Journal articles on the topic 'Women – Social life and customs – Maldives'

AbstractOne reason many traditional Lari customs celebrating life cycle events, such as births, marriages, and pilgrimages were preserved well into the 1970s is that women, particularly the older women, have been the keepers of this knowledge. They maintained the practice of these customs and passed on the knowledge to their daughters and younger members of their social networks. This paper examines Lari marriage practices in the 1970s and contrasts them with earlier customs as reported by older women. It discusses also the role of social networks in maintaining, changing, and passing on marriage customs.

The present study is aimed to investigate the status of women in the novel The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmed originally published in 2011. The Wandering Falcon is a collection of nine short stories. All the stories are interlinked with one another. The novel shows life in the tribal areas situated at the borders of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. In the present study, the researcher has examined the impacts of tribal traditions and rules on the lives of the people of these region. The research deals with the cruel and brutal laws of Federally Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA) and the miserable life style of these tribal people, especially the women of the region, as depicted in the novel. The tribal people have to face the indifference of nature as well as the supremacy of society. The rules and regulations of society have a deep impact on the social, mental and psychological development of its members. The present study deals with the social status of women in these tribal areas. It describes the attitude of tribal customs and traditions toward women and reflects the impact of these brutal laws on the lives of women as well as the poor and suppressed class of the society. This article aims to highlight the tribal customs which, commodify the women of FATA. Qualitative research paradigm has been selected for the novel as it tends to be exploratory and interpretative and feminist perspective have been applied on the sample.

Despite a large number of both historical and anthropological works on the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, a number of questions remain concerning this matrilineal and Islamic society. In a recent study, historian Ken Young articulated a growing consensus that the received models of Minangkabau social life are suspect, including the “idealised categories ofnagari[village],adat[customs], matrilineal kinship, lineage property rights, and the autonomy of village communities governed bypanghulu[titled men, Minangkabau spelling]” (Young 1994, 12). Anthropologists have been equally perturbed by what they consider to be inconsistencies in Minangkabau life, such as the contradiction between Islamic law and matrilinealadat(customary laws, beliefs, and practices concerning matrilineal kinship and inheritance). The inconsistency that I address in this essay lies in the contradictory representations of elite men's and elite women's power in Minangkabau literature.

This article is an attempt to examine the significance of folk literature which embodies the history, tradition and culture; implies a socio-cultural corpus specific to a particular ethnic group, and includes folk-behavior or the study of the specific customs and beliefs of a given social group and folk life or the study of folk-traditions. The folk literature of Sindh, like all other folk literature is the result of an interaction of cultural, geographical and religious factors that offers valuable historical evidence of cultural influence. Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai (1689- 1752 CE) is a celebrated Sufi poet, philosopher and social reformist, who employed folklore as a major segment in his poetry. The collection of Bhitai’s poetry which mostly comprised of the folklore is titled Shah Jo Risalo. This paper deals with a socio-cultural analysis of the folklore as a source for providing an image of the woman in the society. The Sindhi folklore also depicts an interesting picture of the prevailing customs and traditions. This article deals with a critical approach in order to reveal some historical truth in this regard.

Social discrimination in general and sexual one in particular bears several negative social impacts whose manifestations are even observable in human being behaviours through speech acts and proverbs in particular emphasizing on sexist aspect. Knowing that African customs are the basis or the foundation of the African people’s life, women are not given the same consideration as in Western countries. Accordingly, a look on the sexist proverb both in English and Kibeembe will help to see the actual place of women provided by these two respective communities. Finally, the data has shown in some respect that there are some similarities between English and Kibeembe sexist proverbs

The auditor is one promising profession to current and the future. The number of women auditors currently is higher than in men. However, the number of female auditors currently has positively increased. Balinese female auditor’s research used an interpretive phenomenology analysis approach in exploring understanding. The subjects of this study involved three Balinese female auditors. Data mining was carried out by conducting in-depth interviewees to gain an understanding of the interviewer’s role as auditors of Balinese women in a dual role. The excavation results show the auditors have the concept of work-life balance always happy in life and always grateful. The highest motivation and support of interviewees is their family. Work-life balance is a challenge in life, namely, career, family, and social aspects in the customs form. The alternative work arrangements development is felt to be a solution to reduce work-life conflict and female auditor fatigue.

