender positions within marriage. We discuss some salient issues in the “margins of marriage” in Indonesia: polygyny and constructions of masculinity that condone the practice of polygyny/affairs, and attitudes towards divorce, particularly for women. We then examine women’s perception of the causes and triggers of domestic violence as revealed by fieldwork data, using the lens of women’s agency. Our findings are that women perceive that their expressions of agency – for instance in challenging men’s authority, moral righteousness and adequacy as breadwinners – are the most common triggers for male violence within marriage. Finally, we discuss the difficulty for women of escaping domestic violence, thereby getting some purchase on the relative capacity of women to resist, deflect or deal with the violence.     

The case of the missing girls: sex ratios in fifteenth-century Tuscany

This article addresses the apparent shortage of women in the 1427 Florentine Catasto, perhaps the most complete premodern European demographic source. It argues that the shortage exists because it was only when they entered their first marriage that Tuscan women were viewed as complete, gendered beings by their families, government officials, and society. Before marriage, a woman’s place within the household, her gender, and even her existence were liminal, at least in Tuscan documents. The result is that the ratio of men to women is more balanced for that portion of the population past the age of marriage for women. Shifting the analysis from infants and men, where it has traditionally lain, to young adult women explains the gender imbalance in the documentation and provides a deeper understanding of the ways that gender, adulthood, and identity intersected in premodern Europe.     

STAYING SINGLE IN A MARRIED WORLD

As in many countries in Asia, families in Indonesia are experiencing substantial change as new patterns of marriage emerge. Currently, a significant number of adults are ignoring the traditional standards for men's and women's appropriate marriage ages. Utilizing Indonesian censuses data for various years and in-depth interviews with 35 never-married women, this study describes the trends and patterns of singlehood among adults in Yogyakarta and Medan. It also explores the lifestyles of single women, including the process of remaining single, views toward marriage and how they cope with the social stigma of being single. The data show that the proportion single among women aged 30–49 increased sharply over three decades. As a consequence, the median age at marriage for females rose between 1970 and 2000 from 24.4 to 27.4 in Yogyakarta and from 23.2 to 26.1 in Medan. Most women agreed that marriage remains an ideal norm, but it does not mean that being single can not result in a satisfied and happy life.     

‘Traditional Birth Attendants’ and Reproductive Expertise in Postcolonial Mali

Over the twentieth century, Malian families turned to older women reproductive specialists like excisers (who initiated young women into adulthood), nuptial counsellors (who educated women for sex within marriage) and popular midwives. Their work reflected an expansive understanding of health and fertility. In the 1970s, Mali's government sought to incorporate ‘traditional medicine’ into the health system. State health workers trained popular midwives as ‘Traditional Birth Attendants’ (TBA). The same health workers defined nuptial counselling and excision as un-therapeutic and outdated cultural practices. Comparing these responses reveals the role of gender and social status in the making of an African health system.     

Thai wives in Singapore and transnational patriarchy

International marriage migration is a fraught terrain of gender and power relations. Based on research among Thai women married to Singaporean men, we argue that patriarchal outcomes – a distinctive system of transnational patriarchy – result from a complex interaction of women, men and nation-states. We draw on Deniz Kandiyoti's insights into patriarchal bargains as a productive framework through which to identify key elements in the making of transnational patriarchal relations. This article provides a detailed account of conditions in Thailand, Singapore and the contact zones in which Thai women and Singaporean men negotiate marriage migration. Relating this case to previous research, particularly among Filipina migrant women, demonstrates points of commonality while also highlighting the importance of attending to difference and diversity among transnational contexts.     

