Journal articles on the topic 'Children Motherhood Marriage Mysticism'

The persistently high prevalence of girl-child marriage and adolescent motherhood is a public health concern in Bangladesh. This study investigated the division-wise prevalence and the influence of education and religious affiliation on child marriage and adolescent motherhood among women in Bangladesh along with their consequences using 15,474 women aged 15–49 years from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2017–18. Staggeringly, 82.5% women were married before 18, 43.1% were married before 15, and 61.8% gave birth before 18 years of age. Binary logistic regression models for the complex survey showed that girl-children with primary, secondary, and higher secondary or above education were 16% (95% CI: 0.69, 1.03), 32% (95% CI: 0.55, 0.84), and 87% (95% CI: 0.10, 0.17) less likely to get married <18 years of age, respectively, compared to the uneducated. Also, girl-children with secondary and higher education were 21 and 83% less likely to become adolescent mothers, respectively, than the uneducated. Women married during childhood (<18 years) and adolescent mothers were 36 and 55% less likely to continue studies after marriage, respectively, and expressed that they significantly preferred a late marriage. Policy interventions need to address culturally-laden social norms influenced by religious-related beliefs, especially in rural areas.

Using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panels linked to Social Security earnings records, we examine the earnings gap associated with marriage for cohorts of women born between 1936 and 1975. We compare ordinary least squares and fixed-effect estimates. We find that among women who work, the marital earnings gap has all but disappeared in fixed-effects estimates for recent birth cohorts. In fact, among women without children, married women earn more than single women, implying a diminished role for specialization when children are not present. In contrast, the motherhood earnings gap remains large even for recent birth cohorts.

Abstract Even if concepts of marriage and motherhood are subject to continuous changes and reinterpretations, women and men still marry and have children following more traditional or more unconventional patterns. My major interest in this research was to unveil Romanian middle-class women’s narratives regarding their perceptions over their own bodies and identities, by focusing my analysis on lived experiences, intimate scenes, daily practices and activities within marriage and motherhood. Qualitative empirical work was conducted in 2012 and 2015 in a post-socialist suburban neighbourhood, known as a place mostly inhabited by young, middle-class families. The analysis unfolds women’s class affinities and dispositions, their perception of the marital experience, identity and corporeal transformations, and their reflections on maternity as a transformative stage in terms of subjectivity, agency and body.

As the numbers of women entering prison are increasing, more attention is being paid to the social circumstances of criminally involved women. Crime research has highlighted the familial roles of women more than men, focusing on the social and personal roles of women. This study examines a cross-sectional sample of 423 women in one state, assessing the associations of motherhood and intimate partnership with criminal activity. The study finds that criminal activity, particularly economic crime, is highly related to motherhood. Economic crime is predicted by having a higher number of young children, while both economic and violent crimes are predicted by a woman's history of victimization; marriage does not reduce these risks.

The psychological aspects of attitudes to marriage in women with different marital status in a transitive society, the main characteristics of which are the dynamism of social processes, diversity of positions, value systems, uncertainty of norms, are presented in the article. The work analyzes the specifics of motivation and marital attitudes, as well as peculiarities of interrelation between current attitudes toward marriage and psychological well-being of the study participants at different ages. The results of the study demonstrate that women retain a basic attitude toward the importance and value of marital relations. Emotional and socio-cultural motivations are dominant for respondents in this sample. The attitude of women to egalitarian relations in marriage confirms the priority of individual desires in marriage and strengthening the position of partner type interaction in modern marriage. The study on the relationship between psychological well-being and attitudes toward marriage confirms the general trend of pragmatic attitudes toward marriage and the desire to postpone the birth of children to a later date. The prospect of motherhood for divorced women at different ages is associated with limited life prospects, inability to control their lives and reduced opportunities for development.

Despite the benefits of marriage, there has been a rise in the number of single parent families, especially never married single mothers globally. This may bring about serious social problems as the consequences of children raised by single mother have been documented. Yet, little research has been conducted to find out why there is increase in the number of never married single mothers. Therefore, this study investigated and described the experiences of women who were never married but are bearing children and raising those children as single mothers. The study adopted the qualitative research method, utilizing in-depth interviews to collect data from consenting participants. The study location was Iwaya, Lagos, Nigeria, and the participants were selected using snowball sampling technique. Forty never-married single mothers were sampled and interviewed using an in-depth interview guide. The data were transcribed and content analysed. Some of the perceived reasons for the rise in the number of never married single mother identified include family background, sexual abuse, age, careless sexual behaviour and non-use of contraceptives, personal preference and perceived economic benefits. There is the need to educate women on how to prevent sexual abuse and also on proper use of contraceptive for those who may want to engage in sexual intercourse, but may not be ready to get married.

Women in South Asia comprise close to one third of the world's female population. Not only is South Asia an extremely populous region but population growth rates have been much higher than averages for other developing countries. The implications of high population growth rates are quite direct and severe for women, as they are the result of high levels of fertility which have prevailed for some time in this region. The stable and high levels of fertility along with falling mortality have led to a youthful population structure where about 45 percent of the population is aged under 15. Since childbearing as well as childrearing are almost the sole responsibility of women, these figures reflect the burden of high fertility amongst South Asian women. An average South Asian woman marries at a fairly young age, (even though the region is exhibiting a distinct trend of rising age at marriage for females) and starts bearing children soon after. Though fertility rates have been declining in most of India and Bangladesh while they had already reached quite low levels in Sri Lanka, other countries of the region (mainly Nepal and Pakistan) have still to experience any dramatic declines in fertility. In contrast with trends in the Latin American and South East Asian region, increases in contraceptive use in South Asia have not played as substantive a role in fertility declines as changing marriage patterns, atleast so far. See Table 1 for recent figures on fertility and contraceptive use among females of this region.

The prevalence of gender wage gaps in academic work is well documented, but patterns of advantage or disadvantage linked to marital, motherhood, and fatherhood statuses have been less explored among college and university faculty. Drawing from a nationally representative sample of faculty in the US, we explore how the combined effects of marriage, children, and gender affect faculty salaries in science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) and non-SEM fields. We examine whether faculty members’ productivity moderates these relationships and whether these effects vary between SEM and non-SEM faculty. Among SEM faculty, we also consider whether placement in specific disciplinary groups affects relationships between gender, marital and parental status, and salary. Our results show stronger support for fatherhood premiums than for consistent motherhood penalties. Although earnings are reduced for women in all fields relative to married fathers, disadvantages for married mothers in SEM disappear when controls for productivity are introduced. In contrast to patterns of motherhood penalties in the labor market overall, single childless women suffer the greatest penalties in pay in both SEM and non-SEM fields. Our results point to complex effects of family statuses on the maintenance of gender wage disparities in SEM and non-SEM disciplines, but married mothers do not emerge as the most disadvantaged group.

This article investigates gender differences in Nigeria, in the impact of marriage and children on location in the self or waged employment sector, and on income from work. Findings show that the pay structure varies across employment sectors – waged and self-employed – and that the determinants of employment sector vary by gender and family roles. Differences in human capital investment and geopolitical zones also need to be considered. The estimates in the study reveal that there is a marriage premium for both males and females in the waged labour market, but partially support Becker’s (1991) gender-based household specialisation model in terms of the relative incidence of self-employment. There is a wage penalty for married women with children in the paid-employment labour market, but motherhood is also negatively associated with income levels for self-employed women. We also find a fatherhood penalty for paid-employed men. Nevertheless, overall, the gender difference is higher in relatively less regulated self-employment compared to the more regulated paid employment labour market. Findings therefore offer some policy inputs but also suggest the need for further research into the causes of the gender pay gap in self- and paid employment, and thus into the overall wage gap in Nigeria that inhibits women’s labour market participation and welfare.

Choice is an illusion non-existent in the lives of mothers; and selflessness to them, is not a decision but an encumbrance. This case is proficiently presented by Jodi Picoult in her novel Handle With Care (2009). Dealing with the issues of motherhood and nuptial ties, the novel raises a few important questions in the backdrop of mothering children with special needs. The novel introduces us to a helpless mother fighting for the survival of her dying daughter and gradually moving towards a troubled marriage and dissatisfied relationships. She is committed to saving her daughter’s life by whatever fair or foul means she can think of. This study examines why motherhood, is still the least valued and what are the factors that make motherhood suffer in the hands of other familial roles a mother plays. Another supplementary source My Sister’s Keeper (2008), by the same author, has also been taken into account since it also deals with an identical maternal crisis. Under the theoretical canopy of maternal feminism put forth by Andrea O’Reilly(2007, 2010), an exhaustive critical analysis of Picoult’s plea in question is done.

This qualitative phenomenological study focuses on the process undergone by never-married Single Mothers by Choice (SMC) in their decision to raise a child on their own. The issue examined is whether the choice of this family structure reflects a social change or a personal compromise, a decision not to wait for a marriage partner. Semi-structured, in-depth, non-directive interviews were conducted. The findings reveal that SMC took the step as a compromise, having preferred to marry. While they are willing to compromise on family structure, SMC are not willing to compromise on a partner, nor are they willing to forego their intention to become mothers. Thus, marriage is still the most desired family structure for having children, but social change is manifested in the choice that women make to choose motherhood without a partner.