Contemporary bereaved parents who usually lack prior experience with the death of an infant or young child also lack understanding of how parents reacted in previous centuries when a child died. This article reviews social science writing on parental bereavement in Anglo-American history, concluding that parents as early as the early seventeenth century have left records of their grief. Cultural understanding and customs surrounding death have changed, and around 1800 women began to leave records of their grief in letters and diaries. Emotional expressiveness following infant death was greatest during the nineteenth century, but decreased toward the end of the century and became taboo in the twentieth. Compared to men's, expressions of grief by women and writings directed toward women have been more expressive of emotion. Relatively little has been written about parental bereavement in the early and mid-twentieth century.

This study examines the central role of marriage among upper-middle-class Muslim Egyptians in Cairo, Egypt. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out over a total of 20 months by the author between 1988 and 1996. Using religious and legal sources as well as semistructured interviews and participant observation among two generations of 20 households, this study indicates that marriage continues to occupy a significant place in the life course of both upper-middle-class Muslim men and women. This article indicates that societal norms, as well as family structure and expectations, influence the prevalence of marriage as a necessary rite of passage for achieving adulthood among this class of Egyptians. Furthermore, this article describes the actual customs, beliefs, and practices associated with Muslim Egyptian marriages to counteract the Western bias that often obscures studies of this area of the world.

Статья посвящена анализу проблемы социальной депривации женщин в обществах постколониальной Тропической Африки. Автор сконцентрировал внимание на изучении важнейших социальных институтов, которые являются определяющими для женской повседневности в субсахарском регионе, - семье, образовании и здравоохранении. В статье выявлены ключевые аспекты депривации: минимальный возраст вступления в брак, главенство в семье, статус женщины, родительские права и обязанности, доступ к образованию, причины отсева девочек из школ, доступ к репродуктивной медицине. Автор приходит к выводу, что главным фактором депривации на постколониальном этапе развития субсахарских обществ остаются обычаи и традиционные практики, способствующие сохранению стереотипов фемининности и формированию типичных гендерных сценариев. The article is an analysis of the problem of social deprivation of women in the societies of postcolonial Tropical Africa. The author focused on the study of the most important social institutions that are decisive for women's everyday life in the Sub-Saharan region - family, education and health care. The author identifies the key aspects of deprivation: the minimum age at marriage, domination in the family, the status of women, parental rights and responsibilities, access to education, reasons for girls dropping out of school, access to reproductive medicine. The author concludes that the main factor of deprivation at the postcolonial stage of development of sub-Saharan societies remains customs and traditional practices that contribute to the preservation of stereotypes of femininity and the formation of typical gender scenarios.

The goal of this article is to take into consideration a problem of entrepreneurship among men and women. In author’s opinion this problem is unilaterally overused as an element of economical struggle and that is why it is harmful for activities of both parties. Author notes that the work of many politicians and women’s organizations impedes a natural entrepreneurship development, which takes into account all the conditions related to how the individuals function in the society. Excessive interference in customs, some legislation in Labor Law, breaking the rules of free market, all of them cause the lost of a natural competitiveness, restrictions on freedom of choice and tendencies to excessive control. Author highlights that more freedom in economic, social and political life, less detailed regulations, state interferences and short-term politics mean better conditions for the entrepreneurship development of both genders - in forms appropriate for men and women - more social justice and better protection for our property.

This research aimed to find out the discrimination against women in Indonesia, especially reflected in novels Entrok, Maryam, and Pasung Jiwa written by Okky Madasari. Over centuries, women in Indonesia had faced various forms of discrimination that happened because of the strong influence of patriarchal culture, norms, customs, and even religion. That viewpoint then caused men and women to have different roles, both biologically and socially. Women had roles to keep house, family, and children, meanwhile, men had roles to provide for living and protection to the family. The discrimination problem, especially for women, was still the most discussed topic due to the lack of public awareness about women’s roles in community life. This research was a descriptive qualitative research using feminism approach. The data in this research were in the forms of sentences, paragraphs, dialogues, and discourses that reflect discrimination against women. The data analysis technique used in this research was content analysis. The research result shows that there is discrimination towards women in the sectors of economic and social based on the utterances from these three novels by Okky Madasari.

Feminism can be defined as a conscious attempt towards revaluing women’s experience, rethinking the canons of text, revising the recognition of socio cultural, discourse and language, economic and political conditions in the society representing biological differences and their implications. Recent gyro texts express female creativity encompassing various styles, themes, genres and structures. In India, feminism is evolved as an imitation of western feminist movement foregrounding women’s education and independence. The intense awareness of the identity as a woman and theconcerns regarding feminine problems have caused psychological disorders in society.The womenwriters of today have evolved as a socio-political movement rising fundamental queries about social practices, male supremacy, power-structures,culture and social institutions which are instrumental in marginalizing women. Sudha Murthy as a feminist opposes the customs, norms and traditions of a society which tends to place a woman in a position inferior to that of aman, socially, politically, physically and economically. She has taken up themes of rebellion against the existing social set up through her women characters. Her women are no longer weak, meek and submissive creatures, instead they realize that they have roles to play in a family and in a society like their male counterparts. The women in her novels have preferences, prejudices and raise their voices to be heard. They emphasize their individuality and emerge as new women awakened to face the challenges and lead a meaningful and dignified life, irrespective of the insensiblesocial criticism.

