What is the life of Kenyan women like? In Kenya, like many African countries, a deep paradox has been created. Kenyan women enjoy the benefits of modern life, yet their lives are largely determined by customary law. Although the majority of Kenyan women do not live in traditional society, they are still perceived within their traditional roles. Modern society has different requirements than the traditional ones, however only the segment of -self-confident and informed citizens are aware of their rights and are able to assert their rights. While women compose the majority of the Kenyan population (52%) and play an active role in the development of the whole society, Kenya still continues to remain a deep patriarchal society with a very low regard of the status of women. Women in Kenya are unequal and under-privileged in most areas of their lives. This situation is propounded by the current legal and political system, as well as by prevailing socio-cultural factors. The dissertation examines the different roles of the Kenyan woman - as a daughter, a wife and a mother. The main philosophical ideology which the African society is based upon is the continuation of life and keeping the patrilineal lineage where dead ancestors play the same role as children born to the family. It is presumed that women who play an...

Law regulates the sexual citizen in myriad ways, from overt sexual behaviour, to conjugal and familial formation and dissolution, to issues which engage questions of sex and societal behaviour. This work uses Queer Theory, Legal Feminism, and Legal Historicism to explore the law regulating “private sexual ordering” through an analysis of three subject areas: polygamy, prostitution/sex work, and law’s regulation of female sexuality. The analysis is undertaken of both national and international legal regimes. The author’s informational methodology consists of textual analysis, comparative law, and investigating historical and social science literature which bears on, and is applied to, a legal analysis. The philosophical, religious, and moral motives of laws regulating sexual and sexualized behaviour are analyzed, as is the restriction of forms of private sexual ordering on dissenting minorities, some of whom invoke freedom of religion and conscience to justify their choices. The work concludes that contemporary law restricting forms of private sexual ordering is imbued with religio-moral content which inhibits law applying principles of human autonomy and freedom of choice. The work thus recommends reform of the laws prohibiting or restricting private sexual ordering in the areas of polygamy and prostitution, while remaining optimistic that both national and international law can be used to safeguard the agentic and physical integrity of women faced with restrictions on their private sexual ordering and reproductive behaviours.

Le droit français et le droit libyen reposent sur des principes foncièrement différents. Le premier, fondé sur la laïcité, prône l'égalité homme-femme. Le second, de tradition religieuse n'est pas favorable à ce principe, la prédominance masculine en est le trait caractéristique. Cette distinction se voit tout au long de notre étude. Dans une première partie nous traitons les différentes formes de couples que connaissent les deux systèmes ainsi que les effets de nature aussi bien personnelle que patrimoniale qui en résultent. Cela comprend notamment l'exercice de l'autorité parentale et la contribution aux frais de ménage. Dans la seconde partie, il est question de la dissolution du couple et des conséquences qu'elle produit, personnelles comme patrimoniales. Malgré les différences entre les deux systèmes, on observe des difficultés de part et d'autre relatives à l'existence et à la dissolution du couple. Le système français est très attaché aux principes de liberté, égalité ; le système libyen est d'avantage protectionniste. D'une manière générale, les unions conjugales sont toujours le reflet d'une culture et des évolutions dans une société. / The author deals with different forms of marital unions in French and Libyan law. The main questions treated in the thesis are the consequences of marital life and its dissolution.

My thesis consists of a novel in stories, each taking place in or around the fictional town of Rose, Oregon. The thesis tells, in non-chronological order, the story of the Slaughter family, a group of polygamists founded by Blackstone Slaughter, and in particular the family's women: Blackstone's wife, Jestyn, and their son Colt's five wives, Alma, Kayo, Larina, Josephine, and Laddy. An additional story, "Rabbit Starvation," set not within the Slaughter compound but within the town of Rose, adds further perspective.

This is a biographical study of Elizabeth D. Kane (1836-1909), travel writer and wife of Thomas L. Kane, non-Mormon friend of the nineteenth-century Mormons of Utah. Primary source materials are mainly Elizabeth's fourteen diaries (spanning the years 1853 to 1909), letters and narrative accounts. Elizabeth was greatly influenced by Thomas, while maintaining her independence. She was interested in religion and feminist issues, and those interests, combined with her marital relationship, shaped her life's direction. Thomas Kane's interest in the Mormons also influenced Elizabeth's religious and feminist views, and she initially struggled with accepting Thomas's work for them because of their practice of polygamy. When Elizabeth went to Utah in 1872, her religiosity, feminism, and marriage provided the context in which she wrote her travel accounts, Twelve Mormon Homes (1874) and A Gentile in Utah's Dixie (1995).Elizabeth and Thomas had a companionate marriage. Theoretically they were equal partners, but Thomas often acted as Elizabeth's mentor, introducing her to well-known feminists, encouraging her to attend medical school and develop her writing talents. Religion was important to her, particularly as she tried influencing Thomas to join her Christian (Presbyterian) faith. Elizabeth thought about the Women's Rights movement and wrote her own ideas regarding women's role, endorsing feminist concepts like voluntary motherhood and addressing issues like polygamy and the double moral standard.This study analyzes Elizabeth's travel accounts which provide information on rural Utah and Mormon polygamous women from the perspective of a trusted outsider. During her Utah visit, Elizabeth changed from being resentful of the Mormons because of Thomas's devotion to them, to being friendly towards them. After Thomas's death in 1883, Elizabeth worked as a local leader in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and was a prominent citizen of Kane, Pennsylvania, the town which she and Thomas founded in the 1860s.This study is important to women's history because Elizabeth represents how many nineteenth-century women became more independent and socially conscious. It is significant in Mormon history because of her her travel accounts and because her writings provide information on the important relationship between Thomas L. Kane and the Mormons.

