Medieval Mothers Had to Marry and Murder to Get Their Way

Love this article from the Smithsonian:

In the rough-and-tumble setting of medieval England, royal mothers were expected to do far more than just ensure their children, the future monarchs, were healthy and well-educated. She had to wield all her influence and patronage to keep her son in power—and keep her husband from killing him.

Before the Norman Conquest of 1066, royal succession was not fixed. The inheritance rights of young children were often passed over to ensure that an experienced warrior was on the throne. It provided the perfect recipe for royal intrigue, and mothers with sons to defend often faced down tradition—and their own husbands—along the way. Queens were supposed to value their roles as both wives and mothers, but when forced to pick between the two, their children always came first.

By the 13th century, an orderly law of succession began to take shape in England. These days, English royals must fend off the paparazzi instead of Vikings. What remains the same for royalty is the experience of parenting in the public eye—one that’s always trained on mothers of children who will wear the crown.

read entire article here @ the Smithsonian

Hunger Fuels Child Marriage

From PM News Nigeria:

In Hawkantaki, it is the rhythm of the land that shapes the cycle of life, including the time of marriage.  The size of the harvest determines not only if a father can feed his family, but also if he can afford to  keep his daughter under his roof.

Even at the best of times, one out of every three girls in Niger marries before her 15th birthday, a rate of  child marriage among the highest in the world, according to a UNICEF survey.

Now this custom is being layered on top of a crisis. At times of severe drought, parents pushed to the wall  by poverty and hunger are marrying their daughters at even younger ages.

A girl married off is one less mouth to feed, and the dowry money she brings in goes to feed others.

Baby Cages - 1930s Parenting

From Nine MSN Health & Wellbeing:

It's possibly wrong to judge other ages by the standards of our own, so we'll try to reserve judgement about these photos of child rearing techniques from 1930s London.

Short on space? Want baby to get fresh air and sunlight? Why not dangle them from your window in a cage! 

What could possibly go wrong?

The baby cages were at least designed with the best intentions, allowing families living in blocks of flats without gardens a way of giving their babies a taste of the great outdoors.

Child Marriage In India

From Gulf News:

Child marriage, known as ‘Bal Vivaha’, is believed to have begun during the medieval ages of India. Later child marriage became a widespread cultural practice with various reasons to justify it, and many marriages were performed while the girl was still an infant.

After independence, the feudalistic character of the Indian society coupled with caste system gave a major boost to incidences of child marriage, particularly in the rural areas.

“Castes, which are based on birth and heredity, do not allow two people to marry if they are from different castes. This system was threatened by young people’s emotions and desires to marry outside their caste, so out of necessity child marriage was created to ensure the caste system continued. Also parents of a child entering into a child marriage are often poor and use marriage as a way to make their daughter’s future better, especially in areas with little economic opportunities.

“During times of war, parents will often marry off their young child to protect her from the conflicts raging around her. Some families still use child marriage to build alliances, as they did during the medieval ages,” Nirmal Kaur, Delhi-based child rights activist, told Gulf News.

“Statistically, a girl in a child marriage has less of a chance to go to school, and parents think education will undermine her ability to be a traditional wife and mother. Virginity is an important part of Indian culture, and parents want to ensure their daughters do not have pre-marital sex, and child marriage is an easy way to fix this,” Kaur said.

Queen Victoria's Secret Daughter

From the Mail Online:

Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 marked the refulgent patriotic zenith of the British Empire.  Standing less than 5ft tall, but nevertheless a towering colossus throughout the world, the iconic Queen Empress gave her name to an age that produced an empire measuring some 40 million square kilometres, with 387 million subjects.

But now an astonishing article, published this month in The Oldie magazine, seeks to explode this greatest of all royal myths.

It claims that after the untimely death of her husband, Albert, the Prince Consort, Victoria sought sexual solace with her uncouth, arrogant and heavy-drinking Highland ghillie, John Brown. It further alleges that the Queen secretly married Brown in a clandestine ceremony and then bore him a child.

The 82-year-old historian, John Julius (2nd Viscount) Norwich, son of the legendary society beauty Lady Diana Cooper, is cited as a source for this story.

Lord Norwich, it appears, remembers his friend, the late historian Sir Steven Runciman, telling him that while he was researching in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, he chanced upon the marriage certificate of Queen Victoria and John Brown.

Runciman was a pre-eminent expert on the Crusades and the Byzantine Empire. According to this very tall tale, he showed the certificate to the late Queen Mother.

Historic Hospital Admission Records Project

From BBC News:

A fascinating and rare set of hospital records dating from Victorian times has been put online.

The records tell the stories of poor, sick children who were admitted to Glasgow Hospital for Sick Children from 1883 to 1903.

It is part of the Historic Hospital Admission Records Project being run by Kingston University in London.

The records give an insight into the common diseases and conditions of Victorian times.

Very few records from children's hospitals have survived from Victorian times.