Since the creation of woman, she faces many problems in her life. Different societies have their own customs and traditions. And woman faces problems regarding them. Pakistani society has its own influence and civilization which causes many problems of women. In these traditions, one of the bad behaviors is, marriage of woman on wrong time i.e. late marriage or early time marriage. In the result, at least, she faces Problems regarding dowry, Joint family system, Family disintegration, Childlessness, Propensity to violence, Effects of husband remaining alone from wife etc. On the basis of social divisions in Pakistani family system and depiction of woman issues having effects on herself, the significant and their mediation is very necessary, too. Many of these problems has Psychological impacts on woman in her domestic life. In Pakistani society where woman faces domestic and family problems, there economic problems too pester her which include greed for riches and lack of them both pester her psychologically. In this paper, above mentioned problems of women in Pakistani society has been discussed in the light of Islamic teachings.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on gender equality can be achieved by mainstreaming a gender perspective and promoting women's economic empowerment. Punjab has almost become synonymous with the low status of women, patriarchal society, feudal customs and values, social polarization along caste lines, high illiteracy, and poverty. The secondary status of women in Punjab coupled with an oppressive caste system and grinding poverty has robbed the women of their rights and a life of dignity, which were envisaged by the framers of the Constitution. The issue of gender equality has acquired a global character, and therefore, there is a need for the Civil Society to actively participate and enable the women to fight for their rights. The United Nations has included the issue of gender mainstreaming in the Millennium Declaration and 'promoting gender equality and empowerment of women' is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Improved gender sensitivity could be achieved by adopting a proactive approach towards achieving gender economic justice. Therefore achieving gender equality requires two complementary approaches--mainstreaming a gender perspective and promoting women's economic empowerment.

This paper is derived from case studies conducted on Pakpak women by cross-strata and status in domestic family institutions and customary institutions as public institutions in the village of Pegagan Julu VIII with qualitative feminist methods. The feminist method emphasizes the research process that involves women through their life experiences in cases of indigenous marginalization experienced by them in their communities. Sources of data from women's life experiences which are also voiced by women themselves. Data collection techniques used FGD (Focus Group Discussion), in-depth interviews and participant observation of women who became research informants. The results of the study show that Pakpak women are cross-social strata with the potential to be indigenous conservationists, ironically, the reality is not directly proportional to their authority or authority to make decisions in any customary or customary work. The reason is that the dominance of patriarchal culture which is still strong in prioritizing men and lacking respect for women has influenced the weak bargaining position of women. The consequences that arise are that most customary practices and values are less pro-women, both at the family level and in the community. They experience exploitation especially from the poor strata, so that the poverty that is already heavy is faced by women, the more the burden of adat that must be borne by women. As a result women have the potential to experience double poverty (double poverty) and even tend to experience situations of alienation from their customs.

The importance of research: The heavenly canons and all laws affirm the guarantee of everyone's right to life, but a look at daily practices reveals that a large number of women are killed daily under the background of honor killings. His race and his religion, is considered today a necessity and a priority heavily placed on the collective conscience. The exacerbation of the phenomenon of honor murders, or the liquidation of women who has rebel against family laws, and the pretext that she is an adulterer, is a dangerous indication of underestimating the right of women to life and is a sign of social discrimination practiced on the basis of gender. The phenomenon of the exacerbation of honor murders indicates a crisis of relationships within the family and society, a crisis of relations within the community of women, the continued dominance of some customs over laws in contemporary societies, and the institutionalization of violence against women and their sacrifice. Iraq society is a tribal society and accepts the idea of killing of women as a means of dishonor. However, killings under this concept have increased as a result of the tyranny of tribal values, and they increased even more after the occupation of Iraq on 9/ 4 / 2003 Research objectives: abolishing the legal articles that encourage the killing of women under any pretext, and making the crime of murder under the pretext of washing shame a premeditated murder, like all murders, and subject to its provisions without wearing the garment of a mitigating excuse and allowing the perpetrators to escape from punishment and activating the implementation of international conventions and respecting them. Part of the national legislation for ratification by Iraq. As well as respect for the constitutional texts being the highest in the application. When talking about treating this crime and setting up a solution for it, the law must be the other side, without a law that protects women, clarifies the limits and provisions of this crime, and establishes appropriate punishment for its images in a way that does not allow the perpetrators to escape from punishment, then there will be no benefit from all that was said It is said about violence against women.

