Conjugal Union Research Articles

Diferencias regionales de la disolución conyugal por divorcio y separación en el norte de México

This is a descriptive socio-demographic study of the marital dissolution by divorce and separation in the northern border region of Mexico. The objective is to provide a general view of the level of this type of dissolutions in the region and some of its differences among the federal entities that form it. For this purpose, we use information from the National Survey of the Demographic Dynamics 2018 (ENADID) and secondary sources of information. The analysis is based on the indicators about the dissolution of the first conjugal union of ever-married women that were calculated through the life table technique and logistic regression models. The results evidence that the northern region has one of the highest levels of marital dissolution in the country, but with interesting differences between the states located in the northwest and the northeast generating a dual pattern in the region. divorce, marital dissolution, family instability, northern border, Mexico

Religion and sociodemographic characteristics at baseline of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health study.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether sex, age, race, income, education, and marital status are associated with having a religion in a sample of Brazilian men and women. Data were obtained from 15,098 participants of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health, a longitudinal study that ultimately aims to investigate long-term outcomes of chronic diseases. The sociodemographic characteristics and data on religion status were self-reported during interviews conducted by trained personnel. All study procedures followed standard and validated protocols. There was a strong association between being a woman and having a religion (adjusted OR=2.12, 95%CI 1.95-2.31) when compared to men. Regarding age, those with 45-54 years were more likely to have a religion (adjusted OR=1.14, 95%CI 1.03-1.27). Blacks and Browns were more religious (adjusted OR=1.31, 95%CI 1.15-1.49, and OR=1.22, 95%CI 1.10-1.34, respectively) compared to Whites. Those with high income and education were less likely to state having a religion (adjusted OR=0.78, 95%CI 0.70-0.87, and adjusted OR=0.50, 95%CI 0.43-0.59, respectively). Those who did not have a stable conjugal union were found to be less religious (adjusted OR=0.82, 95%CI 0.75-0.89). Stratifying the analysis according to income showed that higher education was inversely associated with religion on both strata: lower and higher annual earnings. This study suggests that education is one of the most important socioeconomic characteristics to consider when studying religion. Race, sex, income, and marital status are also important factors; however, there was not a clear association between religion and age.

A gender story of institutional disengagement of young adults in Latin America

AbstractLatin America is home to many young adults who are neither engaged in formal education nor work, controversially dubbed as “nini” (“ni” trabajan “ni” estudian, denoting neither working nor studying). At the same time, early union formation and parenthood are pervasive in the region. Theories pertaining to the linkage between parenthood and female labor force participation are heavily based on evidence found in the Global North, with limited research on the topic in settings with less stable family structures, such as Latin American countries. This study tests the role household structure and family formation play on institutional disengagement of young adults in 12 Latin American countries. We explore the gender dynamic of human capital stagnation by focusing on early parenthood and conjugal partnership for women and men aged 20–25. We use censuses from the Integrated Public‐Use Microdata Series and country‐specific linear regression models. Our results reveal that the intersection of class and gender is a major determinant of institutional disengagement in the region. Women from lower social origins who leave parental home to enter conjugal union and parenthood at younger ages are particularly at risk. This study highlights the urgency of contextualizing the interplay between work and family within the framework of regional family norms, prompting further dialogues concerning the social implications of perceived inactivity.

Indagine sulle origini della paelex: una riflessione ragionata su un ruolo dai profili giuridici sfumati

Abstract Ferdinando Zuccotti in his latest volume analyzed with peculiar accuracy and scientific care, with which he has always conducted his research, the evolution of the concept of paelex typical of archaic Rome as an element for reconsidering new itineraries of investigation without preconceptions on the elements and structure of marriage in dating times. The Author through the lexically ambiguous figure of the paelex, has offered the wedge to open a new perspective and rereading the roman marriage system through the axiom that the ius Quiritium did not contemplate it as the engaged were civilly legitimate spouses consequently to the conventio in manum. From this openness derives the need to review the very structure of conjugal unions in archaic Rome, in the effort to focus with analysis and synthesis on a period on which the sources are particularly scarce, almost non-existent.