Drawing on an ethnographic study of Roman Catholic sisters in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I show how women in the Global South draw on religious imagery to redefine cultural ideals of womanhood and family responsibility. By taking the religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, the Congolese sisters I interviewed seemingly betray local expectations regarding women’s responsibility to reproduce and repair the clan. Although sisters’ vows subject them to social ridicule for violating cultural expectations to bear children and support kin, they devise new strategies to negotiate the connection between womanhood and the maternal role of caregiver and nurturer outside of marriage and fertility. In social ministries that affirm their communal, moral, and spiritual ties to others, the sisters realize these cultural ideals through a “spiritual motherhood” that transforms their traditional heteronormative obligations. Framing their decision to live outside accepted kinship structures in religious terms mutes the radicalness of this lifestyle and provides religious legitimation for what would otherwise be considered a selfish choice for a woman acting independent of family well-being. In this context, I demonstrate how doing religion is inseparable from doing gender as Catholic sisters embody alternative ways of being a woman in post-colonial Congolese society through their religious practices.

Disability and reproductive justice. Mapping disabled women’s experiences The aim of this paper is to map experiences of disabled women regarding parenthood and childfreeness/childlessness as well as support in upbringing their own children. The concept of reproductive justice is employed, as it proposes a critical approach to understanding how societies construct who can and should be a parent. Approaching the question of individual choice in a broad social context, I analyse factors that shape experiences of disabled women in Poland (e.g. restrictions on parenting of disabled persons or lack of marriage equality). Keywords: reproductive justice, disabled women, motherhood, reproductive choice

The sphere of reproductive rights is still beyond the scope of a thorough legal analysis, and it is not given due attention in the legal literature. This may be due to the fact that the concept of reproductive rights is new to Ukrainian law and has not yet found its proper place in the general system of law. There is a lack of scientific development in the issue of protection of the rights of the child to birth, trafficking in human beings for the purpose of exploiting surrogate mothers or children born as a result of surrogate motherhood, etc. The purpose of the study is to analyze the legislative, doctrinal and moral aspects of reproductive rights and to identify effective legal measures to improve the legal regulation of surrogate motherhood in Ukraine and the proper legal protection of the child before and after birth. Experimenting with human gene material as a conception in vitro turns children into a commodity. There is an artificial situation in which wealthy men will hire women to provide contracting services to their offspring. It is difficult to disagree that in surrogate motherhood, as in any business, personal financial gain dominates. So, from this point of view, surrogacy is a kind of market and business. The conception of the child is not a right, but an opportunity that is not given to all, but surrogate motherhood turns the child into an "object of economic agreement and contract, a kind of ordering of goods." The child cannot be considered as an object of property. It is unacceptable to consider the practice of surrogacy as ethical. In addition, forced commercial surrogate motherhood falls within the definition of trafficking in human beings. The issue of reproductive technology must be addressed in such a way that the child born as a result of surrogate motherhood does not fall prey to further exploitation. The author concluded that in many countries with a licensing or altruistic regime, many aspects of the use of assisted reproductive technologies and surrogate motherhood remain unregulated. There is no clear understanding of all the principles and standards governing the use of assisted reproductive technologies and surrogacy agreements. In general, the legislation lacks sufficient standards and provisions to protect the rights of parties to surrogacy agreements. The most controversial issues are the rights of the surrogate mother, the expectant parents and the children born as a result of the surrogate motherhood. At the present stage, legal adaptation of society to the development of medicine in the field of reproductive technologies has not yet taken place in Ukraine. Cases such as the birth of several children by surrogate mothers, births of a child with developmental disabilities, birth of a dead child or miscarriage, the need for an artificial interruption of pregnancy according to the medical opinion of doctors, the termination of marriage by genetic parents, the death of one or both parents. Keywords: reproductive rights, surrogacy motherhood, legal regulation, legal protection, embryo, child rights, family, surrogacy agreement.

In a society which recognizes the significance of children, giving birth to a child completes womanhood and the family. Thus, being a mother is synonymous with being a woman. The failure, then to become a mother, constitutes not fully achieving the status of a woman. Relatively, the desire for motherhood is inevitable and almost universal. This qualitative study analyzed the beliefs, and experiences of married women focused on their childlessness, health-seeking practices, and effects. Data were gathered through in-depth interview. Results showed that childlessness typified an unanticipated condition among the childless women. Regardless of the current age, age at marriage, marital duration, educational attainment and income, the respondents disclosed that childlessness is a condition which can be treated, provided the woman is still young. Childless women with higher income would likely seek medical help. Length of marriage disclosed to have affected the childless women’s recognition of their incapability to sire. Open communication coupled with trust, love, and understanding between couples would keep the marriage intact. Findings revealed that their self-esteem, marital relationship, relationship with relatives and friends were affected by the absence of children. Almost all of the respondents expressed that the communities they are into neither, in any way, bothered with their condition nor rejected them due to their childlessness.

ABSTRACT Background One factor many women consider when choosing a medical specialty is the plan to have children and the compatibility of their chosen specialty with motherhood. Objective We surveyed Hispanic female physicians who are mothers to collect demographic information, specialty choice, childbearing, and professional and personal life characteristics, along with respondents' suggestions for female physicians who want to start a family, and how hospitals and medical institutions could enhance their support of female medical staff members with children. Methods The questionnaire was fielded on an online forum for Hispanic female physicians who are mothers. We summarized data by frequency and percentages, and means and standard deviations. Results Common medical specialties of respondents included pediatrics, family medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology, and 19% did not report a medical specialty. Most respondents were married (72%), had 1 or 2 children (89%), and worked at a public hospital 5 days a week (51%). Forty-four percent reported they slept 6 or more hours a night. Differences among specialties included dermatologists, radiologists, and gynecologists reporting working more than other specialties (6 to 7 days a week), psychiatrists reporting greater use of psychiatric medications, and anesthesiologists reporting lower rates of marriage. Female surgeons and emergency medicine physicians reported the highest consumption of alcohol. Conclusions The results offer initial insights into how medical specialty choice may affect female physicians' work-life balance and can be used to provide guidance to female learners who plan to have a family.

In ‘Irish Orphans and Infant Mortalities: Motherhood and Nationalism in George Egerton's Writing’, I interrogate George Egerton's use of orphaned women, Irishness, and infant mortality as privileged tropes in ‘A Psychological Moment at Three Periods’, ‘Gone Under’, and The Wheel of God. The orphan figures in these works suffer at the hands of the men in their lives and as a result of parental absence. They are uprooted from their homeland and some are further traumatised by the deaths of their children. Extending existing scholarship on Egerton as an Irish New Woman, this essay argues that, in all three texts, Egerton uses the fates of the orphaned women and their dead children to comment on nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish relations. It examines Egerton's ambivalence in relation to a range of Irish concerns and, by extension, her complicated identity as an Irish woman writer living in England. The orphaned women in Egerton's texts disrupt their families, communities, and nations through their, sometimes violent, rejection of the circumstances that they are faced with: forced concubinage or marriage, loss of newborn children, or loss of social standing or reputation. Without effective familial support, these characters are neither able to avoid finding themselves in compromising situations nor to cope with unfortunate or unavoidable events. This essay considers Egerton's highly nuanced rendering of the fraught relationship between England and her closest colony, arguing that her dramatisation of Irish orphan experience also served the author's broader critique of the nineteenth century's exclusionary masculine publishing tradition.

The author of the article presents how eighteenth-century writer Józef Legowicz sees the issue of motherhood. Józef Legowicz was a priest and a doctor of theology. He was a parson in Korkożyszki, a small village in Lithuania. He published 18 works, one of which was the guidebook Wedlock. He tried to show his parishioners the best way to achieve a harmonious marriage and raise children as good Christians. This guidebook is a valuable source of information about mother- and fatherhood in 18th Century Poland. The main task of this article is to show the unique role of women in the early stages of a child’s life.

In the article, the authors raise the issue of protection of the reproductive health of adolescent girls. 50 adolescent girls, who studied in the technical and humanitarian classes of the secondary general school in Vladimir, were enrolled in the study. They had participated in the anonymous questionnaire survey for 3 years. It was found that the majority of adolescent girls had a low level of knowledge on reproductive health, as well as altered sexual behaviour (attitude toward the family, motherhood, childbirth, abortion, marriage), moreover the indicators on these issues deteriorated with the passage of time. The religious schoolgirls from families with two or more children showed the «highest» reproductive attitudes; they were negative about abortion.

One of the defining characteristics of Victorian culture was its insistence that women were naturally maternal. Marriage and motherhood were assumed to be the twin goals of every young woman. Those who did not bear children were termed ‘redundant’ (perhaps most famously in W.R. Greg’s 1862 article, ‘Why are women redundant?’), yet were still assumed to have maternal instincts. Equally significant to Victorian culture was its Christianity. Notwithstanding the fact that only about half of the English and Welsh actually attended religious services, the presence of an established Church, the frequency with which political and religious questions coincided, and the certainty that England was (as one clergyman confidently expressed it) illuminated by the ‘very sun-shine of Protestantism’, combined to make Victorian culture Christian, and moreover, Protestant.