AbstractThis article seeks to explain the traditional celebration of Cold Food and some other springtime customs in the mid-Yangzi basin in central China. In these rituals the ancestors and their influence in the production of new rice were highlighted while, at the same time, social reproduction through women was temporarily suspended. Female generative energy was not allowed to compete with the creative force of the ancestors in the fields. Cold Food is seen as a trope on seasonal agricultural tasks. The myth of moral constancy, which accompanied the festival, was on another deeper level an iconic exploration of the preparation of the agricultural fields. Death was seen to propel life, ancestral energy being transferred to the living through rice.

Mourning is a natural response to loss. In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, in England and France, the bereaved was expected to follow a complex set of rules, particularly among the upper classes, with women more bound to adhere to these customs than men. Such customs involved wearing heavy, concealing, black costume and the use of black crepe veils. Special black caps and bonnets were worn with these ensembles. Widows were expected to wear these clothes up to four years after their loss to show their grief. Jewelry often made of dark black jet or the hair of the deceased was used. To remove the costume earlier was thought disrespectful to the deceased. Formal mourning culminated during the reign of Queen Victoria. Her prolonged grief over the death of her husband, Prince Albert, had much to do with the practice. During the succeeding Edwardian rule, the fashions began to be more functional and less restrictive, but the dress protocol for men and women, including that for the period of mourning, was still rigidly adhered to. When World War I began, many women joined the workforce. Most widows attempted to maintain the traditional conventions of mourning, but with an increase in the number of casualties, it became impractical for them to interrupt their work in order to observe the seclusion called for by formal mourning etiquette. Never had the code of mourning been less strictly applied than during this period. The mourning outfits of the time were modest and made of practical materials. Little jewelry and few other accessories were used. Certain aspects of traditional mourning were still followed, such as the use of jet beading, crepe trim, and widows' caps. However, the hemlines fell above the ankle, the veil was used to frame the face instead of cover it, and the v-neckline left the chest and neck bare. During the following decades, gradually the rules were relaxed further and it became acceptable for both sexes to dress in dark colors for up to a year after a death in the family.

Phraseologismen spiegeln gegenwärtige Lebensweisen wider. Sie verbildlichen sprachlich Tendenzen, Werte, reflektieren Lebensweisen der Menschen und beschreiben ihre typischen Präferenzen. Die Darstellung des Frauenbildes war schon immer im Augenmerk der Phraseologie. Dieser Beitrag versucht die Fragen zu beantworten, ob die in den letzten Jahren stattfindenden Veränderungen in der Gesellschaft eine Anpassung im phraseologischen Bestand gefunden haben und ob neue Phraseologismen gebildet wurden, die die Rolle der Frau im 21. Jahrhundert dokumentieren.A few comments on the changes of women’s images in the Polish and German phraseologyPhrasemes reflect habits and customs, traditions, historical facts, social life phenomena and cultural values of a given society. Phrasemes often “live” longer than the image they reflect. Women were and still are a subject of phrasemes. The aim of this paper is an answer to the question if the image of women arising from the Polish and German phraseology in the face of the transformations taking place in the last 40 years in the society has changed and if new phrasemes describing women of the 21st century appeared.

For anyone interested in the Middle East, Wmen and the Family in theMiddle East provides a fascinating study of the lives of present day Arabwomen. Ten countries - Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Algeria,Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are represented here, and two contributions dealwith the women of Palestine.The book is in part a progress report - statements by women and menabout their lives and their experiences. These statements, previouslyunpublished, are offered in different forms: short stories, essays, interviews,poems, social analyses, and life histories.Throughout the book there is an underlying sense of urgency, anxiety aboutthe future, disappointment that many of the revolutionary promises have notbeen kept. But above all, there is hope, because these women and men wishto survive with honor.One important shift evident in the book is that these people are no longerlooking to the West for answers to their problems. They are trying to improvetheir lives through indigenous traditions and customs; through the dominantreligion of the area, Islam, and through their own kinship and family patterns.There is continued emphasis on women and men as elements of a group,rather than as individuals. Middle Eastern women see the existing problemsnot only as their own but also as conditions involving men, the family, andthe wider society. Self-identity for them is rooted in other sets of relationships.Fernea has divided the book into 8 parts. There is also a preface, anintroduction, and notes on the contributors.part 1 is the Introduction which also includes a discussion by Algerian womenon the need for change.Part 2 deals with the Family. The Arab family is the basic unit of socialorganization. It constitutes the basic social institution through which personsand groups inherit their religious, social class, and cultural identities. It alsoprovides security and support in times of stress. However, the patriarchal tradition,and the hierarchical structure of the Arab family is now being increasinglychallenged. Sharabi in his study of the Arab family concludes that "the ...

