Uxores,ancillae and dominae: women in thirteenth-century Hungary in the Register of Várad

Women’s history for Árpád-era Hungary (1000–1301) has generally been restricted to legal issues and the royal court. This study addresses these deficiencies by examining women in the Register of Várad in regard to three areas of investigation: marriage practices and the involvement of the Church, access women had to property and the access women had to authority. Evidence from the register indicates that by the thirteenth century, ecclesiastical ideas regarding marriage were barely making themselves felt. Ideas of consent and even the indissolubility of marriage were at times unimportant. Though priests were occasionally present at marriages, their role was not decisive. Women had three primary means of obtaining property. They could receive gifts or dower on the event of their wedding, and they could receive a portion of the patrimony. This inheritance was termed the quarta filialis as it amounted to no more than one-quarter of the father’s property. These gifts came under the control of the woman’s husband, and she could not access them until his death. Widowhood combined with guardianship of a minor son could allow women to exert considerable power and, just as elsewhere in Latin Europe, women’s access to public and private authority most approximated that of men’s as a widow. Not all women, of course, had access to such power. The Register of Várad shows numerous instances of women slaves who were under the complete control of their master.     

Evaluating marital stability in late-Victorian Camberwell

What was the extent of marital breakdown and separation in a society where divorce was unlikely to be an option? This article investigates the status and longevity of the marriages of a group of parents whose children were admitted to the care of the poor law authorities in Camberwell in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It finds that spousal death or misfortune, rather than marital breakdown, were the primary reasons for a parent to send a child to the poor law authorities, and that most of the marriages of the parents in the sample remained intact. It also explores whether those who separated formed new co-residential relationships.     

County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830

Much literature on the industrial revolution has argued for the emergence of distinct, economically specialised regions during the eighteenth century. Large towns are thought to have played a vital part in drawing these industrial regions together, economically, socially and culturally. However, using the example of the East Midlands, this paper highlights the fact that neither industrialisation nor regional development was a uniform process. The East Midlands was significantly affected by industrialisation, but unlike ‘classic industrial regions’ such as the North-west or West Midlands, it did not experience a concomitant growth in regional integration and identity. Data on migration to Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the period 1700–1830 are used to examine the nature and extent of social and economic linkages between these towns and their hinterlands and thus to explore the nature of urban-centred spatial integration in the East Midlands. It is argued that the apparent lack of region-wide integration can be explained, firstly, by the unusual dominance of the three county towns at the head of weak county urban networks, and secondly, by the persistence of a proto-industrial structure in the East Midlands' staple hosiery industry.     

‘Las Vegas is not where we are’: Queer readings of the Civil Partnership Act

This article interrogates the United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act, which is intended to create a new legal status of ‘civil partner’. The Act confers benefits and imposes legal responsibilities on those same-sex couples who register their relationships. Analysing the Governmental material produced in support of the legislation, as well as Parliamentary debates, the article provides a critical analysis of the ideological underpinnings of civil partnership. A series of dichotomies—marriage/not marriage; sex/no sex; status/contract; conjugality/care; love/money; responsibilities/rights—informs the Government's construction of the category of ‘same-sex partner’. Those dichotomies lend themselves to a deconstructive analysis, applying the insights of queer theory. The result is a skepticism regarding the Act's replication of a marriage model for same-sex couples. Instead, the article concludes by advocating the search for more pluralistic and flexible legal models that better represent the diversity of relationship forms found today.     

新中国成立初期中南区婚姻制度的改革

新中国成立前后,中南区由于长期受封建婚姻制度的束缚,各种陋俗在许多地方普遍存在,广大妇女的社会地位极其低下。1950年《中华人民共和国婚姻法》颁布施行后,中南区在全区范围内大张旗鼓地开展了一场宣传和贯彻《婚姻法》的群众运动,经过调查试验、宣传发动和总结表彰,彻底地摧毁了封建婚姻制度,建立起了新民主主义的新型婚姻制度,形成了男女平等、民主和睦的社会新风尚,从而促进了中南区整体性的社会文明与进步。     

Uxores, ancillae and dominae: women in thirteenth-century Hungary in the Register of Várad

Women’s history for Árpád-era Hungary (1000–1301) has generally been restricted to legal issues and the royal court. This study addresses these deficiencies by examining women in the Register of Várad in regard to three areas of investigation: marriage practices and the involvement of the Church, access women had to property and the access women had to authority. Evidence from the register indicates that by the thirteenth century, ecclesiastical ideas regarding marriage were barely making themselves felt. Ideas of consent and even the indissolubility of marriage were at times unimportant. Though priests were occasionally present at marriages, their role was not decisive. Women had three primary means of obtaining property. They could receive gifts or dower on the event of their wedding, and they could receive a portion of the patrimony. This inheritance was termed the quarta filialis as it amounted to no more than one-quarter of the father’s property. These gifts came under the control of the woman’s husband, and she could not access them until his death. Widowhood combined with guardianship of a minor son could allow women to exert considerable power and, just as elsewhere in Latin Europe, women’s access to public and private authority most approximated that of men’s as a widow. Not all women, of course, had access to such power. The Register of Várad shows numerous instances of women slaves who were under the complete control of their master.     

抗日根据地时期的女性离婚问题——以晋西北(晋绥)高等法院25宗离婚案为中心的考察

中共晋西北抗日民主政权建立后即颁布《晋西北婚姻暂行条例》,对女性离婚权予以法律上的肯定。一批农村妇女以情感、经济等原因向丈夫提出离婚,根据地婚姻观念或离婚现象呈现出与以往不同的景观。由于离婚案件频频发生,影响了中共抗战大局,中共中央于1943年发表关于各抗日根据地妇女工作方针的四三决定,修正过去激进的婚姻变革路线,以将妇女关注的重点由婚姻问题转向生产建设并缓解根据地两性之间日益紧张的矛盾。这种策略性的政策转变引起法院对待离婚案件的处理发生演变,即不同时期性质相同或相近之案件,其审理结果迥然相异。这亦说明婚姻变革须立足于现实的客观实际。     

回族婚姻观探微

婚姻是人类得以生存、繁衍的根本手段,各民族在婚姻观念、制度、形式及习俗方面都有所差异。本文通过对回族婚姻观的介绍和探讨,来领略回族的民族心理和民族文化。     

The Construction of Continuity in Lesu: The Historical Anthropology of a New Ireland Society

This study examines features of social organization originally encountered in New Ireland in 1929–30 by the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker. It aims to depict important aspects of social life before these were transformed by colonial and missionary influences. Kinship and marriage are discussed as topoi in discourses of continuity. It is suggested that in a social landscape of demographic limitations and widespread violence, social morphology was generated through categorical distinctions providing symbolic order in a dense texture of factual kinship, an order imposed to counteract the ever‐present shadow of incest. The social grammar prescribed a primary uterinely defined demarcation of belonging. As a parallel counterpoint, there was also an agnatically inspired alternative cultural modality. In this other possible world, the main distinction was that between men and women, uterine belonging being irrelevant.