AbstractAn estimated 12 million girls aged 15–19 years, and 777,000 girls younger than 15 give birth globally each year. Contexts of war and displacement increase the likelihood of early marriage and childbearing. Given the developmentally sensitive periods of early childhood and adolescence, adolescent motherhood in conflict-affected contexts may put a family at risk intergenerationally. We propose that the specifics of normative neuroendocrine development during adolescence, including increased sensitivity to stress, pose additional risks to adolescent girls and their young children in the face of war and displacement, with potential lifelong consequences for health and development. This paper proposes a developmental, dual-generational framework for research and policies to better understand and address the needs of adolescent mothers and their small children. We draw from the literature on developmental stress physiology, adolescent parenthood in contexts of war and displacement internationally, and developmental cultural neurobiology. We also identify culturally meaningful sources of resilience and provide a review of the existing literature on interventions supporting adolescent mothers and their offspring. We aim to honor Edward Zigler's groundbreaking life and career by integrating basic developmental science with applied intervention and policy.

The Summer Before the Dark was first published in 1973. At the time it must have been a very contemporary novel, and perhaps a little controversial, because its central theme is the role of women in society. The main character, Kate Brown, is a domestic goddess who spends one summer rediscovering herself and her place in the world after some 20 years of marriage and motherhood. It might sound like a relatively dull premise for a novel, but in Lessing’s hands the book sings with great storytelling, intellectual insight and drama. Kate Brown is no dull housewife: She’s complex woman suffering what can be best described as empty- “nest syndrome”. Her grown up children are getting on with their lives and her husband is working in America for an extended period, leaving her to her own devices for a summer.

AbstractThis article focuses on relationships between grandmothers and grandchildren in an urban society in East Cameroon. It argues that despite fluid generational demarcations between grandmothers and mothers, women perform their grandmotherhood differently from their motherhood. As a result of the claims grandmothers often make on their children's children, grandmothers easily replace mothers but they do not rear children in the same way. The sharing of home, food, and bed is central in the performance of grandmotherhood and differs from relationships of sharing in the mother-child bond. The article also argues that grandmotherhood in East Cameroon is not a clearly bounded, unambiguous life stage but that it contains multiple trajectories that do not occur in the same time or in the same order. Multiple trajectories, characterised by both agency and constraint, are explained in terms of differences within and between grandmothers’ life courses. The article shows that grandmothers play vital roles in complex practices of marriage and descent and, in contrast to previous studies in the area, that matrilineages are closely linked to patrilineages.

The rise of Medically Assisted Procreation has led to the issue of how to determine who is entitled to parental status and custody rights. In this article, the author comments upon the rationale and legal principles that Italian Courts have applied in order to solve those problems, given the absence of a targeted piece of legislation. The principle of the child’s best interests, the ‘public order’ clause and various rulings from the European Court of Human Rights constitute the foundations on which legal trends have developed, allowing same-sex couples to become parents through ‘stepchild adoption’ or the legal registration of children born through heterologous fertilization practices abroad. Italy has therefore repositioned itself a step closer to the middle ground with respect to the overall European scenario: Italy’s law now acknowledges motherhood for intended mothers, although it continues to stop short of recognizing same-sex marriage.

AbstractObjectiveTo identify social, behavioural and cultural factors that explain the thinness of young women relative to their men in rural Maharashtra, India.DesignTwelve focus group discussions were conducted to explore the villagers' understanding of why women in their area might be thinner than men.SettingPabal village and surrounding hamlets, in the Pune district of Maharashtra, India.SubjectsSamples of young mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers were selected from families in the village with children below 10 years of age.ResultsFour factors were identified that the villagers felt contributed to the disparity in thinness. First, marriage isolated girls from their own families and villages, and brought the expectation of early motherhood. Young brides were often unable to relax and eat adequately. Second, marriage increased the workload of young women. They were expected to do the heaviest household chores as well as farm work in this predominantly agricultural community. Third, women had no financial autonomy or freedom of movement, and were therefore denied access to supplementary food sources available to men. Fourth, young women felt responsible for their household's health and success. They were encouraged to fast regularly to ensure this. Despite feeling responsible, young women had no control over factors that might affect the household's well being. This made them anxious and worried a great deal of the time.ConclusionsInterventions to improve the nutritional status of young women in this region need to recognise the roles and responsibilities taken up by young brides.

The focus of the present qualitative study is the contextualization of the lived experience of mothers raising one or more children with autism, examining specific aspects, the real socio-economic life circumstances and their role on mothers’ access to resources, their mental health and overall quality of life. The initial main findings generated from the qualitative analysis of the interviews collected from 83 mothers from contrasting/opposite socio-economic positions, working class and economically privileged, are presented across four thematic nodes: a) the type and quality of the diagnostic experience, b) the quality of marriage, the support networks and social responses, c) the motherhood role and coping skills, and d) the explanatory models for the causation of autism and the experiences from “therapeutic pathways”. The qualitative analysis of the empirical material illustrated that factors directly relevant to the context of this experience, such as social position and access to resources, exert a critical influence on the biographic trajectories of these mothers, their psychological state and their overall quality of life.

Ireland was known for being conservative in family matters. The 2015 referendum that allowed same-sex marriage and the 2018 one that allowed abortion showed this is no longer true. This article aims at better understanding recent family change in Ireland by looking at changes in values on topics related with family behaviour and change in behaviour related with family formation–the rise of unmarried cohabitation, and childbearing within unmarried cohabitation–with a focus on the Catholic dogma and its role in the Irish society. We use data from the 2008 European Value Survey and from the five censuses conducted between 1991 and 2011. We find that the young have been moving away from the teachings of the Church on unmarried cohabitation, but that a few years before the 2018 referendum, they were still close to it on abortion. There is no clear negative relationship between cohabitation or fertility within cohabitation and education, but the use of cohabitation seems to vary according to education. The most enduring legacy of the Church doctrine seems to be the late development of family policies that make motherhood hard to reconcile with work and might explain why cohabiting women have few children.

Abstract There is a long-standing debate on whether extensive Nordic family policies have the intended equalizing effect on family and gender differences in economic outcomes. This article compares how the combination of family events across the life course is associated with annual and accumulated earnings at mid-life for men and women in an egalitarian Nordic welfare state. Based on Finnish register data (N = 12,951), we identify seven typical family life courses from ages 18 to 39 and link them to mid-life earnings using sequence and cluster analysis and regression methods. Earnings are highest for the most normative family life courses that combine stable marriage with two or more children for men and women. Mid-life earnings are lowest for unpartnered mothers and never-partnered childless men. Earnings gaps by family lives are small among women but sizeable among men. Gender disparities in earnings are remarkably high, particularly between men and women with normative family lives. These gaps between married mothers and married fathers remain invisible when looking only at motherhood penalties. Results further highlight a large group of (almost) never-partnered childless men with low earnings who went largely unnoticed in previous research.

Demographic research is mainly aimed at analysing the diff erences between marriage and birth rates in urban and rural areas. Th ere is much less investigations which study the particularities of these demographic processes within the big cities. The special status of the capital city reinforces the interest of researchers to it. However, the capital city is oft en considered as particular district of the country and compared to other regions or provinces which may include urban and rural areas. Th e purpose of the proposed paper is to fi nd out the peculiarities of marriage and fertility in Kiev and other capitals of some countries of Eastern Europe on the background of the general characteristics of these processes (national level and urban area level), to identify similarities and diff erences between them. Th is research presented fi rst revealed common and specifi c characteristics of marriage, divorce and fertility in the capital cities of Eastern European countries. Th e study used such methods of scientifi c knowledge as comparison, analysis, generalization, graphical method. Demographic yearbooks of Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine for 2009-2018, and statistics from statistical sites in these countries and Slovakia were used for the detailed analysis. Th e important conditions for using statistical information were free access to it and the same methodology for calculating demographic indicators involved in the analysis. Among the common features of the development of demographic processes in the capital cities of the selected countries our attention was attracted by aging of marriage and motherhood which rate exceeded level in the whole country. Th e share of marriages aft er 30 years, the share of children born to women aged 35 and over among all births, the mean age of mothers at the birth in the capitals were considerable higher than the corresponding national indicators. Diff erences between capitals in the dynamics and structure of the processes of formation and dissolution of marriages are largely caused by national characteristics of the marital-family behaviour. In our study we question the universality of the well-known statement that big cities tend to have lower fertility rates comparison to other areas of country. Th e fertility level in some capitals could be both below and above the national average level.

ABSTRACT: This study shows the kind of woman that Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco portrays in his Emblemas morales(1610). After a brief introduction and presentation of the author and his work, taking into account the different emblems in which a woman appears, this article studies women in general and, especially, their situation as nubile or married women, emphasizing the institutions of marriage and motherhood, with particular attention to women's participation in the education of their children; the last two sections focus on love as a passion and on beauty, respectively.
 
 KEYWORDS: Woman; Emblems; Sebastián de Covarrubias.
 
 
 RESUMEN: en este trabajo se muestra qué tipo de mujer retrata Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco en sus Emblemas morales(1610). Tras una breve introducción y presentación del autor y su obra, teniendo en cuenta los distintos emblemas en que aparece la mujer, se estudia a la mujer en general y, especialmente, su situación como mujer núbil, casada, haciéndose hincapié en la institución del matrimonio, y madre, con particular atención a su participación en la educación de los hijos; los dos últimos apartados se centran en el amor como pasión y en la belleza, respectivamente.
 
 PALABRAS CLAVES: mujer; emblemas; Sebastián de Covarrubias.

