published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The erotic triangle, in which two men compete for a desired woman, is a foundational archetype of Western culture. This dissertation, through its three separately-published articles, examines how this cultural archetype is manifested in law and legal structures, and the relationship between law’s erotic triangulations, gender inequality, and third-party responsibility. Each of the three articles of this dissertation focuses on a different manifestation of third-party responsibility, and each offers its own self-contained argument. At the same time, the “graphic schema” of the erotic triangle analytically enriches each of them. The erotic triangle is a “sensitive register […] for delineating relationships of power and meaning,” and using it in this context illuminates the shifting ways gender, power, and legal responsibility circulate in these male-female-male legal structures. Together, the articles suggest that law both replicates and reproduces erotic triangulations in ways that contribute to gender inequality, but also that it may be an important site for their renegotiation. The first article, A New Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations: Gender and Erotic Triangles in Lumley v. Gye, explores how the tort of interference with contractual relations was created out of a factual scenario involving an erotic triangle (two rival opera-house managers competing for the services of a renowned chanteuse). The court converted past regulations of erotic triangles (in particular, criminal conversation, which allowed a husband to bring an action against a man for sexual interference with his wife) into a new cause of action, one which removed a triangulated woman’s responsibility for breaching a contract, and instead assigned responsibility to the man who induced her to breach. While this first iteration involves the removal of responsibility from a triangulated woman, the second article, Home Rules, involves an inversion of this responsibility allocation: here responsibility is removed from a usually male wrongdoer and instead imposed upon a triangulated woman. Home Rules examines how, through a series of ordinances, local governments are imposing responsibility on female heads of household for the wrongful actions of their typically male household members. In so doing, local governments disrupt kinship structures and assert the state’s dominance over the family and intimate life. The third article, Triangulating Rape, evidences a more positive shift in responsibility. It traces the transformation of rape law as a progression from a tradition of erotic triangulation to a subversion thereof. Unlike the historical rape law triangle, in which rape is legally constructed as a wrong that one male does to another through the body of a woman; and unlike the criminal rape law triangle, in which rape is legally constructed as a wrong that one man does to the state through the body of a woman; civil actions in which women bring claims against both perpetrators of sexual assault and the third-party entities that facilitate or fail to prevent those assaults allow harmed women to assert their own subjectivity and climb out of their traditionally passive role in the erotic triangle. In so doing, this reconfigured triangulation ultimately challenges the gender status quo that produces sexual harms, and suggests that subverting the usual functioning of triangulated patterns may hold promise as a tool of social change.

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Four Muslim senior wives, 35 years and older, were interviewed about their experiences in a polygamous marriage. The Theory of Gender and Power was used to understand some of the emerging themes in the gendered relationships between men and women in polygamous relationships. Thematic content analysis revealed the overarching theme of power. The women expressed helplessness in the face of a practice that they consider objectionable on the one hand, but that they feel compelled to tolerate because their religion permits it. In order to cope with their pain there was a need to assign blame for their husband's remarriage. Blame was attributed to both internal and external causes. Senior wives equate polygamy with "infidelity" and therefore perceived it as an act of betrayal, Consequently, this led to feelings of anger, rejection, pain and jealousy, and subsequently the nonacceptance of the junior wife into the marital dyad. The women reported feelings of loss with regard to the marital relationship, such as loss of financial support, trust, self esteem, identity, dignity and sense of self. For these senior wives, polygamy resulted in loss of sexual exclusivity, shared intimacy and security, which was accompanied by feelings of humiliation and degradation. The women believed that polygamy resulted in straining the relationship between children and their fathers. Children were reported to have experienced emotional, behavioural and academic problems. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

In India, the Hindu Succession Rights Act of 1956 allows the widow, the daughters, alongside the sons of the deceased senior male, to claim an equal share in familial property. By giving inheritance rights to daughters and widows, and not exclusively to sons, this Act proposes a radically different organization of the ideal patrilineal household, commonly referred to as "the Hindu joint family". The Act initiates a transformation of Hindu women's status through their rights to property, which implies the transformation of women's rights and duties in India. / Drawing on the analysis made during an extensive fieldwork period in a rural community and case studies in Pune tribunals, this thesis shows that women generally know that they have some rights to their father's and husband's property. However, for various reasons, they do not see any advantage in claiming their inheritance rights. Women often find it difficult to reconcile claiming rights with their duties as daughters (or daughters-in-law) and the social restrictions associated with widowhood. In addition, the complex relationships with the state bureaucracy often prevent them from their right to access property. In that context, before choosing a forum of justice, most women (and men) will first opt for conflict avoidance. / This socio-legal ethnography of women's succession rights, in the state of Maharashtra, is an anthropological contribution to the study of the dynamics of social cohesion in an environment where legal pluralism is itself in transition.

This study documents a process of planned social change. In 1967, the Canadian government appointed the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) following a campaign mounted by a coalition of women's groups to promote women's rights. The Commission helped to define the status of women as a legitimate social problem, recommended changes in social policy, and helped to mobilize a constituency which pressed the government to implement the recommendations. The existence of an organized and vocal women's movement strengthened the Commission's demand for "simple justice." / The Report of the Commission was tabled in 1970, and the government responded to it by creating a federal policy system for promoting women's rights. The study assesses the different outcomes of the 167 RCSW recommendations over a ten-year period and it discusses the relationships between the women's movement, a governmental commission of inquiry (RCSW), and public policy on the status of women in Canada.

Zimbabwean widows need to inherit property when their husbands die. Property, be it material or financial in nature, is a source of sustenance and wealth. Depriving women of property inheritance rights has untold consequences. This study focuses on the property inheritance rights of widows in Zimbabwe in the Sikalenge Ward of Binga District. The aim of the study is to understand how property grabbing affects widows and to find possible solutions and intervention strategies social workers may use. The literature reviewed in the study was drawn from both the legal field and social work to create a link between the fields. The study was shaped by radical feminism for conceptualising property grabbing while the formulated intervention strategies utilised the empowerment model. The study is qualitative in nature using interviews to collect data from ten widows and five social service providers who constitute the total of fifteen participants in the study. Data was analysed qualitatively using interpretive approaches and presentation is textual rather than statistical. The main finding of the study is that widows are still being denied their inheritance rights despite the provision of such rights by the Intestate Succession Laws promulgated in November 1997 by the government of Zimbabwe. Moreover, the widows are not aware of the inheritance laws of Zimbabwe and hence did not seek any professional intervention. The few who attempted the legal process for recourse were not successful. Even though it was minimally attempted, the study established that the main form of failed intervention tried by the women was legal in nature and suggests and emphasises an eminent need for Social Work intervention to supplement legal intervention.