Over the years, a net increase in enrolment rates in primary schools has been observed worldwide. Nevertheless, in West Africa, girls still lag behind in terms of basic education. Although many other African societies face educational challenges in terms of realising girls’ right to education, educational challenges are far greater for women and girls in West Africa. This region is considered to have the highest illiteracy level in the world, and the level of illiteracy is even higher for females. As a result, a gap persists between the number of boys and girls in primary schools. The reasons why this gap persist is because cultural limitations and poverty still undermine the realisation of girls’ right to basic education in this part of the world. Girls’ right to primary education is undermined through patriarchy; negative cultural perceptions associated with girls’ education, child labour or child marriages, to mention but a few. Not only are educational disparities visible in terms of gender, but educational disparities are also visible between urban and rural areas. By taking into account such differences, and in order to best achieve universal basic education in West Africa, the use of multiple strategies is advised. It requires primarily the enforcement of legal measures in order to improve girls’ enrolment and retention rates. Simultaneously, it requires economic solutions which can help the poor to send girls to school, with in addition strategies which focus on the role that institutions can play; whether these institutions are governments, traditional or religious institutions. Evidently, with these strategies, the role played by other actors such as citizens and non-governmental organisations, in ensuring girls’ right to basic education cannot be underestimated. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Text in Afrikaans, abstract in Afrikaans and English / Die regsposisie van die deelgenote tot 'n de facto huwelik word krities ondersoek met inagneming van die huidige Suid-Afrikaanse regsposisie, oorsigtelike regsvergelyking, die morele argument, en die invloed van die Grondwet van Suid-Afrika. Die verskillende vorme van de facto huwelike in sy bree interpretasie word in oenskou geneem en die volgende verbindings word bespreek: saamwoonverhoudings; inheemsregtelike huwelike; huwelike voortspruitend uit godsdienstige tradisies; en homoseksuele huwelike. Dit word gevind dat die Suid-Afrikaanse regsposisie tans baie onbevredigend is. Sekere voorstelle vir wysigings word aan die hand gedoen, en daar word gewys op die unieke kenmerke van die Suid-Afrikaanse situasie wat in ag geneem moet word in die vorming van 'n nuwe benadering. Dit word bepleit dat die regslui die uitdaging moet aangryp en met innoverende denke 'n nuwe bestel vir die Suid-Afrikaanse reg moet skep wat buigbaar en soepel is, maar terselfdertyd regsekerheid bevorder. / The legal status of the parties to a de facto marriage is investigated, taking into consideration the present South African position, legal comparison, the moral argument, and the influence of the Constitution of South Africa. The different forms of the de facto marriage in its wide interpretation are reviewed and the following relationships are discussed: cohabitation relationships; customary marriages; marriages resulting from religious traditions; and homosexual relationships. It is found that the present South African legal position is very unsatisfactory. Several suggestions for amendments are made, and the unique characteristics of the South African situation to be taken into consideration in forming a new approach, are highlighted. It is pleaded that the legal profession accept the challenge to create, with innovation, a new system for South African law which will be flexible, but, will at the same time ensure certainty in law. / Private Law / LL. M.

Text in Afrikaans, abstract in Afrikaans and English / Die regsposisie van die deelgenote tot 'n de facto huwelik word krities ondersoek met inagneming van die huidige Suid-Afrikaanse regsposisie, oorsigtelike regsvergelyking, die morele argument, en die invloed van die Grondwet van Suid-Afrika. Die verskillende vorme van de facto huwelike in sy bree interpretasie word in oenskou geneem en die volgende verbindings word bespreek: saamwoonverhoudings; inheemsregtelike huwelike; huwelike voortspruitend uit godsdienstige tradisies; en homoseksuele huwelike. Dit word gevind dat die Suid-Afrikaanse regsposisie tans baie onbevredigend is. Sekere voorstelle vir wysigings word aan die hand gedoen, en daar word gewys op die unieke kenmerke van die Suid-Afrikaanse situasie wat in ag geneem moet word in die vorming van 'n nuwe benadering. Dit word bepleit dat die regslui die uitdaging moet aangryp en met innoverende denke 'n nuwe bestel vir die Suid-Afrikaanse reg moet skep wat buigbaar en soepel is, maar terselfdertyd regsekerheid bevorder. / The legal status of the parties to a de facto marriage is investigated, taking into consideration the present South African position, legal comparison, the moral argument, and the influence of the Constitution of South Africa. The different forms of the de facto marriage in its wide interpretation are reviewed and the following relationships are discussed: cohabitation relationships; customary marriages; marriages resulting from religious traditions; and homosexual relationships. It is found that the present South African legal position is very unsatisfactory. Several suggestions for amendments are made, and the unique characteristics of the South African situation to be taken into consideration in forming a new approach, are highlighted. It is pleaded that the legal profession accept the challenge to create, with innovation, a new system for South African law which will be flexible, but, will at the same time ensure certainty in law. / Private Law / LL. M.