The article is based on the value of the human personality and the principle of mercy proposed by Pope Francis. It explores the threats to the modern functioning of the Catholic Church in the context of globalization and secularization of the issues of marriage and family that were submitted to discussion and decision-making by the Extraordinary Synod of the Catholic Church Bishops holding in 2014 – 2016 in Rome. The work of this Synod proved the conservatism and the lack of readiness of the synodal bishops to resolve the crisis situation with modern family which was assessed by Francis as a crisis of synodality and the bishops’ opposition to the modern Catholic Church reform. In order to overcome these negative factors Pope Francis decided to change in a categorical way the current salutation with the clergy's frames formation and processing of an innovative "theology of women" which would become a determining factor in the church’s reform and replace the modern formation of the conservative clergy.
 The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize the causes and consequences of the modern family’s crisis from theological and religious points of view. As a result of this study it has been proved that cardinals and bishops of the Extraordinary Synod ambiguously and conservatively assess the complex problems of the modern family. And so they appeared to be unable to offer actual preventions to overcome this crisis.
 The factors of the crisis state of the modern family are revealed and characterized in the further aspects:
 
 during last 25 years (in the crossing of second and third millennia) the Catholic Church has lost from 15 up to 30 percent of its parishioners in many countries particularly in Europe and in Latin America;
 in such circumstances according to Francis the issues of marriage and family are such issues that "disturb” the society and church" since the western ritual parishioners no longer accept church marriages, divorce and marry again outside the church (therefore the church does not recognize such marriages) in the consequence of thereof the exclusion of these people from the church takes place;
 such form of marital intimate relationships as concubinage is constantly increasing (long-term extra-marital cohabitation with an unmarried woman) that is family status by "faith" not being the official marriage (in the words of people "without a stamp in the passport");
 the number of families with mixed-confessional couples and with the problem of denominational education of children is constantly increasing;
 homosexuality and same-sex marriages acquire legitimacy;
 the natural conception and birth of children is replaced by surrogate motherhood.
 
 Key words: marriage, family, human dignity, mercy, conservatism of the clergy, church reform, "theology of women".

This paper deals with the various standpoints of students on their motivation for parenthood, planning and deciding on birth giving, influence between marriage and parenthood, parent role complexity and responsibility, on the knowledge of effect and consequences of the problem of insufficient birth giving, with an aim of getting to know the main characteristics of their possible reproductive behavior. The analyzed standpoints are part of a more comprehensive and inclusive research, carried out on a sample of 1494 surveyed persons (1000 secondary-school pupils and 494 students) in four biggest regional centers - Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Nis. The orientation only to student?s standpoints had an aim to more completely analyze the already abundant empirical material, which is acceptable due to the fact that students are closer to beginning of birth giving according to their age-situation characteristic. The willingness and desire of the students to become parents is significant, but this is only one of their varied life aspirations (importance of partnership, professional engagement?). The intention is to bring into accordance the realization of the most important roles, which actually indicates to a fairly uniform importance in satisfying the basic individual needs. Apart from that, the need for parenthood is dominantly emotional and altruistic, which can be satisfied by having only one child. Possible reproductive norms - which are directed to having two children, whereby they are higher than the current fertility rates, but also somewhat lower normatively determined expectations in relation to the desired number of children, as well as a significant orientation towards marriage and parenthood and the existence of the knowledge on the problem of the impossibility of simple reproduction and conscience of social need for population reproduction - represent a gap for realization of measures for motivating birth giving and parenthood rehabilitation. The possible reproduction model is not significantly determined by gender, because the noted differentiation in frequency of certain standpoints does not indicate to formation of "female" and "male" reproductive models. On the other hand, possible qualitative changes in relations between partners are noted which are manifested in more uniform engagement in birth control and decision making, as well as a more uniform representation of motherhood and fatherhood in realizing the basic needs of the child.

Traditions of Karelian maternity rituals are widely represented in the ethnographic historical science literature. At the same time motherhood as an institution and as a social and cultural status deserves special consideration. The paper is aimed at describing the development of the motherhood within Karelia in historical dynamics, as well representing the social and cultural status of the mother and the changes in the strategy of reproductive behavior in the Karelian village. The events presented in the paper refer to the period of the late XIX — early XX c. It was a time of economic, social and cultural reforms in Russian society, which had some specific repercussions on the empire borderlands. The paper uses a large number of recently published and unpublished ethnographic and historical sources, dialect vocabulary data, some of the author’s field materials and scientific works on the topic. The author adheres to the principles of gender history proposed by J. Scott, which involves the analysis of cultural symbols, normative prescriptions and social institutions and life stories of individual women. The author comes to the following conclusions. 1. Marriage and the maternity increased the social prestige of the peasant women, because they realized her main purpose. 2. The gender of the child had a different meaning for the male and female part of the peasant family collectives. If considering the patrilocal line of inheritance, preference was given to the birth of a boy. At the same time, the Karelian language data indicate a higher status of the mother after the birth of the girl. 3. There was a change in reproductive behavior in the North Karelian families in the second half of the XIX c. towards to reducing the number of children in the family to two or five. The reasons for such transformation were the growth in the importance of non-agricultural earnings, and the border position of the region (the cross-border marriages), which changed the customary cultural norms. 4. Some elements of modernization were not perceived by Karelian women. They continued to apply to rural midwives despite the growth of the network of obstetric care, and they also preferred the bathhouse or barn as a place for childbirth instead of medical institutions.

The mythic quality of Kate Chopin‟s The Awakening (1899) derives from recurrent images of archetypal symbols such as sea, sun, and journey, accompanied by up/down motif representing death and rebirth. Having been decanonized for infringing the traditional codes of marriage and motherhood, Chopin‟s work, this study proves, violates yet another convention, that of the mythological theorists, namely Joseph Campbell‟s. Being a female principle as opposed to Campbell‟s macho hero, Chopin‟s protagonist, Edna undergoes the same archetypal pattern of quest, initiation, and descent into the underworld. In her archetypal passage from innocence to experience, however, and through rebellious acts of self-expression, viz. painting, music, gambling, and extra-marital relationships, the heroine not only ceases serving the interest of the society which has reduced her to the position of an object to be possessed by husband or devoured by children but also challenges its core values, overturning the fairy tale of “the angel in the house.” And while having inherited the narcissistic characteristic of the conventional hero, Edna turns more into the heroine of the self than of the community, who in ultimate defiance of the romantic ideal of ever-victorious heroes chooses not to ascend from the underworld but to abort the last phase of the heroic mission and, thus, differentiates Chopin‟s modernist representation of the realistic heroine from the idealistic portrayals of the male hero in the mythological canon.

The article is devoted to the study of the procedure for providing additional social leave to single mothers. The legislation of Ukraine, judicial practice on the provision of additional social leave are analyzed. Applied mainly hermeneutic research method. It is concluded that the absence of a legislative settlement, the concept of “single mother” and a clear list of documents confirming this fact, especially in the case when the mother brings up a child without a father (divorced woman) leads to the ambiguous application of Art. 19 of the Law of Ukraine “On Vacations” in practice. In order to support motherhood and childhood and the effective exercise of the right to additional social leave, it is necessary to improve the legislation of Ukraine in this area. On the feasibility of improving the legal regulation of the status of “single mother” and fixing the list of documents confirming the status of “single mother” to provide additional social leave. When granting additional social leave to single mother (divorced woman), the employer is entitled to require, in addition to the application for granting this leave, copies of the birth certificate and the marriage dissolution, a document (s) confirming with sufficient certainty the absence of the father in the upbringing of the child, : certificate of registration of residence or residence; an act drawn up by a social and community commission established by a primary trade union organization or by any other commission formed at an enterprise, institution, organization. In controversial matters – the court’s decision on deprivation of parental rights; about establishing the fact of “single mother”; a court order or an investigator’s decision to search his father in a claim for alimony. A woman who has remarried but has not adopted a new husband from her first marriage has to produce a document confirming that the child’s father is not taking part in her upbringing, and a certificate from the civil registration authority, that the baby was not adopted by the new husband. If a widow or divorced child raising a child without a father (in the event of his or her parental rights being deprived), has remarried to another man and has not been adopted by his or her child from the first marriage, she is entitled to an additional social leave as a single mother. A woman who has children from a person with whom she has not been and who is not married, but with whom she co-operates, cohabitates and raises children, does not have the right to receive additional social leave as a single mother. The legislative level does not provide for the periodicity with which an employee must re-submit documents (renew them) to confirm the right to additional social leave. However, the Ministry of Social Policy regarding documents to confirm the right to such leave on the basis of “single mother” indicates: the employer has the right to request the renewal of these documents once a year. Key words: single mother, additional social leave.

Unfortunately, for ten years now, Ukraine has been the European leader in the number of divorces, as Ukrainians divorce almost twice as often as Europeans. If a couple who have a child divorces, then the person with the maintenance of a minor child also faces the greatest difficulties. There have always been parents in legal practice who were irresponsible in paying child support for their own son or daughter. This person is trying to avoid financial responsibility, so this issue is a huge problem today. Today is characterized by the recognition of women and men as equal persons. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, marriage is based on the free consent of a man and a woman. Each spouse has equal responsibilities and rights in marriage and family. The Constitution of Ukraine states that the right to family, motherhood and fatherhood in our state is protected by the state. In this paper, we will analyze alimony as an object of children's property rights. The article examines the current legislation, the rules of which regulate the procedure for awarding child support and the procedure for enforcement of a court decision on the recovery of child support. The issue of maintenance of minor children is mentioned in the following regulations: Law of Ukraine of 17.05.2017 № 2037-VIII "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine to Strengthen the Protection of the Child's Right to Proper Maintenance by Improving the Procedure for Recovery of Alimony"; Family Code of Ukraine of January 10, 2002 № 2947-III; Civil Code of Ukraine of January 16, 2003 № 435-IV; Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine Law of 18.03.2004 № 1618-IV, as well as cases from the unified register of pre-trial decisions, because it is important to analyze the practice of judges of Ukraine on this issue. On the positive side, our state has been actively working to close the gap on alimony payments for the last three years. The article will discuss ways to collect child support and leverage in the event of non-performance or improper performance of child support.