This study examines codes of conduct of women in carrying out their life according to the Qurtubi text by TGH. Alimuddin Praya West Nusa Tenggara. As the Islamic text from which values of women conducts based on hadits and the exemplars of Siti Fatimah, the daughter of the Muhammad Prophet, the text has been referenced as the core value of teaching for the society. This study used content analysis where themes and constructs of morale were focused from the text. The study used is a qualitative approach with descriptive analytical method, namely a method that expresses the actual situation in the text. Data were collected using documentation techniques, interviews and content analysis. The results show the code of conduct of women is conveyed through dialogue and actions experienced by the character depicted in the TGH Qurtubi text of Alimuddin Praya Lombok West Nusa Tenggara. The description of the action includes three codes, namely: 1) codes of conduct of women that depict social goodness, 2) codes of conduct of women that describe acts of conflict, and 3) codes of conduct of women that describe the attitude of guard and maintain. This teaching implies that codes of conduct of the women indicate the attitude to develop understanding, actions or the nature of maintaining positive norms that are not contrary to the values ​​of religion, culture or customs that apply.

Globally, women represent more than half the people living with HIV. This proportion varies by country, with an over-representation of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) in some regions. For example, in Australia, MSM account for over 60% of transmissions, with heterosexual sex accounting for almost a quarter of transmissions. Irrespective of geographic region, there is evidence that women can have a different lived experience of HIV due to their unequal social and economic status in society, while MSM can have a different lived experience depending on the laws and customs of their geographic location. Gender differences related to risk factors, stigma, access to services, mental health, health-related quality of life and economic consequences have been consistently reported globally. This paper explores the subjective lived experience of gender and sexuality disparities among three individuals living with HIV in Australia: a male who identified as gay, and a male and female who each identified as heterosexual. Analysis of themes from these three case reports indicated discernible differences by gender and sexuality in four areas: access to medical services, social support, stigma and mental health. It is argued that knowledge and understanding of potential gender and sexuality disparities must be factored into supportive interventions for people living with HIV in Australia.

Purpose –the purpose of the study is to explore the factors affecting work life balance and affective commitment. Further, the study examines whether significant difference occur between the Satisfaction with life scale, family satisfaction, perceived organisational support and affective commitment of rural and urban women working in cooperative societies in Punjab. Social exchange theory is used to support the hypothesised relationships. Design/methodology/approach – The study was done on 410 rural and urban women working in cooperative societies in Punjab. Factor analysis, Regression, t test and Correlation has been used to test the hypotheses. Findings – The study explored 4 factors in totally. 5 statements are related to first factor as “subjective well being”, 7 statements are related to factor 2 as “household factors”, 8 factors are associated with factor 3 as “Perceived organisational support” and 6 statements are associated with factor 4 as “affective commitment”. The study found significant difference between the satisfaction with life scale and household factors of rural and urban women working in cooperatives societies in Punjab (H1). Whereas, no significant difference was found in the Perceived organisational support and affective commitment of rural and urban women working in cooperatives societies in Punjab. Practical implications –With the advent of technological development urban women in Punjab working in cooperative societies have discovered their potential and skills for chipping into the society and nation. They have support from their family that help them to realise their inner strength by leveraging the power of aggregation. They have access to formal sources of finance and credit with the necessary capacity building inputs. To achieve the state of work life balance and affective commitment, it is required that cooperative societies should make employee friendly policies. In contrast, rural women are still prone to shocks of intolerant customs. They keep working like thrall in their own homes, chattels to customary living. Continuously, working at home and at work (cooperative societies) make them over burdened. It impacted their health and creates mental pressure. There is a need for the society to make changes in their thought process. Family should come forward to help these women and support them so that they can work with full zeal and enthusiasm and can help in development of sustainable nation (Beauregard and Henry, 2009).