The practice of polygamy among the Mormons during the nineteenth century was vigorously prosecuted by the federal government in response to the demands of those whose political and economic goals could best be served through exploitation of the national attitude toward polygamy. Hundreds of men served prison terms for practicing what they believed was their religious obligation. This study of the sentences from the prison admission records has focused on the comparative severity of the judges, examines age as an influencing factor in sentencing, and compares the sentences of the polygamists with those for crimes against person and property.The results show which judges were most severe; that some deference was shown the aged, and that judges who gave severe maximum sentences to polygamists did not give such sentences in equal proportion to those convicted of crimes against person and property. The major influence appears to be the selection of the judge in the first place, to be severe or lenient, in response to national attitude against, or influential sympathy for the Mormons.

I selected this topic in 1962 primarily from curiosity to discover the facts concerning present day polygamy in Utah, allegedly still abundant. Perhaps the motivation may be described as an amateur detective's zeal. Considerable material seemed to be available about polygamy in Utah before 1890, when the practice was mostly abandoned by the Mormon people, but, apparently, little has been written on this subject covering the period since that date. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to cover polygamy in Utah and close proximity from 1890 to the present (1965). Its scope includes: first, continued plural marriages for two decades after the 1890 Manifesto; second, the Mormon Church's view of such marriages and the rise of the "fundamentalists"; third, polygamous organizations, people, and colonies; fourth, legal actions against polygamy in the twentieth century; lastly, some views on polygamy today and in the future. The appendix with alleged revelations from Mormon dissenter groups may be of some interest to L. D. S. readers.

This work is presented for the purpose of contributing to a more accurate understanding of woman's place in the philosophy of Mormonism, and as a basis for further study on this problem.The writer has not attempted to prove any particular hypothesis regarding Mormon women but has presented data which give an historical account of woman's status in the Church and among Mormon people during the first fifteen years of the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The writer does not claim to have made any particularly new discoveries regarding Mormon women but rather to have brought together a considerable quantity of material in which can be seen a little more clearly than heretofore the factors which have influenced woman's status in Mormon philosophy.

William McLachlan, a Scotsman, was converted to the L. D. S. Church, in Braintree, Essex, England in 1859. The motivating factor in his life was his faith that Joseph Smith was a prophet to whom the Lord had restored the precepts of the original Christian church. His journals, his letters, his speeches, his life, were oriented toward one ultimate goal, to build the Kingdom of God and to gain a place for himself and his family in that kingdom.This thesis is a biography of his life and examines his emigration to Zion, his settlement and adjustment to the frontier, his occupation as a carpenter and contractor, his mission to New Zealand, his adjustment to polygamy and the period of the "Raid," and his leadership as the president of the Pioneer Stake. His life represents the thousands of British converts who, through faith and devotion to the Gospel, left their homes and struggled to lay the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the western frontier.

An edited transcription of the 1879 to 1887 diaries of Mary Lois Walker Morris (1835-1919). Mary Lois, a plural wife in 19th century Utah, went in and out of hiding between 1885 and 1887 to protect her husband Elias Morris from prosecution for illegal cohabitation. Her daily diaries culminate with the court trial of her husband for illegal cohabitation in September 1887. At the trial, she testified falsely, stating that she had been separated from her husband since the beginning of 1883, when in fact the couple did not separate until May of 1885. As a result, her husband was acquitted. Mary Lois and her husband Elias Morris, a prominent builder and businessman, were in a levirate marriage. Mary Lois had married Elias's brother John in 1852 and came across the plains to Salt Lake City with him. In 1855, when John lay dying, Mary Lois promised him that she would marry his brother Elias and raise up children that would belong to John in the hereafter. John's brother Elias agreed and took Mary Lois as a plural wife in 1856. Together, they had eight children, including LDS apostle George Q. Morris and Nephi Morris, a member of the Utah state legislature. Mary Lois's diaries contain detailed information about her own and her children's church meeting attendance, her time as the president of the Salt Lake 15th Ward Primary Association, her work as a milliner, her attitude toward polygamy and her interactions with her husband and children. Her diaries also give evidence of a rich cultural life that included attendance at many plays and concerts and contain conversations and interaction with many LDS people in Salt Lake City at the time. She records information about courtship patterns, housecleaning, leisure activities, reading material and other aspects of daily life in 19th century Utah. In addition, Mary Lois gives political commentary on the anti-polygamy conflict occurring around her and records her own experience in hiding during the raid.