The intimate affliction of vicarious racialization: Afro-Chinese couples in South China

ABSTRACT Racial prejudice and discrimination towards Africans in Guangzhou have been widely documented and are systemic. Nonetheless, conjugal unions and family formation between Chinese citizens and members of the African diaspora have become more prevalent in recent years. Together, Afro-Chinese couples confront quotidian threats of violence, arrest, and deportation of the African partners, which threats affect their families and livelihoods. Studies thus far have neglected the complex dynamics and negotiations of racism that manifest in the interracial domestic sphere. Through reflexive observational fieldwork and qualitative interviews, this study provides a contemporary analysis of negotiating racism in intimate family life, especially from the unique standpoint of the Chinese spouse in an Afro-Chinese marriage. Drawing upon empirical data and the Althusserian notion of interpellation, we develop the concept of the intimate affliction of vicarious racialization to analyze how multiple inequities intersect and condition the couples’ overlapping lived experiences. Vicarious racialization particularly emphasizes processes by which Chinese women become interpellated but also resist anti-Black racism. This intimate affliction destabilizes the prevailing discourse on racism, which focuses on targeted (racialized) minorities, and the dichotomy of direct/indirect discrimination against them. This study highlights the often-overlooked role of women’s agency across multiple borderlands with their partners as they negotiate gendered, racialized, and classed subjections in familial and social spaces.

To Go to Work or Stay at Home for Better Conjugal Relations? Reflection from Married Women of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Marital adjustment implicates both the family and professional life of women. It has, however, not received adequate research attention in Nepal. This paper assesses the marital adjustment of working women and housewives in Kathmandu, Nepal, using the Marital Adjustment Inventory developed by Kumar and Rohatgi (1976). Data are collected using face-to-face interviews with 270 women selected through purposive-cluster sampling. The data were analyzed using descriptive and bi-variate level inferential statistics. Most respondents were well-educated young Newa community women living in joint families. Married women of Kathmandu Valley enjoy fairly well-adjusted conjugal union, with even better adjustment of working women since their earnings act as power. The bi-variate level test indicated a significantly associated between age at marriage, working status, monthly income, and type of family with marital adjustment. However, the prevailing scholarship indicates that factors affecting marital adjustment are not universal. Rather, they are context-specific. Working women of joint families showed higher levels of marital adjustment, indicating the strength of power (money as resources) and socio-cultural norms for family bonds for family happiness. While these findings seek policy recognition and practical translation of these elements under a wider approach to women’s empowerment and family well-being, we also recommend women go to work rather than stay at home, for a better conjugal relationship.

The meaning of the canonical form of the celebration of marriage since the Second Vatican Council and CIC 1983

The matrimonial agreement is the form through which the institution of marriage and family is born. Both, the Church and the state are called to contribute to the elaboration of those specific conditions by which the notion of the marriage covenant is consolidated and clarified. The form of the marriage celebration is one of the aspects that generated and generates deep analyses and positions in front of what is and represents the way of manifesting the agreement, as well as its role. The crisis of the institution of marriage, the diversity of forms of conjugal union as well as the effects that derive from them, create the specific environment for an analysis and debate that questions the role and function of the canonical form in achieving that conjugal union that is based on the free act, the consent of the bride and groom as the will of the spouses to live together with the requirement to be transformed into a formal act, a legal expression by which the accord of the spouses fulfils all the normative aspects with a view to legal validity and implicitly with a view to the birth of the marriage. In this sense, the pre-conciliar, conciliar and post-conciliar debates reach a unitary expression in the vision of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Consensual conjugal unions among the higher educated women: understanding the heterogeneity of the Brazilian context

Consensual unions have increased greatly in Brazil over the last few decades. Initially, restricted to less-educated groups, they have now been observed in all educational groups, leading some to suggest a diffusion of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in the country. In this paper, we examine the characteristics of women choosing consensual unions in Brazil between 1980 and 2010, with a focus on differentials by education. The results show that higher educated women, when compared to the least educated group, prefer marriage over consensual union in both 1980 and 2010. In addition, we show a growing difference between educational groups over time for choosing informal unions, as the probabilities for higher educated women to choose this union type grew less than for the lower educated. For the women with high levels of education in 2010, the likelihood of being in a consensual union is greater among those from lower social classes, and among blacks, browns, and Catholics. These results suggest the replication of intergenerational behaviour as the most likely explanation for the increase in consensual unions among the most educated.

Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination

Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination

Culture Prison: The Redemption Within Two Walls: An Interpretation of Ashi’s Duor

Based on the gender metaphor of man-woman difference, the cultural concepts of “home-country isomorphism” and “the unity of male and female” have produced one hidden trend and one manifest trend that have overlapped and formed a piece of political, cultural and educational fabric. In this way, an unsurpassable culture prison is established. The gender metaphor of man-woman difference exterminates the spiritual and emotional elements within conjugal union, namely, the “rare” in “How rare it is that human is different from beasts”， thus makes the political, cultural and educational system an inhuman and oppressive system, which has caused human sufferings full of tears and blood. Due to the double closedness of this system, it is impossible to transcend it once being placed in it. The transcending force can only come from outside the fabric: first, it comes from the constant influence of enlightenment to awaken the consciousness of humanity and subjectivity within human persons; second, more fundamentally, it comes from the listening to the holy voice from heaven, which is the final source of spirit and freedom. The short novel “Duor” by Ashi is like an epic, which heavily, peacefully and shockingly describes the cruelty within the culture prison, narrates the agony of the ones unfortunately have fallen in it. Sadly but solemnly and holily, this novel reveals that suffering comes from the love for spirit and freedom, and suffering is the way human persons defeat suffering, obtain redemption and finally reach the heaven of love.

A Critical Analysis of Gender Roles in Marriage in Igbo African Ontology

Marriage among Ndigbo is a powerful institution in which the two genders involved have their respective culturally designated roles. These roles are usually not left to individual fancies because there are strong taboos regarding defaults. The woman must perform her own roles. The man must perform his own roles. It is in performing these roles that the couple fulfill their identity as husband and wife. For both genders, marriage is not just a conjugal union but an essential social requirement to be fulfilled before admission into the society’s rank of respectable adulthood as a man or a woman. The Igbo marriage is basically between a man and a woman or many women, although there are interesting but rare exceptions. The Igbo marriage system shows a complementarity of roles with the male gender clearly dominating. But the Igbo marriage system also provides strong safeguards for women. This makes the Igbo marriage stronger. The marriage is not a singular event but a series of events with carefully laid down procedures. It is a communal act also. Among Ndigbo, marriage is more of a social responsibility than an individual’s conjugal fancy. This work x-rays the traditional Igbo marriage, analyzing and portraying it in philosophical perspectives as it relates to the genders.

From National Catholicism to Romantic Love: The Politics of Love and Divorce in Franco's Spain

In the early 1970s, when the Franco dictatorship (1939–75) was coming to an end, some Catholic intellectuals began to defend people's right to end their failed marriages and seek happiness with a new partner. In so doing, they recognised that love was the primary purpose of marriage; if it was absent the union ceased to be valid. These intellectuals thus broke with a discourse that had until then been deep-seated in both Catholic theology and Francoist morals and laws. According to these, love was only a secondary end of marriage and the conjugal union was indissoluble, leaving people no choice but to tolerate it if it was an unhappy one.