MARRIAGE-RELATED DECISION-MAKING AND YOUNG WOMEN'S MARITAL RELATIONS AND AGENCY

There is little research that has explored how marriage arrangements, i.e., family-arranged, semi-arranged marriages with some say in spouse selection and self-arranged marriages, affect young women's married life in settings traditionally characterised by arranged marriage. Using data from 13,912 married young women aged 15–24 in India, we explore associations between marriage arrangements and young women's marital relations and agency. Logistic regression analysis shows that women experiencing semi- and self-arranged marriages were more likely than those in family-arranged marriages to communicate and interact with their husband (OR, 1.3–2.8), and exhibit agency in their life (OR, 1.2–2.3); those in semi-arranged marriages were less likely to experience marital violence. These associations were, however, stronger and more consistent among women from southern and western states than in northern and eastern states. Findings call for expanding the discourse on marriage to ensure young people's right to free and full consent in spouse selection.     

Gender interests and Indonesian democracy

Using a distinction between practical and strategic gender interests, this paper examines the implications which democracy has for women in Indonesia. A comparison between the 1950s, when Indonesia experienced a period of liberal democracy, and the current New Order era, reveals that the different records of the two regimes in fulfilling women's gender interests can be explained both by the relative success of governments in promoting development and by the level of civil and political liberties tolerated by them. In the present political transition in Indonesia, the prospect of greater freedoms of expression and association offers hope to women seeking to pursue strategic gender interests and the practical gender interests of poorer women.     

The Perils of the Back Seat: Date Rape,Race and Gender in 1950s America

Dating among white American teenagers in the 1950s caused parents considerable concern, as it represented disturbing developments in sexual expectations. While the rhetoric surrounding marriage celebrated traditional gender roles and monogamy, Americans bemoaned social and moral decay, caused in part by women's encroachment on male prerogatives. Sexual experience for boys increasingly became a defining gender characteristic and a means of achieving manhood as well. Ideas about proper marital norms and studies of dating practices among young people naturalised male aggression as proof of masculinity, which made girls, even ‘respectable ones’, vulnerable to violence from their dates. As teens' acceptance of going steady became more widespread, older racialised narratives of sexual danger evolved to incorporate new dating trends. Whereas American, and especially southern white, women knew the dangers of the supposed ‘black beast rapist’, they learnt during the 1950s that a special danger could confront them in the back seat of cars, despite the presence of their white, male date. Even with a white protector, white women remained vulnerable to violence on dates, whether from black men or from their white date. As dating conventions loosened, white women found that that the perils of the back seat only increased.     

Gender perspective on the social networks of household heads and community leaders after involuntary resettlement

The study of social network analysis in Indonesia and the Philippines reveals that after a certain period in a new community and living among involuntarily resettled strangers, household heads and community leaders will eventually replace their disrupted previous networks with new network ties. The paper likewise demonstrates how gender moulds social network features at the levels of the Indonesian household heads and Philippine community organization after involuntary resettlement. Existing gendered context in two settings like the Indonesian woman’s role as primary caretaker of the household and the absence of a consolidated patriarchal system in the Philippines is shown to have reinforced gender (dis)advantages. As reflected in the two settings, those who have the biggest networks are also the brokers or the influential actors who can control and have an advantage in accessing social capital. Further, basing on the two cases, we identify the gender norm of the centrality of women’s role as homemaker and caregiver in addition to other roles as a similar explanation for the bigger proportions of friends in the networks of women as compared to men. Unless outside interventions reconfigure the natural trajectory of the social networks, gender equality in terms of leadership, decision-making and access to suitable programs and projects as well as to the relevant authorities, remains problematic.     