Only two more sets are known to exist in the whole of Britain: for Edinburgh and Aberdeen hospitals.

Historians at Kingston University hope to digitise these remaining records in future.

Rita Oakes - A Unique Chidhood

From the Mail Online:

The daughter of Britain’s first female long-distance lorry driver, Rita Oakes had a unique childhood, travelling the length and breadth of the UK with her mother for up to 100 hours a week.

Read Rita's amazing story of her childhood here

Bahrain: Women & Divorce

From Gulf Daily News:

A CAMPAIGN is being stepped up to ensure that women in Bahrain emerge from divorce with alimony, rightful custody of their children and a roof over their heads.

A Bahrain society is calling for law reforms and practical strategies to ensure divorced women their rights, without agonising court battles.

Bahrain Women's Association for Human Development wants legislation and society to reflect the Quranic concept of divorce, which states a wife either be returned to her husband or "released (divorced) in kindness".

It says that far from being "released in kindness", many women suffer long court battles trying to secure custody, alimony and a place to live.

"Cases of divorce are increasing in courts and women suffer because they have to go to the court and it takes a long time to be resolved and they might not have money or a home," association board member Ebtisam Zaid told the GDN.

"They are not doing what the Quran says. It says let her return to her husband or be released in kindness, but a lot of women suffer.

UK: PM in Childcare Showdown

From the Telegraph:

The Prime Minister is withdrawing childcare vouchers because he believes too many people who can afford to pay full costs on their own are using it. About 340,000 families claim childcare vouchers from about 35,000 employers. They save parents up to £2,400 a year.

Mr Brown plans to phase out the system from 2011, instead using the money saved to extend free nursery places to two-year-olds from the poorest families.

But Mr Brown's decision to withdraw the benefit has resulted in a number of senior female backbenchers, including Patricia Hewitt, the former health secretary, and Caroline Flint, the former Europe minister, who argue that many working mothers will no longer be able to afford to work if the vouchers are scrapped.

More than 60,000 people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website criticising Mr Brown's decision while almost 40 Labour MPs have signed a parliamentary motion in protest

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Dzagbe Cudjoe

From Ghana News, an interview with author Dzagbe Cudjoe:

"Born in Chesham, England, the author has an MA in Ethnology from the University of Munich, Germany. She has worked at the Ghana National Museum & University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Research Field West African Traditional Religion. She is a member of the World Federation of Healing and works with children with severe physical and / or learning disabilities, using dance and movement therapy to help with rehabilitation."

Women & Childbirth in China

From Canada.com:
"Most women in China, where the majority of families are restricted to just one child, would like to have two or more children to prevent their babies becoming spoilt or lonely, state media said Friday.

China, with the world's biggest population straining scarce land, water and energy supplies, has restricted most families to one child since the late 1970s.

But experts say a traditional preference for boys, especially in rural areas, is leading to a growing gender imbalance stemming from aborted or abandoned baby girls.

Most women, or 83 percent, want a son and a daughter, the survey said. The character for "good" in Chinese is the characters for boy and girl combined."

Pakistan: women & child care

From Dawn:
"Pakistan and Norway here on Friday signed Norway-Pakistan Partnership Initiative (NPPI) to provide better healthcare facilities to mother and newborn children.

Norwegian government would provide 50 million krone (about $50 million) each year for this five-year long programme which would be started in ten districts of Sindh.

The initiative aims at reducing maternal and child mortality rates with about 40 per cent during the five year period for project implementation from 2009-13, through a variety of carefully selected interventions from a wide range of agencies.

The Norwegian support would be channeled through three UN agencies working together with the one UN programme mechanisms."

Child Marriage - Part IV

From the Mail Online:

"British children as young as nine are being forced to marry against their will by their families, campaigners have warned.

Thousands of Britons - mainly young women from the Asian communities - are thought to be victims of forced marriage each year, but concerns are increasingly focused on the plight of underage girls who are being offered for marriage to foreign men when they have barely left primary school.

No accurate figures exist for the scale of the problem, although the Government's Forced Marriage Unit has helped rescue around 60 children aged 15 or under in the past four years - including 11 so far in 2008 - and experts fear that may represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Typically victims are taken overseas by their families on a false pretext and forced to marry.

Extreme cases where women rebel against their family's plans and try to run away have led to so-called 'honour killings' or suicides.

Ministers angered campaigners two years ago by dropping plans to make it a criminal offence to force someone to marry, after Muslim groups objected strongly to the plans."

Child Marriages - Part III

From Dawn:

Jirga orders minor girl’s marriage to old man
"SUKKUR, Sept 19: A jirga held in Khanpur Mahar on Friday came up with the verdict that a seven-year-old girl be married to a 50-year old man to resolve a dispute related to karo-kari allegations.

However, the family of the girl has refused to accept the verdict on the ground that she is too young to be married at this age.