The article deals with the ceremonial cycle of pre-wedding family and marriage rites observed by the Dargins-Urakhins in the Urakhinsky rural community in the 19th - early 20th centuries. The family is a unique social institution, the most important value of the society, which is a reliable custodian and source of transmission of ethnic culture, namely customs, traditions of the people, without which the culture of the people as a whole is inconceivable. Marriage of a son or a daughter in the Urakhinsky community, like for all Dagestan nationalities, was the most crucial event in the family life, therefore, parents themselves or their close relatives usually looked for a bride for the young man among those of equal social and economic status. From relatives and neighbors of the girl, they obtained information on her and her parents, the welfare of the family, the features of the girl’s character, her reputation, and the girl’s attitude to her own parents and relatives. The personal qualities of the bride - health, skills to run a household, ability to behave in society, respect for the elders, responsiveness and other moral qualities were of great importance. According to the adats and customs of the Urakhinsky community, the minimum marriage age for men was 20 years, for women - 15 years. Marriages with a large age difference between the couple were not approved by public opinion, nor were they condemned, as a rule these marriages were caused by socio-economic reasons. The article highlights family values, as well as the stages and forms of matchmaking and the role of parents in the whole process of the pre-wedding ceremonies.

Addressing Italian workers in his Doveri dell'uomo of 1860, Mazzini unequivocally laid out his thoughts on women's rights. The thinker from Genoa, all the more after his encounters with other political philosophers from different national environments such as Britain and France, saw the principle of equality between men and women as fundamental to his project of constructing first the nation, and second a democratic republic. In his ideas regarding emancipation Mazzini, who spent a good 40 years of his life in exile, was one of a small group of European thinkers who in challenging the established customs and prevailing laws not only hoped for the end of women's social and judicial subordination, but also held that changes to the position of women were essential to the realisation of their political projects. Thanks to this respected group of intellectuals, the issue of female emancipation found a place in the nineteenth-century European debate regarding democracy and the formation of national states. The closeness of the positions of these thinkers, and their commitment in practice as well as theory, mean that it can legitimately be argued that in the course of the nineteenth century a current of feminist thinking took shape. This was born of the encounters between and reflections of various intellectuals who met first in France and then in England, and who came to see women's rights not just as a discrete issue for resolution but as fundamental to their projects for the regeneration of nations, or, as in the Italian case, for the construction and rebirth of a nation.

The representations of minorities by the mainstream writers have frequently been viewed negatively. The depiction has been of a major concern to the literary writings. However, the representations of Kurdish women in Turkish literary works has rarely been tackled in scholarly papers and researches. Generally, the life of a Kurdish woman is molded by patriarchal practices, traditions, and customs that govern all social zones, rather than the legal rights. The patriarchal ideologies embedded in women’s mind make them believe that they could do nothing but what is expected from them; to be submissive and obedient.This research paper focuses on the representation of the Kurdish women in selected modern Turkish novels by three particular Turkish novelists: Honor (Penguin, 2012) by Elif Shafak written in English language ; Face to Face by Ayşe Kulin (Everest, 2006) written in Turkish ; The Legend of Ararat ( Collins and Harvill Press, 197) by Yashar Kemal written in Turkish . The research aims at selecting a variety of authors based on gender, ethnicity, Language and region. Yashar Kemal, is a Turkish writer of a Kurdish origin from Gökçedam, a village in the southern province of Osmaniya; Elif Shafak, is a Turkish-British writer who lives abroad and Ayşe Kulin, a woman writer from Istanbul. By means of textual analysis, the study investigates the representation of Kurdish women in these texts. Through a comparative approach, the paper endeavors to examine the ways in which the selected authors depict the Kurdish women and their social predicaments in their fictional works. Moreover, it investigates the images and conditions these authors depict to the mainstream Turkish readers as well as to the public readers in the rest of the world. This is portrayed through the construction of specific female characters that enhances a stereotype Kurdish women, who are powerless, submissive, ignorant and victims of the patriarch Kurdish society in southwest Turkey. It also explore the diversity in the authors' representation; the sympathetic to the Kurds, challenging the stereotypes viewpoints of the Kurdish women or the negative image and the harsh representation that includes depicting misconceptions and defects in the construction of the Kurdish identity and social structure. The women in the novels are presented as victims of the gender-based system simply for having been born female; they are marginalized and discriminated against in a variety of ways.