Resolving Risk? Marriage and Creative Conjugality

The idea of rural women as risk‐averse food producers has been powerful and persistent and constitutes one of our most enduring generalizations. This contribution begins with some critical thoughts about the prevalent consensus on women and risk behaviour and goes on to discuss some counter examples of risk‐taking women farmers in Zimbabwe and Zambia. It argues that risk behaviours of these kinds are strongly related to the character of marriage and forms of conjugality, and considers more broadly how insurance and dependence are gendered. There is a danger of overdrawing, and exclusively emphasizing, household and marriage as sites of gender subordination and thereby losing sight of the value to women of domestic groups and the existence of class‐based solidarities and emotional investments, across gender, which are intertwined with gender subordinations. To recognize these (and other) positive aspects of institutions of kinship and marriage, without simultaneously endorsing subordination, requires a focus on change and women's agency within such institutions, and the happy thought that there is no such thing as the status quo. This study therefore considers myths made within different but overlapping contexts; first the idea of women as reliably risk averse (as well as disadvantaged in access to insurance) which holds sway in international development organizations and some gender analysis; and second, the myth of households as composed of entirely separate individuals with opposed gender interests, in which marriage is predominantly a contract legitimating the exploitation of women. Marriage works as a safety net for women in many contexts, as a form of insurance, but it may become an impediment to accumulation — a feature shared with other social security institutions.     

Intersections of Gender/Sex,Multiculturalism and Religion: Young Muslim Minority Women in Contemporary Bali

This article examines the experience of Muslim female students in high schools in Bali. Since the religion of the majority of the population of Bali is Balinese Hinduism, these young women are part of a Muslim minority – unusual in Indonesia. Data were obtained through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2010. Interviewees were mainly Muslim students, but teachers and Muslim parents were also consulted. Some of the students are a minority within a state senior high school, and some attend a private Islamic school in Denpasar. Interviewees identified choice of school and the wearing of the jilbab (Islamic head-scarf) as issues for them in their everyday lives. The Islamic school is (mis-)perceived as a morally safe environment by parents. The state school does not allow the wearing of the jilbab, showing the limits of multiculturalism in Bali. While the jilbab should express piety and morality, there is some hypocrisy among some young jilbab-wearing women. Some young women have internalised the Balinese objection to poor Muslim immigrants, and feel inferior when they wear the jilbab. The data suggest that their female sex/gender flags their unequal Muslim-minority status in ways that Muslim-minority men do not experience.     

Being NGO girls: gender,subjectivities and everyday life in Kolkata

This article discusses the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a cultural and political force in shaping the gendered and classed subjectivities of young women growing up in ‘red-light areas’ in Kolkata, India. It foregrounds the flexible deployment of NGO gender narratives by ‘subjects’ of NGO development to improve their everyday lives. Drawing on debates of NGOization, post-colonial urban Indian femininities and intersectionality, it demonstrates how several young women who grew up as ‘subjects’ of NGO development mobilize, reject and improvise contested NGO-inspired femininities for their everyday gain. At the same time, it illustrates how NGO gender narratives that are useful to some young women in their renegotiation of gender norms are deemed ineffective, if not obstructive, by other young women, particularly those whose lives remain entangled in multiple marginalities.     

The changing relationship between education and marriage in the United States, 1940-2000

In 1940, when gender specialization was high, there was a negative relationship between education and marriage for women. College-educated women were least likely to be currently married and most likely to be never married. Declines in specialization were accompanied by a transition in this relationship. By 2000, when gender specialization was low, there was a positive relationship between education and marriage for women. College-educated women were most likely to be currently married, in part because they were more likely to stay married or remarry after divorce or widowhood. This transition occurred earlier and more completely for black women than for white women. These changes suggest that the relationship between education and marriage is shaped in part by the gender-role context.     

Urban Women and the Transformations of Braedpraes1 in Honiara2

In the capital city of the Solomon Islands, brideprice is often given to formalize the marriage of young couples from the island of Malaita. For the young wife, brideprice is a reminder that she is expected to work and produce children for the lineage of her husband, an obligation that is at times strongly impressed upon her by her in-laws. Data gathered in Honiara over the last 15 years, most recently in 2015–2016, show the emergence of a variety of patterns among Malaitan women living in Honiara regarding their productive and reproductive autonomy, and their role in brideprice. Beyond their diversity, what these data reveal, we argue, is that the interstitial cultural spaces created by the urbanization of social and economic relations afford young urban women the possibility of engaging with brideprice in a way that had not been possible until then. We demonstrate that, as members of an emerging new middle-class, these women seek (either in agreement with their husbands, or in spite of them) to transform the meaning of brideprice: while showing respect to their in-laws and to tradition, their goal is to gain greater control over their lives within the confines of brideprice sociality.     