According to sources, the jirga was held in Khanpur Mahar to resolve a one-year old karo-kari dispute between Chakar Shar of Khanpur Mahar and Yasin Shar of Khuharo Village near Ghotki. The jirga, after hearing both the parties, came to the conclusion that Chakar Shar had illicit affair with Subhan Khatoon wife of Yasin Shar. It slapped a fine of Rs 40,000 on Chakar and ordered him to marry his cousin Birbul Shar’s seven-year-old daughter Guddi to Nadoo Shar, 50, who is father of Yasin Shar. Chakar does not have a girl child.

Chakar Shar refused to accept the verdict, saying that, Guddi Shar was only 7 years old and they would not giver her in marriage to Nado Shar who is 50 year old.

Later, talking to the local journalists, Yar Mohammad Shar, brother of Guddi Shar, termed the decision of jirga as atrocious and said that the elder, who presided over the jirga, was pressuring them to accept the verdict, but they would never accept it.

One year ago, Yasin Shar declared his wife Subhan Khatoon kari with Chakar Shar and sent her to her parents and since then both the groups were daggers drawn over the issue and on Friday a jirga was held to resolve the issue.

CLASH: Two people were killed and two others injured in an armed clash between Chachar and Ghoto communities, following kidnapping of a young girl by the armed persons from Ghotki on Thursday.

Zarina, daughter of Ghulam Rasool Chachar, was kidnapped by the armed persons and the Chachar community men blamed Subhan Ghoto, resident of village Panjoo Bagh, of kidnapping the girl and attacked their houses. In the meantime, the DPO of Ghotki along with a police party reached on the spot and recovered the girl and shifted her to a safer place."

Child Marriages - Part II

Further to another post - Child Marriages -

From The Australian:
"A SAUDI court will next month hear a plea for divorce from an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man in his fifties, the Arabic-language daily Al-Watan reported today.

It said the girl's mother had filed the divorce case with the court at Unayzah 220km north of Riyadh, and cited lawyer Abdullah Jtili as saying the father had arranged the marriage without telling the girl.

But the daily also reported that the husband had refused to renounce the marriage, saying that he had not done anything illegal.

Arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents are occasionally reported in the Arabian Peninsula, including in the ultra-conservative Saudi kingdom where the strict conservative Wahabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common.

In Yemen in April, another girl aged eight was granted a divorce after her unemployed father forced her to marry a man of 28."

From Sun Star:
"They have been widely denounced by activists, clerics and others who say such unions are harmful to the children and trivialize the institution of marriage.

Saudi Arabia is already rocked by a high divorce rate that has jumped from 25 percent to 60 percent over the past 20 years, according to Noura al-Shamlan, head of the research department at the Center of University Studies for Girls."

From Arab News:
"THE grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, in recent press statements, has rightly warned parents against marrying their young daughters to men who are older than them by 50 and 60 years or more. He described such practices as an indication of lack of conscience on the part of the parents. He also said such marriages will not protect the chastity of the girls and may drive them toward sinful acts. The mufti stressed that the young girl will be living in agony while her parents enjoy the comforts her dowry can buy them.

WE have heard about a father who married his 10-year-old girl to a man in his 70s for a dowry of SR150,000. The Human Rights Commission (HRC) intervened and delayed the marriage for five years. Just imagine the situation of a desperate child considered to be a married woman and the old man demanding his conjugal rights. This will definitely rob the girl of her innocence. When the consummation of marriage takes place five years later, she will be just 15 while her husband will be in his 80s! Fathers like these consider their daughters to be slaves selling them to the highest bidder. Or they compel them to marry their relatives or men from their tribe.

The grand mufti has clearly stated his position on these types of marriages. What remains now is the cooperation of all concerned agencies to put a halt to such abuses. As most of the cases take place in remote villages where there is poverty and illiteracy, we need to launch a campaign to make people aware of the social and moral implications of such marriages. The mother should not hesitate to inform the police if the father insists on marrying his child to an old man. The officials who write the marriage contracts should alert the HRC to such practices so that they step in to stop it in time. It will be good if we decide a certain age for marriage."

And again, from Arab News:
"The Saudi Human Rights Commission (HRC) has called on government agencies to take necessary steps to end the practice of child marriages by adopting a clear and unambiguous position on such weddings.

The condemnation comes in the wake of several cases across the Kingdom in which young girls have been married to elderly men, mainly for monetary reasons such as the settlement of debts or to receive generous dowries.

“Such marriages violate human rights by depriving a girl of her childhood,” said Turki Al-Sudairy, president of the Human Rights Commission. He added that such weddings are prohibited by a number of international conventions and by reputed global organizations concerned with children’s rights.

Dr. Ayman Abu Laban, UNICEF representative in the Gulf, said his organization strongly discourages child marriages, which inflict serious psychological and physical risks on young girls."

Arab News Editorial - Girls as Commodities