Why is the rate of teen childbearing is so unusually high in the United States as a whole, and in some U.S. states in particular? U.S. teens are two and a half times as likely to give birth as compared to teens in Canada, around four times as likely as teens in Germany or Norway, and almost ten times as likely as teens in Switzerland. A teenage girl in Mississippi is four times more likely to give birth than a teenage girl in New Hampshire—and 15 times more likely to give birth as a teen compared to a teenage girl in Switzerland. We examine teen birth rates alongside pregnancy, abortion, and “shotgun” marriage rates as well as the antecedent behaviors of sexual activity and contraceptive use. We demonstrate that variation in income inequality across U.S. states and developed countries can explain a sizable share of the geographic variation in teen childbearing. Our reading of the totality of evidence leads us to conclude that being on a low economic trajectory in life leads many teenage girls to have children while they are young and unmarried. Teen childbearing is explained by the low economic trajectory but is not an additional cause of later difficulties in life. Surprisingly, teen birth itself does not appear to have much direct economic consequence. Our view is that teen childbearing is so high in the United States because of underlying social and economic problems. It reflects a decision among a set of girls to “drop-out” of the economic mainstream; they choose nonmarital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement.

The article is devoted to the problem of sexual education of children and young people at the beginning of the twentieth century and its reflection in socio-pedagogical sources. In the publication the author reveals the peculiarities of sexual education of children and youth of the highlighted period, highlights the purpose, objectives and content of sexual activity education. It is proved that the problem of the study bothered as foreign, as domestic scientists (O. Bernstein, A. Gamme, A. Mol, A. Forel, E. Stil). The value of pedagogical ideas and experience of outstanding ones is substantiated educators and scholars who have dedicated their work to the problem of sex education of young people. In particular, the article found that since the beginning of the twentieth century scientists insisted on the need for a scientific approach to sexual education, which had to be aimed at eliminating the deep-rooted at a society of prejudice about many aspects of sexual life. Research results. The beginning of the twentieth century is a difficult historical one a period which was characterized by the presence of sufficiently controversial scientifictheoretical approaches to the problem of sexual education of young people. These differences of opinion related to statesmen, psychologists, educators and medical professionals. Increased attention to this issue was explained simultaneous effect of a number of objective economic factors (intensive industrial development, urbanization, population migration), scientific (medicine, biology, psychology) and sociocultural (deepening social stratification, family crisis, weakening of the educational role of the church, development of the feminist movement) development. All this contributed to the actualization issues of sexual education at the beginning of the twentieth century. Accordingly, the educational system in the sexual aspect functioned within traditional approaches that could not withstand the intensive development of medical and psychological sciences, so tried to use them for their own purposes. Necessity maintaining chastity before marriage was no longer religious or traditional guidelines, and medical and biological factors. It is proved that already at the beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century. Teachers have come conclusion about the need for systematic sexual education. However, it is education should not have been separated from the education system at all. The study has been hypothesized that built correctly and ethically sex education at school or in higher education will increase the level of literacy and awareness of pupils / students with sexual health and sexual development. Therefore, the problem of children and youth’s sexual education is one of the most urgent and socially significant in scientific discourse. Key words: education, sexual education, sexual life, sexual education, paternity and motherhood.

Resumen: El presente artículo analiza a una protagonista(Fermina Daza) de la novela de García Márquez, Elamor en los tiempos del cólera. Se la ve atada a ciertosvalores socio-culturales, impuestos por la herencia patriarcal;sin embargo, ella puede librarse de las cadenasdel poder opresor, en una ineluctable necesidad de lamujer de transcender situaciones en procura de consolidarsu identidad, su ideología y su preponderante alteridad.Se expone como idea central la construcción socialde la feminidad ligada a un patriarcado que se opone acualquier capacidad intelectual femenina, donde el matrimoniofue una de las pocas alternativas para la mujerde comienzo de siglo XX. El artículo también se proponemostrar la presencia de un feminismo incipiente en lanovela contra el dominio patriarcal en esa época, cuandola situación de la mujer correspondía a un esquemamental reducido, pues se le consideraba un objeto máspara ornamentar la casa, adornar la cocina con su trabajoy criar los hijos; cualquier otro dominio del espacioabierto y del afuera le estaba tácitamente prohibido. Deigual forma se analiza el aspecto de la maternidad comosujeción identitaria y la forma idiosincrática como fueasumida por Fermina y, a su vez la poca importancia quele concede el narrador en la vida de este personaje, pueses solo un artilugio necesario para recordar los convencionalismosde época.Palabras claves: patriarcado, literatura, feminismo,García Márquez, El amor en los tiempos del cólera.Patriarchy and the Social Construction of Femininity In the Novel Love in the Times of CholeraAbstract: This article analyzes a female character (FerminaDaza) in the García Márquez novel Love in theTimes of Cholera. She appears tied to certain socio-culturalvalues imposed by the patriarchal heritage. Nevertheless,she is able to throw off the shackles of oppressivepower in an ineluctable need for women to transcendtheir condition, as she seeks to consolidate her identity,her ideology and her dominant otherness. The centralidea revolves around the social construction of femininitylinked to a patriarchy that opposes any female intellectualpowers, at the beginning of the twentieth centurywhen marriage was the only alternative for women. Thearticle also proposes to show the presence of an incipientfeminism in the novel opposed to patriarchal dominationat the time, when woman was considered a decorativeobject, a kitchen drudge and someone to raise the children;any other domain of open space outside the homewas tacitly forbidden. The issue of motherhood as sourceof identity, idiosyncratically assumed by Fermina, is analyzed,as well as the slight importance given to it by thenarrator, who merely uses it to show the conventions ofthose times.Keywords: patriarchy, literature, feminism, GarcíaMárquez, Love in the Times of Cholera

<p><em><strong>Resumen:</strong> El presente artículo analiza a una protagonista</em><br /><em>(Fermina Daza) de la novela de García Márquez, El</em><br /><em>amor en los tiempos del cólera. Se la ve atada a ciertos</em><br /><em>valores socio-culturales, impuestos por la herencia patriarcal;</em><br /><em>sin embargo, ella puede librarse de las cadenas</em><br /><em>del poder opresor, en una ineluctable necesidad de la</em><br /><em>mujer de transcender situaciones en procura de consolidar</em><br /><em>su identidad, su ideología y su preponderante alteridad.</em><br /><em>Se expone como idea central la construcción social</em><br /><em>de la feminidad ligada a un patriarcado que se opone a</em><br /><em>cualquier capacidad intelectual femenina, donde el matrimonio</em><br /><em>fue una de las pocas alternativas para la mujer</em><br /><em>de comienzo de siglo XX. El artículo también se propone</em><br /><em>mostrar la presencia de un feminismo incipiente en la</em><br /><em>novela contra el dominio patriarcal en esa época, cuando</em><br /><em>la situación de la mujer correspondía a un esquema</em><br /><em>mental reducido, pues se le consideraba un objeto más</em><br /><em>para ornamentar la casa, adornar la cocina con su trabajo</em><br /><em>y criar los hijos; cualquier otro dominio del espacio</em><br /><em>abierto y del afuera le estaba tácitamente prohibido. De</em><br /><em>igual forma se analiza el aspecto de la maternidad como</em><br /><em>sujeción identitaria y la forma idiosincrática como fue</em><br /><em>asumida por Fermina y, a su vez la poca importancia que</em><br /><em>le concede el narrador en la vida de este personaje, pues</em><br /><em>es solo un artilugio necesario para recordar los convencionalismos</em><br /><em>de época.</em><br /><em><strong></strong></em></p><p><em><strong>Palabras claves:</strong> patriarcado, literatura, feminismo,</em><br /><em>García Márquez, El amor en los tiempos del cólera.</em><br /><em><strong></strong></em></p><p><em><strong>Patriarchy and the Social Construction of Femininity</strong></em><br /><em><strong>In the Novel Love in the Times of Cholera</strong></em></p><p><em><strong>Abstract:</strong> This article analyzes a female character (Fermina</em><br /><em>Daza) in the García Márquez novel Love in the</em><br /><em>Times of Cholera. She appears tied to certain socio-cultural</em><br /><em>values imposed by the patriarchal heritage. Nevertheless,</em><br /><em>she is able to throw off the shackles of oppressive</em><br /><em>power in an ineluctable need for women to transcend</em><br /><em>their condition, as she seeks to consolidate her identity,</em><br /><em>her ideology and her dominant otherness. The central</em><br /><em>idea revolves around the social construction of femininity</em><br /><em>linked to a patriarchy that opposes any female intellectual</em><br /><em>powers, at the beginning of the twentieth century</em><br /><em>when marriage was the only alternative for women. The</em><br /><em>article also proposes to show the presence of an incipient</em><br /><em>feminism in the novel opposed to patriarchal domination</em><br /><em>at the time, when woman was considered a decorative</em><br /><em>object, a kitchen drudge and someone to raise the children;</em><br /><em>any other domain of open space outside the home</em><br /><em>was tacitly forbidden. The issue of motherhood as source</em><br /><em>of identity, idiosyncratically assumed by Fermina, is analyzed,</em><br /><em>as well as the slight importance given to it by the</em><br /><em>narrator, who merely uses it to show the conventions of</em><br /><em>those times.</em></p><p><em><strong>Keywords:</strong> patriarchy, literature, feminism, García</em><br /><em>Márquez, Love in the Times of Cholera</em></p>