Oenpelli Kunwinjku Kinship Terminologies and Marriage Practices

This paper examines the kinship terminologies and marriage practices of Oenpelli Kunwinjku (Gunwinggu) owners/speakers. These terminologies and marriage practices have been presented as symmetrical, the standard pattern in Australia. This paper shows that first preference marriages are asymmetrical, which is rare in Australia. It further demonstrates that first preference marriages do not produce a transitive terminology, which is even rarer in Australia. Though these patterns are unusual, this paper shows that the Oenpelli Kunwinjku marriage practices accord in a number of important aspects with the marriage practices of owners/speakers of other languages with asymmetrical terminologies, such as the Yolngu (Murngin) terminologies. These common aspects to marriage practices and terminologies are to be understood in light of a more general analysis of the correlations between kinship terminologies, marriage practices, and the construction of ranges and regional identities in Australia. There is significant variation in Australia as to whether people express a predilection for narrow or wide ranges. This paper shows that there are non-random correlations between predilections for particular types of range, marriage preferences, and types of terminologies. It also shows that terminologies and marriage preferences have a role in the construction of regional identities.     

Towards individualising couple finance: women’s housing assets and household decisions in Japan

Individualisation, which is increasingly promoted in European welfare states, tends to be absent from policy discourse as well as housing studies in Japan. It is largely because the ‘family as a unit’ is still a dominant approach in their household finance, social security and taxation systems, which also reflects women’s lack of home ownership. However, recent demographic trends such as falling marriage rates, low fertility and increased female labour participation indicate significant diversification in women’s life-course. Thus, today women making their own financial investment and house purchase have increasingly become popular practice. In this context, a new approach beyond the conventional ‘family as a unit’ may be required in the development of a new social contract. Drawing on data from qualitative research conducted among women in their 30s, this article explores the relationship between financial independence, household decisions and asset holding of partnered women in Japan, which reveals contested dimensions of women’s independence and autonomy in household and family life. Through the lens of home ownership, it considers the importance of promoting individual assets in order to foster gender equality in marriage.     

Determinants of divorce in nineteenth-century Flanders

In 1830, the year Belgium became independent, there were four divorces in Belgium. From about 1870 to 1910, there were about one hundred divorces per year, and since 1910, there have been about 1,000. The aim of this research is to investigate the factors that played a role in the increase in the number of divorces in Belgium in the course of the nineteenth century. The research relates to information from four Flemish municipalities for the period 1800-1913. Results indicate that an explanation of the rising divorce rate can be sought in the psychological and social consequences of the more pronounced shift in marriage, gender and family expectations. Increasing numbers of women threw themselves more and more into their gender-specific expressive gender role, whereas the objective opportunities and attainability of this role did not increase commensurately. The result was role strain: high marriage and family expectations soon come up against intrinsic limitations. As a result of this, both individual and general frustration increased, and this was an ideal social substratum for facilitating divorce.     

‘We or them,’ ‘you and I,’ and ‘I’: spaces of intimacy and (not so) public displays of affection in Hanoi

Through an exploratory study of romantic heterosexual couples in a public park situated in Hanoi’s outskirts, this article offers a conceptual rethinking of a western understanding of the park’s public/private dichotomy which can then be used to better appreciate how these categories are evolving in western urbanizing societies and their impacts on gender relations. By developing a relational, spatialized understanding of how young romantic couples justify their ‘transgressive’ displays of sexual intimacy in public spaces in contemporary urban Vietnam, this article focuses on how couples, especially women, manage their visibility. This analysis confronts the public civilizational discourse on Vietnamese sexual restraint by analyzing how young couples justify their romantic displays by creating an intimate space within a public environment. This space of visible intimacy is justified through their commitment to marriage. For the individuals involved in these romantic couples, visibility is justified, particularly for young women, through the enjoyment of a newly gained sexual autonomy as they migrate to the city.