Marital Realism: Beauty and Pettiness inMiddlemarch

Marital Realism: Beauty and Pettiness in<i>Middlemarch</i>

ИНСТИТУТ ЗОРОАСТРИЙСКОГО БРАКА XWēDōDAH: ПРОБЛЕМЫ ГЕНЕЗИСА И ВОПРОСЫ ТИПОЛОГИИ

This paper deals with the famous Zoroastrian marriage xwēdōdah. This form of marriage refers to the conjugal union of father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister. Zoroastrianism of the Sassanid era made this institution a key element of religion, along with offering meal (mēzd) and seasonal holidays (gāhānbār). The question of whether this institution is a part of ancient Iranian legacy or has emerged later, is still controversial among the scholars. Careful development of xwēdōdah in the late Pahlavi works after the Arab conquest in the 9th century could have been the propagation of the priesthood who tried to protect Zoroastrian society against infiltration and destruction or sticking to archaic norms in an effort to preserve their religion in the face of extinction. The paper gives an overview of the most relevant theories about xwēdōdah. The genesis of this institution probably traces to the pre-Indo-European cultural substrate. Some modern scholars, looking for an explanation, pay attention to the works of anthropologists. The rejection of incest in all societies with exogamic regulation led to a certain taboo. This taboo is often due to the birth defects of children born out of consanguineous marriages. In the author’s opinion, the hypothesis of “ritual value” by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown seems to be the most appropriate to this case.

¿Qué es el matrimonio?

Aquí se estudia principalmente qué es el matrimonio. De paso, se muestra cómo este debate tiene profundas consecuencias en el bien común y cómo debería regularse su protección. De manera sistemática revisan las opiniones más importantes sobre el matrimonio, a favor y en contra, para luego sopesar su consistencia. El análisis se divide en dos partes. En la primera se delimita la noción del matrimonio auténtico y se muestran las consecuencias que tiene en el bien común, las mismas que justifican la actuación del Estado en esta materia. Se ven ahí todo género de uniones románticas, monogámicas o no, y el interés público que estas pueden presentar. La segunda parte aborda las objeciones más comunes formuladas contra el matrimonio tradicional, no vistas antes. Estas son objeciones por conservadurismo (¿por qué no extender las normas tradicionales a la comunidad gay?), de tipo pragmático (¿qué pasa con las necesidades concretas de las parejas?), de equidad (¿acaso la concepción conyugal del matrimonio sacrifica el desarrollo pleno de algunas personas a favor de otras?), de naturalidad (¿no es acaso natural?), y de la neutralidad (¿no es cierto que las leyes matrimoniales tradicionales imponen visiones morales y religiosas controversiales a otras personas?). La conclusión principal es que el matrimonio entendido como la unión conyugal de marido y mujer realmente sirve al bien de los hijos, al bien de los esposos, y al bien común de toda la sociedad; estos beneficios no se dan de la misma manera en el matrimonio igualitario.

Making Fathers: Masculinities and Social Change in the Ghanaian Context

Framed within recent debates about hegemonic masculinity and in-depth historical and contemporary research on fatherhood and gender roles in Ghana, this article explores current ways of becoming and being a father in Ghana. Existing studies of fatherhood and masculinities in Ghana tend to present men in conjugal unions as patriarchal and dominating over their wives and children and fatherhood as related mainly to breadwinning and demonstrating sexual potency. Through observation studies, semi-structured interviews, and focusgroup discussions with fathers from urban and rural contexts, this article explores multiple ways of achieving masculinity through fatherhood and ways in which new fathering ideals and expectations come to be incorporated into local gendered ideals. It suggests that alongside values of providing for their families, ideals of involved fatherhood emerge among the study participants, indicating early signs of a shift away from established sociocultural gendered expectations of hegemonic masculinity.

Emergent matriliny in a matrifocal, patrilineal population: a male coalitionary perspective

Daughter-biased parental investment and limited paternal care promote matrifocality and matrilineal descent, both of which are forms of matricentric social organization. However, matrifocality can occur under patrilineal descent. We hypothesize that matrilineal descent could emergently organize social relationships if a society were normatively patrilineal but matrifocal. Furthermore, in matrifocal environments, male and female social lives are envisioned as sex-specific adaptive strategies. Males purportedly form large, flexible social support networks that conflict with conjugal partnership investment owing to a tradeoff in the allocation of effort associated with either investing in male social support or provisioning the conjugal household. However, no quantitative analyses exist about the effect of conjugal partnership formation on male social relations in matrifocal communities. Here we examine whether matrilineal kinship organizes male same-sex social relationships and the effect of conjugal partnerships on male social support in a normatively patrilineal, but matrifocal village. We find that matrilineal kinship influences male social support networks, but not labour cooperation. Consistent with a tradeoff associated with investing in male social support or a conjugal union, we find that labouring with a conjugal partner, but not conjugal partnership itself, reduces male labour and social support outcomes. Our results suggest new insights into men's roles in matricentric social organization: (1) matriliny can emerge in patrilineal systems when household economics shift toward matrifocality in which matrilineal descent is used to organize male social support, and (2) the degree to which this shift occurs depends on the proportion of men who invest in same-sex social networks as opposed to a conjugal partner and offspring. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals'.