Child marriage is a major social phenomenon in which children and adolescents are abused and exposed. Their rights are violated and they are exposed to both physically and psychologically dangers, since it is a forced marriage between an adult and a minor. It is a disorder where drastically change from a child or teenager to play the role of and adult with a series of responsibilities not suitable for their age. The child not only have to be inserted into adulthood but they also develop as wives or husbands, even in mothers without having reached adulthood or without even knowing what marriage and motherhood implies. Child marriage is a serious violation of the Rights of the Child, and girls are more vulnerable to this situation, as they have to bear the obligation to be both wife and marital rape is increasing when they are in. Leaving childhood and moving into adulthood is not easy, nor is it possible to assimilate from one day to another, so children who suffer from this violation have serious problems developing before society because they are prevented from physical freedom, as well as the ability to decide their future for themselves.

Children born as the result of conflict related sexual violence often embody painful memories of war-affected communities. As a result, children ‘born of war’ experience abuse and neglect, social isolation and a sense of never-belonging. Existing scholarship grapples with the challenges of seeking justice for children ‘born of war’ given the complex ways their suffering is entangled with that of so many other victims. In post-conflict northern Uganda, a community-based organization composed of survivors of forced marriage and motherhood collectively seeks justice for their children in a process locally referred to as child tracing. The Women’s Advocacy Network brings together differently affected victim groups to help identify the paternal relatives of their children, mediate conflict and transform fractious relationships in order to secure a future for their children. Through this process, children who once divided communities, propel a collective reach towards justice.

In the time period surrounding the American Revolution, social roles for women evolved alongside the political gains made by the colonies. No longer restricted to the domestic realm, American women became integral to the success of the new democratic republic, winning respect in terms of marriage, motherhood, education, and even business. As all citizens recognized their obligations to the republic, republican motherhood emerged, challenging women to educate themselves in order to raise competent children. With a fine eye to the past, one can see thier social progress documented in the portraiture of the most celebrated colonial painter, John Singleton Copley. During his residency in Boston, Copley paintd the portraits of hundreds of women. While many of his subjects hailed from the upper class, a select few represent the small demographic of self-made women. As a whole, a study of Copley's portraiture of Bostonian women provides an illustrative example of how women projected themselves in the progressive Revolutionary era.

Abstract Study question How does the cultural importance attached to biological family ties shape Chinese lesbians’ decision-making processes regarding whether and how to have children? Summary answer The cultural significance of biological ties shapes Chinese lesbians’ fertility decisions, including those regarding conception methods, who will get pregnant, and whose sperm to use. What is known already Previous research has shown that normative expectations towards opposite-sex marriage and biological parenthood impose significant psychological burden on lesbians in China, where same-sex couples are not entitled to the rights to partnership/marriage, assisted reproductive technology (ART), and parenthood. Despite the legal barriers, online discussions on same-sex parenthood and commercial consultation services targeted at same-sex couples who want to travel overseas to use ART have emerged in recent years. While more lesbians have become parents of donor conceived children in Western developed countries, little is known about Chinese lesbians’ reproductive experiences in the context of increasing reproductive transactions that transgress borders. Study design, size, duration In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 Chinese lesbians between July 2017 and June 2018 in Beijing, China. To better understand the context and social and clinical implications of global ART services for Chinese society, I also carried out participant observation by attending informal gatherings organised by the local lesbian community and public events targeted at (same-sex) individuals and couples who want to travel overseas to use ART and producing fieldnotes after the events. Participants/materials, setting, methods Participants were aged between 25 to 45. The majority were in their thirties. Each interview took around 2 hours and was audio-recorded and transcribed. The interview guide covered questions about their family beliefs, views on and/or experiences of donor conception, and perceived and actual difficulties in pursuing motherhood. With the assistance of NVivo (a qualitative data analysis software), I carried out thematic analysis of the interviews and fieldnotes to identify common patterns across the dataset. Main results and the role of chance Participants shared a belief that being biologically connected with their (prospective) children was, to varying extents, important to their families. They were at different stages of fertility decision-making, ranging from achieved motherhood (8 participants), actively planning to pursue motherhood (9), hesitation in taking action (11), and a lack of interest in or hope of becoming a mother (7). Almost all participants expressed that they did not prefer adoption and that they were reluctant to involve known sperm donors, who were considered a threat to their parental status. Rather, they were inclined to seek ART overseas in order to create their desired biological ties in a clinical setting. Issues including donor screening, desire for family resemblances, the status of biological and social mothers, and plans to purchase sperms from the same donor to conceive “siblings” were discussed in the interviews. It is evident that when deciding on whether to have a child and how to involve any third parties, participants tended to embrace the relational self and carefully balance individuals desires with familial and social expectations. The felt need to legitimise their relationships with donor conceived children imposes psychological burden on lesbian intended parents and discourages many from pursuing motherhood. Limitations, reasons for caution The findings of this qualitative study are not intended to be generalised to the whole lesbian population in China. Given the hidden nature of this population, my research, despite its small sample size, represents a significant step forward and calls for more quantitative and qualitative studies on lesbians’ fertility health. Wider implications of the findings: This study shows that lesbians’ journeys to donor conception require not only medical and legal support but also psychosocial care that attends to one’s perceived importance of biological ties and family beliefs. It sensitises healthcare professionals to the specific fertility-related psychosocial needs and concerns among lesbians in a family-centred context. Trial registration number Not applicable

Knowledge and practices regarding maternal health care among women has had a significant shift in Nepali culture. Understanding this ship can help to improve women's overall status. Nepal implemented a safe motherhood program, which slightly improved maternal health. Data, showed the maternal mortality ratio decreased during the period between 1996 and 2016 but still there is high ratio in maternal mortality. Conservative practices of maternal health are prevalent to this date. Health education is one of the crucial factors empowering women to be attentive of their rights and health status to get appropriate health services. Maternal health is a major burning issue in Nepal, which has been affected mainly due to early marriage, teenage pregnancy, superstition, low women literacy rate, and unhygienic behavioural practices. Women go through a rather depressing situation due to workload ignorance, lack of health facilities, economic, and social conditions. Despite the efforts from various types of private, government, and voluntary health agencies, there has not been a satisfactory improvement in maternal health status and safe motherhood. This study focuses on the knowledge and practices of maternal Health care. It also describes antenatal care, delivery care, and postnatal care. The study was conducted in Sewar Basbot village of ward no. 13, Ghorahi Sub-metropolitan city of Dang district that is situated near by district headquarters, Ghorahi. In total, 45 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) who were pregnant and having children below five years of age were purposively interviewed and completed the self-administered interview schedule.

In the destiny of a woman at all times, a great role was played by love. Is the life of a woman always wonderful when it is governed by love? The article attempts to answer this question by the example of two student-peers of the same department of Kharkov University. One of them is Galina Arturovna Benislavskaya. She was a journalist, literary worker, friend and literary secretary of Sergei Yesenin, who selflessly loved the poet and became for him “mother-servant”. Her destiny allows us to confirm the opposite: on December 3, 1926, she shot herself at the poet's grave. The article contains little-known facts from her personal life and creativity. Another student is Dvora Israilevna Nezer. They both are outstanding personalities, representatives of the generation of women who fought for gender equality. Unlike G. A. Benislavskaya, the destiny of D. I. Netzer was successful, thanks to the fact that she did not divide her life into constituent parts: love, husband, children, career. Little-known facts of her biography are cited. She was happy in marriage, raised two children (daughter, professor Rina Shapiro – winner of the Israel Prize in the field of education), reached unprecedented political heights for the students of the Kharkov University (she became deputy chairman of the Knesset). It is asserted that irrespective of the choice of profession and the way of its realization, acceptance and reassessment of religious and moral beliefs, political views, the adoption of a set of social roles regarding marriage, motherhood, etc., the harmony of personality plays a decisive role in the destiny of women. At the same time, the author does not deny the great role of love in the life of mankind.

