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April 21, 2008Government sponsors mass weddings in Egypt
April 14, 2008Marriage is such an important social rite in Egypt and yet its costs can be prohibitive. The Egyptian government is worried that those who don’t marry because they can’t afford it might become alienated and turn to religious extremism. So the government and charities are now sponsoring mass weddings. Read about it in this New York Times article and check out the accompanying slide show and video, describing how the youth of Egypt feel abandoned by their political system.
German couple takes battle over fifth first name to court
April 12, 2008A little wacky news today. This German couple is arguing over whether their 15 month-old son, David Laurin Raphael Julian, needs a fifth name. After the boy’s first birthday, the city of Munich began charging the couple 50 euros a month for not resolving the issue.
When I lived in Hamburg, I knew several couples who were not married and whose children carried the mother’s family name. When I asked one woman why, she said that German law was quite inflexible when it came to changing names. If she and her partner were ever to separate, it would be almost impossible for her daughter to change her name to the mother’s name.
My understanding is that it is very easy to change your name or your child’s name (as long as both parents are informed) in the U.S. Should it be easy? What is the government’s interest in our names?
Shiite temporary marriage
April 10, 2008I just learned about this temporary marriage concept that is possible under Shiite law. This New York Times article is a little bit old but explains the practice pretty clearly. Do you think temporary marriage is something that could be useful in society? Does it give women more equality than a traditional marriage does? Is it a case of prostitution or marriage as a financial transaction?
555 children and women removed from YFZ Ranch
April 9, 2008Last week 555 women and children were removed from the YFZ Ranch outside of Eldorado, Texas after investigators responding to a call from a 16 year old mother found numerous girls either pregnant or already mothers of infants on the ranch, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Mormon polygamist sect, whose members have been excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was led by “prophet” Warren Jeffs until his conviction in late 2007 for being an accomplice to rape.
Although it is widely know that this religious sect engages in polygamy and pressures underage girls to have sex with their “spiritual” husbands, the sect’s geographical isolation in places like the Arizona Strip has kept them relatively protected from the law. Now Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services must sort out who these children are, who their parents are, and find homes for them outside of the ranch, where, according to the DFPS affidavit filed to allow the removal of the children, “young female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men…upon being spiritually married to them.”
Fatherless children in China face legal limitations
April 9, 2008With fines for having more than one child, parental pressure to marry and a culture with little stigma for abortion, the issue of single motherhood has mostly been absent from China’s public forum. Now a single journalist is blogging to her unborn child in Beijing, and the comments left on her site both hint at change underfoot and emphasize the difficulty of raising a child alone in China. As some comments point out, and this New York Times article describes, the blogger’s child may face difficulty getting a residency permit or registering for school without a father.
Hot topics
April 7, 20081. Same-sex marriage: Many European countries are extending the rights and advantages of marriage to same-sex couples. Other countries have recently moved to declare such unions illegal or unconstitutional. Some groups are fighting for U.S. immigration law to recognize same-sex marriages or to open up international adoption to same-sex couples.
Gay Canadians’ Quest for Marriage Seems Near Victory
Spanish parliament gives approval to bill to legalize same-sex marriages
2. Policies promoting or limiting child-bearing: Faced with a ballooning population, the Peoples Republic of China instituted a one-child policy in 1979 to limit population growth. The government considers the program a success and points to China’s economic expansion as evidence. In Europe, however, many countries face such low fertility rates that their economies and social programs are threatened. European governments have created all sorts of incentive programs, some paying parents thousands of Euros a year, to encourage baby-making.
China to keep one-child policy
Guide to China’s one-child policy
China’s surplus of sons: a geopolitical time bomb
Being a 2007 German New Year’s baby is like winning the lotto
3. Religion and family law: Increased immigration has led to the development of cultural minorities with religious practices that are sometimes at odds with the law of the land they’ve settled in. Honor killings and physical abuse present a complex challenge for European governments as they struggle to protect their Enlightenment-based legal system while remaining enlightened.
Brothers of slain Turkish woman to be retried
New case law: circumcision as the basis for custody modification?
Online communities
April 7, 2008Key websites
April 7, 2008Mission statement
April 1, 2008This blog will look at family policy from an international perspective. I will investigate how different countries and governments attempt to solve similar issues, and how some nations face unique societal challenges.