Les enfants constituent la valeur primordiale dans les mécanismes de reproduction de la société. C’est pourquoi les groupes ont cherché à s’emparer du «choix» des acteurs sociaux avant qu’ils n’accèdent à la capacité de décision. Pourtant du fait de la progression de la subjectivation et des droits individuels, les mariages d’enfants constituent de plus en plus un problème social dans les mondes sociaux à la fois traditionnels et modernes, notamment en Turquie. L’objectif de cette thèse a pour objet d’apporter un regard critique mais compréhensif sur les mariages d’enfants de sexe féminin en Turquie, d’en comprendre les causes et conséquences et de révéler les expériences des femmes s’étant mariées avant l’âge mineur (18 ans) et de voir comment elles perçoivent la question du mariage d’enfants. Deuxièmement, nous avons cherché à analyser les articles parus à ce propos, dans la presse écrite turque et les messages Twitter afin de constater comment les médias choisissent de refléter ce problème et de comprendre si le discours adopté au cours de ces articles de presse et messages Twitter correspondent au discours adopté par les femmes en question. La thèse mobilise deux types de sources : un travail sur le terrain et une analyse d’un corpus de journaux. Dans une première étape, des entretiens face-à-face, semi-structurés ont été réalisés avec des femmes s’étant mariées avant l’âge de 18 ans. Dans une seconde étape, des articles parus dans la presse écrite et les messages sur Twitter ont été étudiés. Finalement, les données obtenues lors de ces deux recherches ont été comparées. Cette thèse, inspirée par la théorie du féministe est composée de cinq chapitres principaux qui déclinent une démonstration révélant la complexité d’un phénomène où les acteurs sociaux dévoilent une multiplicité de représentations et de trajectoires. / Children are the most important value and future of a society. However, today, one of the important societal problems in Turkey as well as in the problem of marriage of underage girls. The aim of this thesis is firstly to look critically at the marriages of underage girls in Turkey to find out its reasons and results and reveal the experiences of women who married before age of 18 and how these women perceive the child marriage problem. Secondly, it is aimed to analyze related news in Turkish print media and across Twitter posts and to find out how the media reflects this problem and if these news reports and Twitter posts’ discourses correspond to the discourses of the women in question. The thesis consists of two types of field research. In the first stage of the research, a face-to-face, semi-structured interview is conducted with the women who married before their age of 18. In the second research, related news reports in Turkish print media and posts on Twitter are examined. Finally, the findings of two types of research are compared. This thesis, which is based on feminist framework theoretically, consists of five main chapters. In this study, the relation between the way that these underage married women identified themselves and statements of media are investigated. In this regard, the study aims to make a contribution to the literature in terms of discussing the problem from the sociological perspective and it is hoped to make contribution to the solution of the problem to decrease the number of underage married girls in Turkey.

No description available.