Knowledge of technology-facilitated abuse and stalking has increased in recent decades, but research on how children and young people are exposed to these behaviours by their parent is still lacking. This article examines how technology-facilitated parental stalking manifests in children’s and young people’s everyday lives in contexts where parents have separated and fathers/father-figures have stalked mothers as part of post-separation coercive control. The article analyses materials from 131 stalking cases dealt with by district courts in Finland from 2014 to 2017 in cases that involved a relationship (dating, cohabitation or marriage), separation/divorce, and one or more children. Analysis of these court decisions identified that children and young people were exposed to three manifestations of technology-facilitated parental stalking: (1) Threats of violence and death; (2) Intrusive and obsessive fatherhood; and (3) Disparaging and insulting motherhood/womanhood. These findings underline the following contextual factors that are important for professionals to consider in identifying and helping children and young people exposed to parental stalking: technology enabling constant coercive and controlling abuse, technology in maintaining abusive parenthood, and technology in magnifying gendered tactics of abuse. The article argues that children’s exposure to and vulnerability to technology-facilitated parental stalking must be more widely recognised.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Children in cases of technology-facilitated parental stalking should be seen as victims/survivors in their own right.</li><br /><li>The potential for technology-facilitated parental stalking and abuse against children and mothers should be considered in all cases of previous domestic violence/coercive control and parental separation.</li></ul>

RésuméLes transformations importantes qu’a connues le processus de constitution de la famille dans les villes africaines au cours des dernières décennies se sont accompagnées de bouleversements tout aussi marquants dans les relations intergénérationnelles. Les statistiques sur le sujet demeurent pourtant rares. En mobilisant les données d’une enquête réalisée en 2010 à Ouagadougou, la capitale du Burkina Faso, l’étude explore l’implication des parents dans la sélection des conjoints, le mariage et l’entrée en maternité des jeunes adultes. Malgré une liberté manifeste des jeunes dans le choix de leurs partenaires, le mariage demeure une «affaire de famille» à Ouagadougou et les parents sont encore très impliqués dans le paiement de la dot. Le rôle des «vieilles», et notamment celui de la belle-mère, dans la transmission du savoir maternel et dans l’assistance des jeunes mères après la naissance demeure également central, et ce, peu importe le profil socio-économique et culturel des jeu­nes femmes.AbstractThe major transformations observed over the last decades in the process of family formation in African cities seem to have been accompanied by equally important changes in intergenerational relationships. Statistics on the topic are rare, however. Using unique survey data collected among young adults in Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso in 2010, the study assesses the extent of the involvement of parents in the partner selection, marriage and transition to motherhood of their adult children. Despite clear indication of freedom of partner choice among youth, the study suggests that marriage in Ouagadougou remains a «family business» and parents are still actively involved in bridewealth payment in the majority of marriages. Female elders, especially «mothers-in-law», also remain central in the transmission of maternity knowledge and assistance of young mothers after birth, regardless of young women’s socioeconomic and cultural profiles.