Every human being has certain rights to live with dignity and peace and should not be discriminated. However, history of human civilization tells us there have been discrimination on many counts. Otherwise, there won’t have been words like slavery, untouchability, exploitation, patriarchy existing. Women are no exception to discrimination and exploitation. Human rights of women have been violated, they have been deprived of their respect, economic, social and political status and the basic principle of equality (equality with her counterpart, i.e., men). The question of human rights becomes very pertinent when it comes to gender and gender justice. This has given birth to feminist movements. The author here wishes to testify the march of the human rights of women, the journey and the progress made after struggle by all the feminist movements and more importantly the economic and social status of women in the present era. The author has tried to show how the matriarchy in early development of civilization was demolished and how there was a downfall of women after advancement of patriarchy through the personification of power by men inside and outside of the family. In fact, the notions of property and inheritance put an end to the foundations of matriarchy and consequently they were converted to objects belonging to the father, the husband and the family. The author could also find several other reasons, old customs in the patriarchal society for their exploitation and violation of their human rights. Further the role of U.N. and its organs was very vital and important as the problems of women were considered in their social aspect from time to time. Today we find women in all fields of national life: engineers, doctors, pilot, professors, diplomats, artists who have won gold medals in sports, etc. But it took a very long time to finally see women acceding to highest posts in the Parliament. March of human rights of women is progressing constantly as efforts have been made but a lot needs to be done as discriminations, inequalities, injustice and harassment of all kinds will not disappear overnight.

After September 11 2001 questions about the nature and society of Islam were asked all over the world. Unfortunately in the rush to provide answers inadequate and even distorted explanations were provided. Muslim groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan with their brutal ways came to symbolise Islam. The need to understand society through a diachronic and in-depth study was thus even more urgent. The following work is an attempt to explain how Muslims organise their lives through an examination of rituals conducted by women. This particularistic account has far-reaching ramifications for the study of Muslim society.This article seeks to contribute to the general debate on Islamic societies. In particular it contributes to the ethnographic discussion on the Pukhtun. First, it seeks to establish the distinctive sociality of Pukhtun wealthy women or Bibiane in terms of their participation, within and beyond the household, in gham-khadi festivities, joining them with hundreds of individuals from different families and social backgrounds. Second, the article makes a case for documenting the lives of this grouping of elite South Asian women, contesting their conventional representation as idle by illustrating their commitment to various forms of work within familial and social contexts. Third, it describes the segregated zones of gham-khadi as a space of female agency. Reconstructing the terms of this agency helps us to revise previous anthropological accounts of Pukhtun society, which project Pukhtunwali in predominantly masculine terms, while depicting gham-khadi as an entirely feminine category. Bibiane's gham-khadi performances allow a reflection upon Pukhtunwali and wider Pukhtun society as currently undergoing transformation. Fourth, as a contribution to Frontier ethnography, the arguments in this article lay especial emphasis on gham-khadi as a transregional phenomenon, given the relocation of most Pukhtun families to the cosmopolitan capital Islamabad. Since gham-khadi is held at families' ancestral homes (kille-koroona), new variations and interpretations of conventional practices penetrate to the village context of Swat and Mardan. Ceremonies are especially subject to negotiation as relatively young convent-educated married Bibiane take issue with their ‘customs’ (rewaj) from a scriptural Islamic perspective. These contradictions are being increasingly articulated by the female graduates of an Islamabad-based reformist religious school, Al-Huda. Al-Huda, part of a broader regional and arguably national movement of purist Islamization, attempts to apply Quranic and hadith prophetic teaching to everyday life. This reform involves educated elite and middle-class women. These women actively impart Islamic ways of living to family members across metropolitan–rural boundaries. The school's lectures (dars, classes) provide a basis for questioning ‘customary’ or Pukhtun life-cycle practices, authorizing some Bibiane to amend visiting patterns in conformity to the Quran. The manipulation of life-cycle commemorations by elite and middle-class women as a vehicle of change, Islamization and a particular mode of modernity furthermore becomes significant in the light of recent socio-political Islamic movements in post-Taliban Frontier Province. More broadly, the article contributes to various sociological and anthropological topics, notably the nature and expression of elite cultures and issues of sociality, funerals and marriage, custom and religion, space and gender, morality and reason, and social role and personhood within the contexts of Middle-Eastern and South Asian Islam.