Ni madre, ni esposa. Mujeres indígenas de Amatenango del Valle, Chiapas, México

Este estudio explora, a partir de veinticuatro entrevistas semiestructuradas, las condiciones y motivaciones de las mujeres indígenas de Amatenango del Valle quienes, de manera voluntaria o circunstancial, permanecen sin hijos/as a lo largo de su vida reproductiva. La violencia de pareja, presente bajo múltiples formas, es una de las principales razones por las que las mujeres entrevistadas manifiestan su negativa a la conyugalidad. El costo de no unirse conlleva, en algunos casos, el rechazo a la maternidad. Los roles de género que deben cumplir las mujeres-esposas-madres, reflejados en la sobrecarga de trabajo, la constricción de la distribución del tiempo propio, e incluso la limitación del espacio de acción y de sociabilidad, son otras de las consideraciones comúnmente razonadas al momento de elegir no ser madre y no ser esposa. Finalmente, se observó que el acceso a la obtención de recursos monetarizados abre las posibilidades para elegir ser madre, ser esposa, o no serlo, y trazar con ello, desde las propias condiciones objetivas y subjetivas, un proyecto de vida.

Becoming family: futurity and the soldier-father

ABSTRACT How does the process of becoming family shape a male soldier’s rendering of an imagined future in the precariousness of war? We consider this in relation to the experiences of former combatants in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), where polygamous family units were formed under capricious and coercive conditions. To govern a diverse population abducted as youth and forced to labour in the organization involved strict regulations of gender and sexual relations. The LRA sought to sever past kin relations to build a new nation, or people, through rituals that ‘cleansed’ one of civilian mentality and forged new relations. With the birth and care of children from forced conjugal unions, the LRA imagined a future nation cleansed of moral impurities. As soldiers became fathers, loyalties to their new biological and non-biological families usurped their allegiances to the LRA, which frequently led to soldiers releasing their wives, children, junior soldiers, and their own eventual escape. Drawing on life-history and semi-structured interviews with 12 former male fighters, we examine how the conflicting demands on the soldier-father’s performative and future-oriented roles ironically created the conditions for a counter-movement.

Sharing Parental Leave Among Dual-Earner Couples in Canada: Does Reserved Paternity Leave Make a Difference?

In 2006, Quebec became the first Canadian province to offer non-transferable paternity leave to fathers. The availability of this five-week leave distinguishes the province from the rest of the country, where only maternity and parental leave are available. Using data from Statistics Canada’s 2011 General Social Survey, the authors investigate to what extent the availability of reserved paternity leave and couples’ conjugal union type affect the probability of fathers taking leave and the duration of leave. Among couples in which at least one parent took leave, descriptive analysis shows that 75% of Quebec fathers took leave, whereas only 50% of fathers elsewhere in Canada took leave. Both parents received wage replacement benefits in nearly 60% of cases in Quebec, but in only 8% of cases in other provinces. Multivariate analysis confirms that the availability of paternity leave is positively linked to the higher likelihood of Quebec fathers taking leave compared to fathers in other provinces. However, paternity leave is negatively associated with fathers’ duration of leave, as well as that of mothers. Married fathers were more likely than cohabiting fathers to take parental leave in provinces outside Quebec, but not in Quebec. Among other variables, we find that education levels of mothers, gender-role attitudes (approached through sharing of housework), number of children, and family type significantly affect the likelihood of fathers taking leave. Duration of leave appears more closely associated with differences between partners in terms of age and income for mothers, and of education for both parents.