In the first essay, I demonstrate that during the 1970s, the marital behavior of US Catholics changed dramatically relative to that of the total population. The Catholic marriage rate, that is, the number of Catholic marriages per 1000 Catholics, decreased nearly 20 percent relative to the civil marriage rate. Before and after this time period, the two rates moved in unison. Empirically, I find that the Catholic reforms and encyclicals of the 1960s, that is, Vatican II and Humanae Vitae, led to a decrease in the Catholic marriage rate relative to the civil marriage rate and that the reform of civil divorce law had no effect on this relative rate. In the second essay, I expand the analysis of the previous essay and test whether a negative response among US Catholics to the reforms of Vatican II and to Humanae Vitae is able to explain the increase in the civil marriage rate, the decrease in the Catholic marriage rate, and the increase in the interfaith marriage rate seen in the data. To do this, I construct an original model that treats marriage as a set of two contracts, one civil and one religious, with the benefit and cost of the religious contract depending upon a social complementarity. The theory and the data match if the primary effect of 1960s Catholic reform was to decrease the benefit of a Catholic marriage. In the third essay, I examine the link between religiosity and the incidence of domestic abuse and model sanctification as the pathway connecting the two. Sanctification is "a psychological process through which aspects of life are perceived by people as having spiritual character or significance"[25]. In the model, the abuser must his choose level of abuse, and both abuser and abused must allocate a scarce amount of time between the production of a marital good and a personal consumption good. Sanctification is modeled as an increase in the return to time invested in the marital good. Theoretically, abuse increases in both spouses' level of sanctification and the wife's productivity and decreases in the husband's productivity. This partially agrees with the data. / text

The growing population of the United States is linked to the increasing migration of individuals from other countries. With migration comes the development of cross-cultural and interracial romantic relationships, many leading to marriages. This qualitative grounded theory study sought to understand how a migrant partner's adjustment process, acculturation, contributes to cross-cultural marriages. The main research question and purpose of this study was to investigate the role of acculturation in marital satisfaction among mixed Caucasian and Asian American heterosexual couples. This study utilized multiple data sources and a purposive sampling of 11 mixed Asian and Caucasian heterosexual married couples, with one partner who identified themselves as being Caucasian and U.S. born, and the other as Asian American and an immigrant to the United States. Data were coded and analyzed to identify themes and patterns that emerged from the participants' experiences. The study revealed the following emergent themes representing the couples' common acculturative stressors: (a) challenges related to English language proficiency, (b) communication styles differences, (c) cultural learning, and (d) difficulties due to the lack of social support. The findings of this study provide marriage and family counselors with important data related to how married couples experience acculturation as well as the unique stressors associated with a migrating partner's process. Implications for positive social change include information related to the development of interventions to address common acculturative stressors identified during this study, as well as data to support clinicians and clients when identifying appropriate coping strategies.

Military marriages may be particularly vulnerable to marital distress and dissolution due to the unique challenges associated with military service. To better understand the research regarding military marriages, a critical literature review was conducted. Fifteen peer-reviewed, published articles were critically reviewed based on their theoretical applications and empirical findings. Articles were categorized according to stage in marriage and primary theoretical orientation. Results suggest that military marriages are at risk due to military factors, but they are also mostly stable. Results also indicate that theories are rarely made explicit in military marriage literature. Future research would benefit from providing clearer links from theory to hypothesis testing. Finally, empirical findings are translated into practical implications at the macro-level and micro-levels of intervention.

Cette thèse propose une exploration qualitative et quantitative des conditions dans lesquelles l’ethnie des Makina du Gabon se transforme au contact d’autres ethnies et au contact du monde urbain qui se construit à différentes échelles à travers le pays. La conclusion est que l’ethnie doit être déconstruite en diverses composantes qui connaissent des rythmes d’évolution qui sont objectivables dans leurs formes historiques et géographiques. Ce résultat est atteint par l’analyse contextualisée de 747 données individuelles qui – sur une durée globale d’un siècle – sont tour à tour référées au changement d’ethnonyme, au déplacement des villages, au changement de la langue pratiquée, à la modification des règles de mariage, à la transformation lente des noms de lignages et celle plus rapide des noms de personnes. La différence de vitesse de transformation de chacune des composantes structurantes de l’ethnie donne ainsi une configuration polyrythmique qui remet en cause les conceptions holistes de l’ethnie en leur préférant une dynamique de l’hétérogénéité. / The main proposal of this doctoral dissertation is an insightful study of the historical, linguistic and anthropological transformations of the Makina, an ethnic group of Northern and Eastern Gabon. These transformations are referred to the change, during the last century, of the original ethnonym as well as that of the language, of matrimonial rules, and finally of clan and person naming. On the whole, the author’s demonstration leads to the evidence of a rhythmical pattern in change, even a polyrhythmical one, as the differences in speed between different components of an ethnic group may be interpreted as a multi rhythmical transformation system. 81 genealogical diagrams and over 747 individual data collected on fieldwork give strong support to the different aspects of the author’s thesis.

No description available.