Tag: husband

How Wedding Ceremonies Worked Within Europe During the Medieval Period

1 Comment

Medieval weddings were carried out much the same as they are during the modern day with any witnesses present being provided 3 distinct opportunities to object to the marriage with the most common objections being that the parties involved were too close in relation by blood and/or the age of the bride was too young to accept the concept of marriage and/or bare a child. A ring and a piece of gold or silver was placed upon the Christian Bible held by the priest conducting the ceremony, in an effort to have the ring blessed, after which the priest would take the brides right hand and in Latin say “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen” which means “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. With truth” in Latin. The priest would touch each finger, starting with the thumb, after saying each part of the Holy Trinity, ending upon the 4th finger when saying “amen”, which became the finger which the wedding ring was placed upon. It was not uncommon for both men and women to wear their wedding rings on their thumbs or middle fingers until the 17th century as any finger was considered acceptable. After undertaking vows, both the husband and wife would lay down to be covered in a shroud, afterwhich they would arise as a newly married couple. This practice was symbolic of a marriage transforming 2 unique individuals into a single person married to Jesus Christ. Finally, the priest would then kiss both the bride and groom upon their face, typically the cheek, and put the couple to bed to ensure consummation of the marriage, at which point, the marriage ceremony was considered complete

The Reason Women Were Forced Into Caretaking Roles Throughout History

1 Comment

In early hunter gatherer societies, women played a crucial role in providing sustenance within their communities. Women were responsible to gather fruits, nuts, and roots, developing extensive knowledge of plant life, seasonal patterns, and medicinal herbs as these are all necessary skill sets for foraging. As societies expanded in order to sustain their growing populations, women became less and less relevant as they were viewed as unfit for agricultural work or to participate within battles and wars, and because of these factors and because virtually all societies shifted toward agriculture, women gradually lost their ability to gather and became increasingly dependent upon the wealth and provisions of their husbands. The rise of warfare in expanding civilizations meant that warriors who were almost exclusively male gained access to even more control over resources and decision making within society. This forced women into the role of caretakers. With agriculture came the concept of land ownership, which was almost exclusively controlled by men, further solidifying male dominance of society. As permanent settlements formed, men took control of agricultural work, domestic trade, and governance, whilst women were confined to domestic responsibilities due to generations of marginalization and conditioning. Over the coming centuries, religious, cultural, and legal systems reinforced these divisions, ensuring that women remained economically and socially subordinate in perpetuity

The Auctioning of Spouses During the 18th Century and 19th Century

Leave a comment

Traditionally, if a wife was no longer desired by her husband, he would lead her in her Sunday best, to the towns market square, laiden with a rope halter wrapped around her neck or waste, to be sold to the highest bidder. Women were exhibited the same way livestock are sold during the modern day. Over the course of the 18th and 19th century, approximately 300 transactions of a wife for money were exchanged within the U.K. The most recent exchange took place in 1928, in Blackwood, Wales for £1.00. Technically wife sales were illegal but because wives were considered the property of their husbands, English society turned a blind eye to the act

