Academic literature on the topic 'HM Sociology : HQ The family. Marriage. Woman : KN Asia and Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Area, and Antarctica'

This is a study of the social and legal consequences of family breakdown in Nigeria as a whole but with specific reference to Borno State. It examines the effects of family breakdown on the husband and wife or wives and their children under the General Laws, Customary Law and Islamic Law of the people of Maidugurij Biu, and Gwoza areas of Borno State. The study covers the post-Independence period-i. e from 1960 to today. The aim of the study is to show how the social and economic changes in society affect the family at divorce. Although social change is part of any society, this study shows that the formal law on family breakdown and its consequences have not kept pace with social change, and that the dichotomy between state law and customary or Islamic law on family breakdown exists only in court. Thus the authority of the extended family, and within it, the dominance of men over womens, has not been specifically disturbed by the increasing Westernisation and rural-urban migration that has taken place since Independence. It is under this situation that the rights of women, property settlement on divorce, maintenances, and custody of children, as the main indicators of the consequences of family breakdown in any society has to be gauged. The role of the law and the state is also discussed. We argue that all the post-Colonial governments in the Federation were responsible for the present deplorable condition of victims of family breakdown not only in Borno State but throughout the country. Thus there has been no state-provided Social welfare to cater for deserted wivest children, and destitutes despite the ever increasing needs of such persons in a society that is rapidly changing. It is within this context that the effect of family breakdown on the people of Borno State is examined. The study argues that the various state authorities in Nigeria tend to abandon their responsibility to the family to the traditional customary institutions, such as the extended familyf which are now incapable of meeting the needs of victims of family breakdown. Moreoveri, the traditional family based economic system does not help women on divorce because it is predicated on the traditional power structure within the home which is in favour of men. on divorce, women are invariably left high and dry# and with few alternatives than to return home to their parents or other extended family members for support.

The Indian legal system has been dealing with the problem of domestic violence in the recent years especially since the advent of the new legislation the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, which was brought into effect from the 26th of August, 2006. The original contribution that this thesis makes to knowledge is that it identifies a potential category of users of this law- Women in Unconventional Relationships (WUR), and tests the support systems and the ease of access available to this category of women within two different domestic violence frameworks in India. This thesis locates the constructions of transgressive WUR identities in history, society and theoretical discourse and investigates whether these constructions adversely affect their legal subjectivity under the domestic violence law in India. It locates WUR within the domestic violence framework in Delhi, named the Victim Model for the purposes of this research, and within the Survivor Model in Mumbai. It privileges the voices of ten WUR who articulate their experiences of survival, domestic violence and the law. The research uses a combination of inter-subjective reflexive research and a feminist analysis of the domestic violence framework. The constructions of identities and the levels of transgression that take place and its effects on survivor/victim legal agency are investigated. The thesis identifies the best domestic violence framework suited for WUR which encourages their rights-bearing capacity as full-fledged citizens of the Indian state.

Islamic practices have led to exhaustive debate in academia ranging from the traditional battlefield of gender related issues to the relatively new decisiveness surrounding the war on terror. In most of the debates regarding Islam, when one legitimises or delegitimises his/her stance, the divine is invoked as the main point of reference. The divine thus turns into the source of vice and virtue simultaneously through these competing opinions. In this game of "authenticity", we often ignore the aspect that, in our religious zealousness, the divine itself is victimised. This is because, while referring to the divine as the main architect of our opinions, we sideline those non-divine factors in the process of constructing "authenticities" which help shape our reading of the divine. The divine is simply a part of our constructed "authenticity" but not its exclusive constituent. We need to realise that the divine is not read in a vacuum and by those who do not have materiality; its readings are always carried out by those who are a product of their own circumstances and their understandings are routed through their particular contexts. The present study is an effort to analyse those non-divine factors which help shape our reading of the divine, and are not any less important in the process of constructing "authenticity" than the divine with reference to the gender discourse of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan. This study proposes that there is always a need to maintain a gap between our understanding of the divine and "the divine"; because of the fact that the former is constructed, while the latter believed by Muslims as eternal, hence immutable. In addition to carrying out problematization of "authenticity" of the JI discourse, the study underscores the fact that problematization ought to be an integral part of our exercise of ascertainment of "authenticity" so that we may maintain the gap referred to above.

This study analyses the discursive construction of part-time employment and the workers in it in the employmentand legal contexts in Britain and Japan, applying an analytical framework of the law developed from a post-structuralist feminist viewpoint. In doing this, this study contributes to knowledge in the field of legal studies by providing an account of the active role of the law in the area of employment,through the operation of discourse, in shaping and reshaping structural inequality which part-time women employees face in contemporary British and Japanese society. Evidence for this study is collected from statistical data, questionnaires and interviews with managers, interviews with a group of ex-part-time women workers pursuing a legal case and the close reading of legal materials in the two countries. From the examination of these data, two discourses are identified,which circulate in employment and legal institutions in both countries and which help to produce the differentiation between full-time and part-time employees. One discourse emphasises differencesin labour-related factors, such as working hours, job content and commitment, while the other emphasises differences in the gendered characteristics and domestic positions of men and women. I show that the two discourses operate within and across these institutions, constructing part-time employment as different from and inferior to full-time employment on both labour related and gender-related grounds, and legitimisingthe disadvantaged position of part-time employees. This discursive construction has brought about a gendered hierarchy within the law in which the inferior working pattern of part-time employment is gendered as women's, while the superior pattern of full-time employmentis gendered as men's. On the basis of this analysis, I argue that the law is one of the most influential discursive mechanisms which bring about and help to sustain the hierarchical gendering of society, contributing to the production and reproduction of unequal power relations between the sexes and between employers and part-time women employees.

Hindu women's right to independent ownership of property has been established in India since 1956. Given that legal rights have not brought about a significant increase in women's ownership of land, this thesis explores the factors that affect women's effective claim to land ownership. Taking the particular case of Hindu peasant women in small farming households in Western Orissa, it analyses their ability to claim land ownership as the outcome of bargaining. The bargaining approach, as developed by economists, and by Amartya Sen and Bina Agarwal in particular, is adopted to analyse women's access to land as an effect of women's perceptions of self-interest and perceptions of women's contribution. The thesis evaluates the legal framework as it incorporates and reflects these perceptions. It argues that law constructs women's claim to land as a right addressed to 'Hindu' women, located within the family (through succession) and informed by religious ideology. It further argues that recognising women's interests as a basis of their claim to land ownership, as 'peasant' women, located within the household and affected by their work and role within agricultural production, would widen the scope of legal analysis. This would be a starting point towards a deeper understanding of the ways in which law impacts upon women's access to land.