Introduction One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities.Project Overview This paper draws on data from a larger research project that explores the impact of globalised ideas about good womanhood and good motherhood on Western Australian women, and how local context shapes these women’s personal ideals about their own life trajectories. Interviews were conducted with a series of women living in regional Western Australia. While more women were interviewed as part of the larger research project, this paper draws on interviews with seven intending-to-mother women and fifteen mothers. Through several open-ended questions, the women were asked about either their plans for motherhood or their experiences of motherhood, in relation to additional expectations of women’s lives, such as participation in the paid sector and body ideals. Married women were also asked about how unpaid labour—that is, domestic and, where relevant, childcare labour—is divided between themselves and their husbands. Women’s responses to these questions provide a critical account of how marriage and the notion of “equality” is currently lived out in Australia. To ensure confidentiality, their real names have been replaced by pseudonyms. My purpose in drawing on my own data in conjunction with literature on the gendered division of unpaid labour is to emphasise that while the theoretical insights are not new, the fact that a gendered disparity continues to exist is of concern because of women’s dissatisfaction with the situation, particularly in the context of frequent claims that equality is already achieved, and given that it queries the fantasy of marriage continuing to circulate in contemporary culture. The women I interviewed responded openly to questions about the division of domestic, and where relevant, childcare labour and the affects of this on their relationships. Feminist approaches to the research process highlight the importance of being reflexive about the relationship(s) between researcher and researched to make the presence of the researcher in the research process explicit (Ramazanoglu and Holland 156). Ramazanoglu and Holland argue “producing knowledge through empirical research is not the same as acting as a conduit for the voices of others” (116). While the power dynamic between researcher and researched is not generally an equal one, the fact that I am younger than all of my participants bar one (who is the same age) I believe went some way towards diffusing my position of power in the interviews. Some of my participants were also either already known to me, or had been referred to me by another participant prior to the interview, which may have made the process of interview less intimidating and more comfortable. Importantly, in many instances, my participants’ reflections about the division of unpaid labour in their marriages, their expectations, hopes for the future, and feelings about it mirrored my own feelings and realities. I related personally to their experiences, and empathise with their dilemmas. This is significant methodologically because “emotional connectedness” (Coffey 158–9) including a close identification with participants (Conle 53–4) influences the process of interpretation. However, in Scott’s terms, power operated through my assessment of participants’ dilemmas being similar to my own and my writing up of their interviews (780). The findings presented in this paper are based on my interpretation of the voices of others, and are unavoidably influenced by my personal context as the researcher. Two predominate themes emerged from women’s accounts of unpaid domestic and childcare labour. Women anticipated their partner’s participation in domestic care activities, although in most cases, this expectation was not met. Further, women held these expectations for “when they had children,” even though their partners did not presently participate in domestic activities. At the same time, the women accepted that, while their husband’s should participate more in unpaid work, this participation would not be equal to their own responsibilities regardless of what other activities either were engaged in outside of the domestic and familial sphere. I found that while women expect a fairer division of domestic labour, they do not expect it to be “50/50.” I argue that the gendered division of labour has changed less than most couples readily admit, as seen through the following overview. Gender Relations: Changes and Stases In Western societies, women’s roles in the public sphere have changed considerably over the last fifty plus years. Women now constitute a significant percentage of the paid workforce. Today, couple families where both partners work in the paid sector are the most common of all families (ABS, Family Functioning). However, there has not been a corresponding shift in the way that unpaid labour is divided between partners. Only one half of the historical gendered division of labour has undergone change; while women as well as men now operate in the paid (and thus valued) sector (traditionally available only to men), women still predominately perform most of the unpaid (and undervalued) domestic work. Gender researchers have been reporting on the unequal division of domestic labour between couples, and the material and emotional consequences for women, for a long time (see Hochschild; DeVault; Coltrane), yet I argue that it remains largely unchanged, and dismissed as an important issue in the Australian community. Hochschild’s work, in particular, made a significant contribution to research into the gendered division of unpaid labour between couples by analysing and reporting on interview data collected from fifty couples, both working full-time in the paid sector, with young children. Hochschild identified and reported on couples justifications for the way they divide domestic and care, which, as I will demonstrate, are still common today (17, see also Hochschild with Machung 128). Several contemporary studies (Meisenbach; Shelton and Johnson) report that women perform the majority of domestic and care duties, despite women’s long established presence in the paid workforce. Indeed, historically, the majority of women participated in the workforce, with only middle and upper-class women experiencing a delayed entry to paid work. In their review of current research into the division of household labour in the United States Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard find that: In spite of women’s increased commitment to the labour force market and their associated political and social achievements, their advances have not been paralleled in the familiar sphere…the gains women have made outside the home have not translated directly into an egalitarian allocation of household labour…[American] women continue to perform the vast majority of unpaid tasks performed to satisfy the needs of family members or to maintain the home. (767) Exchange theories predicted that women’s increased participation in paid work would stimulate an increase in the time men spent performing domestic work (Carter 16). However, various studies including Lupton’s investigation into the distinctions, or indeed, commonalities, between the roles of “mother” and “father” find that women still perform the majority of childcare and domestic labour, even those who are also engaged in paid employment. Time use studies conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics also suggest that this prediction has not eventuated, and that whilst some women may have an improved capacity to negotiate with their partners about domestic labour division because of their income, this is not always the case (Carter 17). Ella (aged 32, mother of one) described “quite enjoying it” when her partner was away on business because it was less work not having to deal with his mess on top of other tasks. This is consistent with earlier research findings that single mothers spend less time on domestic work than women with children who live with men (Carter 17). It is common for men to do less domestic work than they create (Bittman 3). All of the women I interviewed who were in partnerships and intending to mother sometime in the future were either employed full-time in the paid sector, seeking full-time employment after completing graduate degrees, or combining paid work with tertiary study. One participant had recently dropped her hours from full-time to part-time because she was pregnant. All of the partnered women who were already mothering at the time of the interview were in full-time employment before the birth of their first child, and seven of them were still in paid employment; one full-time, one three-quarter time and five part time. Most women reported doing the majority, if not all, of the domestic and childcare labour regardless of whether they combined this work with paid work outside of the home. Whilst some women were indifferent to the inequity in their domestic labour and childcare responsibilities, most identified it as a source of tension, conflict, and disappointment in their spousal relationships. These women had anticipated greater participation by their husbands in the home, an optimism derived from some other source than those women with whom they interact.Anticipating Participation In their in-depth psychological study into the specific temporal disruptions and occasions of social dislocation ensuing from the birth of a child in the United States, Monk et al. found that the disruption to daily events and the reduction of social activities were more discernible for women than for men. Other research (Arendell; Hays; Mauthner; Nicolson) conducted at this time concurred with these findings. Similar results are found over a decade later. Choi et al. found most women feel at least some resentment about the impact of parenthood on their lives being “far greater for them than for their partner” (174). Influenced by reports of a supposed ideological shift in the late 1990s wherein fathers were encouraged to take a more active role in the raising of their children in ways previously considered maternal (Lupton 51), women today tend to anticipate that their husband’s will participate more in domestic and care activities, which predominately, does not eventuate. Consequently, feeling “let down” by partners has been identified as a key factor in the presentation of postnatal depression (Choi et al. 175). The women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future anticipated that their husbands would participate more in the home after the birth of a child. Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) hoped that this would be an 80/20 split. The idea of an 80/20 split as an “improvement” may be confronting, but this is Gabrielle’s reality, and her predicament—shared by many other women today—captures the prevailing importance of discussions around the gendered division of domestic labour. Several interviewees who were already mothering had also anticipated that their husbands would participate alongside them in household and childcare related activities. For most, this kind of participation had not eventuated and women were left with feelings of disappointment, and tensions and conflicts in their marriages. Grainne (aged 30, married for five years, mother of one) had expected her husband to be reasonably supportive and helpful around the house when they started their family. Yet she was unpleasantly surprised and intensely disappointed by how participation in the home had worked out since she and her husband had become parents six months ago. Grainne explained that she: expected that my husband would be more supportive and more helpful…I’ve been even more disappointed because he hasn’t followed through with…how I thought he would be…I almost despair a bit…we have actually struggled more in our relationship in the last six months than in the five and a half years. Grainne spoke about the impact of this inequity on the intimacy in her relationship. This is consistent with Pocock who identifies inequity in the division of unpaid work as one of “two work-related spokes in the wheel” (106–107) of spousal intimacy; the other being time and energy to communicate. According to Pocock intimacy, not necessarily sexual, is lacking in many Australian spousal relationships with unequal divisions of unpaid labour (107). While the loss of intimacy results in feelings of loss and regret, for some women, it is characterised as a past concern in their overworked and stressed lives (Pocock 107). Several women from professional backgrounds, in particular Lena and Freya, identified the inequity in their partnerships when it came to home duties and childcare as a significant, and even as the “main,” source of tension and conflict in their spousal relationships. Lena (aged 30, married for five years, mother of two) described having “great debates” with her husband about the division of domestic labour and childcare in their partnership. From her husband’s perspective, it is her “job…to do all the kids and the housework and everything else,” whereas from Lena’s perspective, “he should be able to feed the kids and clean up” on the weekend if she needs to go out. Freya (aged 30, married for ten years, mother of three) also talked about the “various rows” she had had with her husband about her domestic and childcare load. She described herself as “not coping” with the workload. For all of these women, domestic inequality in their marriages has real emotional consequences for them as individuals, and is a significant source of marital discontent. Women’s decisions about whether and when to have children, and how many to have, are influenced by the inequity experienced in marital relationships. Although I suggest that women’s desire to become mothers may eventually outweigh these immediate and everyday concerns, reports from already mothering women suggest that this source of conflict does not dissipate. The evidence gathered from my interviews demonstrates that trying to change dynamics in a relationship, when it comes to domestic tasks, is even more difficult when it is compounded with the emotional, mental and physical demands of motherhood, as Choi et al. also suggest (177).Accepting Inequality The findings of my study suggest that women intending to mother and those already mothering continue to expect to do more domestic and childcare labour than their partners. However, even with this concession, some women are still over-optimistic in their estimations about the amount of domestic labour their partner’s will perform. Fetterolf and Eagly find similar patterns in gender equality expectations in the United States amongst female college undergraduates planning to mother sometime in the future (90–91). Some women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future described their own attempts to negotiate with their partner to make them do more work. For instance, Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), who, as discussed earlier, hoped that her husband will participate more in the home after the birth of a child, said: Once we’ve had kids he might change and realise he might have to help out a little bit more, I can’t actually do everything…I don’t think it’ll be 50/50 just from experience of how we’ve been married so far… I do hope that it’ll be maybe 80/20 or something like that. When asked about whether their current division of house work was a concern for her, particularly in relation to having children, Gabrielle replied that she just “nagged” about it. Putting her discontent in the frame of “nagging” trivialises the issue. While it is men who tend to characterise women’s discontent as “nagging,” women can also internalise, and use this language to minimise their own feelings. That men “just don’t see mess and dirt” in the same way that women do is a popular idea drawn on to account for women’s acceptance of inequity in the home as evidenced in numerous statements from the women I interviewed. Commentaries like these align with Carter’s (1) observations that generally accepted ideas about women and men (for example, that women see dirt and men do not) are drawn on to explain and justify domestic labour arrangements. In response to how domestic labour is divided between her husband and herself, Marguerite (aged 25, married for ten months), like Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), described an “80/20 split,” with her as the 80%. Marguerite commented that “it’s not that he’s lazy, it’s just that he doesn’t see it, he doesn’t realise that a house needs cleaning.” Fallding described these ideas, and the behaviours that ensue, as a type of patriarchal family model, specifically “rightful patriarchy” (69) that includes the idea that women naturally pay more attention to detail than men. Conclusion “Falling in love” and “getting married” remains an important cultural narrative in Australian society. As Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) described, people ask you “when are you getting married? When are you having kids?” because “that’s just what you do.” I argue that offering critical accounts of heteronormative monogamous relationships/marriage equality from a variety of positions is important to understandings of these relationships in contemporary Australia. Accounts of the division of unpaid labour in the home between spouses provide one forum through which equality within marriage/heteronormative monogamous relationships can be examined. A tension exists between an expectation of participation on the part of women about their partner’s role in the home, and a latent acceptance by most women that equality in the division of unpaid work is unrealistic and unachievable. Men remain largely removed from work in the home and appear to have a degree of choice about their level of participation in domestic and care duties. The consistency of these findings with earlier work, some of which is over a decade old, suggests that the way families divide unpaid domestic and care labour remains gendered, despite significant changes in other aspects of gender relations. Many of the current discussions about marriage idealise it in ways that are not borne out in this research. This idealisation feeds into the romance of marriage, which maintains women’s investment in it, and thus the likelihood that they will find themselves in a relationship that disappoints them in significant and easily dismissed ways.ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2003, Family Functioning: Balancing Family and Work. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/c8647f1dd5f36f42ca2570eb00835397!OpenDocument›. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2010, Parental Divorce or Death During Childhood. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Sep+2010›. Arendell, Terry. “Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1192–207. Bittman, Michael. Juggling Time: How Australian Families Use Time. Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet: Canberra, 1991. Carter, Meg. Who Cares Anyway? Negotiating Domestic Labour in Families with Teenage Kids. (Doctoral dissertation). (2007). ‹http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/swin:15946.› Choi, P., Henshaw, C , Baker, S, and J Tree. "Supermum, Superwife, Supereverything: Performing Femininity in the Transition to Motherhood." Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 23.2 (2005): 167–180. Coffey, Amanda. The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. London: Sage Publications, 1999. Coltrane, Scott. “Research on Household Labour: Modelling and Measuring Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and Family 62.4 (2000): 1208-1233. Conle, Carola. 2000. “Narrative Inquiry: Research Tool and Medium for Professional Development.” European Journal of Teacher Education 23.1 (2000): 773-97. DeVault, Marjorie. Feeding the Family: The Social Organisation of Caring as Gendered Work. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991. Fallding, Harold. “Inside the Australian Family.” Marriage and the Family in Australia. Ed. Adolphus Elkin. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1957. 54–81. Fetterolf, Janell and Alice Eagly. “Do Young Women Expect Gender Equality in Their Future Lives? An Answer From a Possible Selves Experiment.” Sex Roles 65.1 (2011): 83–93. Hays, Susan. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift. New York: Viking, 1989. Hochschild, Arlie with Anne Machung. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin Edition, 2003. Lachance-Grzela, Mylene, and Genevieve Bouchard. “Why Do Women Do the Lion's Share of Housework? A Decade of Research.” Sex Roles 63.1 (2010): 767–80. Lupton, Deborah. “‘A Love/Hate Relationship’: the Ideals and Experiences of First-Time Mothers.” Journal of Sociology 36.1 (2000): 50–63. Mauthner, Natasha. “Reassessing the Importance and Role of the Marital Relationship in Postnatal Depression: Methodological and Theoretical Implications.” Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 1.16 (1998): 157–75. Meisenbach, Rebecca. “The Female Breadwinner: Phenomenological Experience and Gendered Identity in Work/Family Spaces.” Sex Roles 62.1 (2010): 2–19. Monk, Timonthy H., Marilyn J. Essex, Nancy A. Smider, Marjorie H. Klein, and David J. Kupfer. “The Impact of the Birth of a Baby on the Time Structure and Social Mixture of a Couple's Daily Life and Its Consequences for Well-Being.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26.14 (1996): 1237– 58. Nicolson, Paula. Postnatal Depression: Psychology, Science and the Transition to Motherhood. London: Routledge, 1998. Pocock, Barbara. The Work/Life Collision: What Work is Doing to Australians and What to Do About It. Sydney: The Federation Press, 2003. Ramazanoglu, Caroline and Janet Holland. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices. London: Sage, 2002. Scott, Joan. “The Evidence of Experience.” Critical Inquiry 17.4 (1991): 773–97. Shelton, Nikki, and Sally Johnson. “'I Think Motherhood for Me Was a Bit Like a Double-Edged Sword': The Narratives of Older Mothers.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 16.1 (2006): 316–30. Skrbis, Zlatko, Mark Western, Bruce Tranter, David Hogan, Rebecca Coates, Jonathan Smith, Belinda Hewitt, and Margery Mayall. “Expecting the Unexpected: Young People’s Expectations about Marriage and Family.” Journal of Sociology 48.1 (2012): 63–83.