The Ancient Mesopotamian Law Code of Hammurabi

Leave a comment

Dating from 1770 B.C., the most complete of ancient Mesopotamian legal texts is the Code of Hammurabi, a compendium of 282 laws which dictated the rules of commercial interactions and set fines and punishments for those found in violation of these laws. Inscribed upon a phallic piece of black obsidian, Hammurabi’s Code is depicted as receiving these laws from Shamash, the god of the sun, justice, and order, with the primary role of protecting the weak from the strong. It is written and recognized within the Hammurabi Code the first appearance of the biblical punishment of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Considered by many scientists to be one of the foundational stones of world civilization, the Hammurabi Code is a mixed blessing for women, both protecting women and lowering their social rank as second class citizens. Upon the positive end, the Hammurabi Code recognized women’s basic right to own property, fundamental in its importance as it provided women legal protection in regard to the control of their dowries and inheritance. The Hammurabi Code also forbade arbitrary poor treatment and/or neglect, which meant wives who were ill or barren couldn’t be simply discarded. In divorce, women were permitted to keep their dowries, and in widowhood, women were permitted the opportunity to utilize their husbands estates as their own for the duration of their lives. The Hammurabi Code essentially recognizes Mesopotamian women as distinct persons in a legal sense, rather than property which is how most of the ancient world recognized women. Upon the negative side however, women’s economic and sexual freedoms became severely restricted, forbidden from performing any commercial activity outside of their home and supporting and legalizing the concept of the patriarchy by providing men immense autonomy over the bodies of women, meaning husbands and fathers now owned the sexual reproduction of their wives and daughters which lead to women being executed for adultery, virginity becoming a condition of marriage, and rape not viewed as a violent sexual offense against the female victim, but rather an economic offense against her father as it would cause the father to suffer a severe loss in respect to a daughters bride price as the daughter would be considered a damaged commodity. It’s unclear how these legal mandates and statutes worked at the local level as they are ideals of Mesopotamian culture, but the driving force of these laws and how they are setup and constituted is abundantly clear, allowing male authority and patriarchal notions of male honor, to become sacrosanct

The National Security System of Dubai

Leave a comment

Dubai has one of the most sophisticated surveillance states in the world. It is incredibly difficult to bypass Dubai intelligence, which Dubai promotes as a positive aspect of its government. The Arab Spring of 2011 gave way to multiple riots and protests across the Middle East which is why monitoring and security have become especially tight within the past decade. Social media and smartphones played a pivotal role in the uprising of the public across the Islamic world which is why Dubai has stepped up its surveillance measures. Dubai’s surveillance system is an ecosystem entitled “Falcon Eye”, a nod to the importance of falconry within Arab culture, a sophisticated network with software which tracks the movement of a person from the moment they leave their home until the moment they return. Camera surveillance is not the only method used however as the Dubai government has openly admitted to the tracking and monitoring of smartphones as well as to sending state agents to follow individuals like journalists via motorized vehicle and upon foot when a person is deemed to possibly cause a threat to the states national security. The reason this activity is not hidden from the public is because the Dubai government wants citizens and foreigners to know that they actively engage in the monitoring of what people do when within its borders. Dubai started spending millions of dollars in 2011 on state of the art Israeli spyware which had the ability to infect smartphones and turn them into portable surveillance devices as they are almost always with the person who is being spied upon. In the past decade, as of 2019, the United Arab Emirates has made strides in opening up communication and relationships with law enforcement and governments located near the Indian Ocean. This allows the reach of the Dubai government to effectively be international, much the same way that the U.S. has international diplomatic links with many other democracies around the world

The Original Intent of Commerce Juggernaut eBay

Leave a comment

eBay was created because of a husbands desire to give his partner a way to barter and trade in Pez dispensers, which was the main hobby or perhaps passion is a more fitting term, for Pamela Kerr, the wife of eBay creator Pierre Omidyar

The Illegality of Sexual Relations Outside of Marriage in Utah, United States of America

Leave a comment

In 2019, the state of Utah, United States of America legalized sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Up until this point, sexual relations outside of a husband and wife scenario were illegal, and referred to within the state law as “fornication”

Kenyan Female Marriage Traditions

1 Comment

8 hours from Nairobi, Kenya is Kuria, Kenya, a village in which most men have multiple wives and women often marry other women. The tradition of female to female marriage is referred to as “Nyumba Mboke” (pronounced “nee-yom bom-bah-kay”). Woman to woman marriage is actually quite common across the African continent. The reason female intersex marriages are common is due solely to the birth of a male heir. When African women grow into adulthood, they typically leave their families to move in with the families of their husbands, taking over for their husband’s parents in the various chores of daily life (e.g. cooking, cleaning, acquiring water and firewood etc.). In contrast to this, males always stay with their family and bring their wife to live within their home so that she can take care of the mans aging parents. When a woman cannot produce a male heir or when every male heir she has birthed dies, a secondary wife is usually taken on to help birth new life. Older and more established families often take on a wife for the head wife of the family as a sort of surrogate daughter-in-law