In the modern period, the need for a comprehensive study of the social culture of the ethnos and its important component, the family, is growing. At the same time there was no sufficient attention given to study of family relations of the Jews of Belarus. In ethnological science there are no special scientific papers on this issue. Meanwhile, the identification of religious customs that affect marriage and family relations, age of marriage and conditions for its increase, mechanisms of marriage, reasons for maintaining the stability of marriages and reducing the number of divorces among Jews using structural, historical and functional research methods is of particular scientific interest and has practical importance. Marital and family relations of the Jews of Belarus in the XVI – in the beginning of the XX century established religious practices (betrothal of young men from 14 and girls from 12–13 years old, forcing a spiritual court to marry a 20-year-old bachelor, disapproval of marriages for the sake of wealth and marriages between old and young). In the second half of the XIX century with the weakening of the influence of the rabbinate on public life and the increase in the general educational level, men began to marry at the age of 18, and women – in 16 years. Shadhonims (matchmakers) were engaged in arranging marriages, who introduced suitable couples and helped draw up a preliminary and marriage contract. Families were large and strong. Adultery infidelity rarely violated. Violators punished the spiritual court by fasting, physically and publicly humiliated. There was a custom “conditional divorce”. The husband who was leaving for a long time left a letter of divorce to his wife, which said that if he did not return by the deadline, the wife could be free. For men, the process of divorce was simplified. It was enough for them to give his wife a check sheet (“het”). With the weakening of the influence of these customs, the number of divorced women declined.

Abstract Despite the fact that women were barred from voting and holding public office, by 1895 Juana Catarina Romero (1837–1915) had emerged as the major textile importer, sugar refiner, and “modernizing” political boss (cacica) of the city of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. This article traces Romero’s breathtaking transformation from humble cigarette vendor to culturally assimilated entrepreneur and behind-the-scenes politician, which paralleled and intertwined with three crucial periods of Mexican history: the Liberal Reform, the Porfiriato, and the Revolution. Her life illuminates the many ways in which women participated directly and indirectly in the construction of the nation-state and a capitalist economy, revealing how they negotiated elite efforts at gender, ethnic, and class containment in a provincial setting. The article attributes Romero’s success to her political acumen and tenacious accumulation of economic and social influence and not to a supposed early love affair with Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz, as previous historians have suggested. Once in power and aligned with Díaz’s goals of “order and progress” and the ideals of social Catholicism, Romero sought to regulate and discipline Tehuantepec, hoping to create a more orderly, productive, and beautiful urban space. Through her influence on Tehuano dress and local fiestas, she attempted to bring local customs into line with the ideals of Porfirian modernization and mestizo identity. Her attention to education, hygiene, health, and urban reforms evidenced her role in the diffusion of national culture and the ideological reproduction of the authoritarian brand of liberalism that dominated Mexico during the Porfiriato.

One of the greatest sermons that were delivered and whose effects remain to this day are the sermons of the Prophet, for the sermons of the Prophet were of great importance in depicting the life of the Prophet’s society and its way of life, hence we hope that this study will contribute to uncovering the social and administrative aspects of the Prophet’s society through the sermons that The Prophet delivered it in different seasons, as these signs can be monitored in the prophetic speeches to form the image of society in the Prophet’s era, through knowledge of social aspects such as customs, traditions, clothing, and adornment. As well as in the type of foods, the way they were eaten, and the tools used in preparing, eating and storing foods, and what this study means is to present another social picture of what the community of prophecy was, in terms of social solidarity, The way people live in homes, all of this by quoting from the sermons of the Prophet touched, and it is also of great importance to present the sermons of the Prophet which dealt with the role of women and the family in building civil society, and what the research will reveal is the subtle aspects of the prophetic society that permeated many of the prophetic speeches, such as Talking about the classes of society, and about fun, sports and tanning. On the other hand, this study provided an idea about the administrative and financial situation during the era of the prophethood, by extracting this information from the Prophet’s sermons, such as talking about the emirate over regions, organizing sergeants and captains, and also monitoring household resources and banks, as the sermons of the Prophet- ﷺ- showed something of the organizational aspects in State administration such as bureaus, post office, and calculator.

The article deals with the problem of preservation of Chuvash ethnic culture in the conditions of diaspora. The purpose of the article is to determine the prospects of preserving the ethnic culture of the members of the Chuvash diaspora in the framework of integration processes in the multicultural environment of the Moscow region. Methods. The author of the article conducted a sociolinguistic survey in the Chuvash diaspora of the Moscow region; the selective sampling included 100 respondents (85 respondents belong to the first generation of the Chuvash diaspora, 15 – to the second). One of the aspects of the survey was to study the respondents’ language loyalty, which indirectly manifests itself in in the knowledge and observance of ethnic traditions and customs. The respondents were asked questions concerning the criteria of their belonging to the Chuvash ethnic group, observance of national traditions and customs, features of the Chuvash ethnic culture, intergenerational transmission of ethnic culture. Based on their answers, tables on age cohorts for representatives of both generations were compiled. Results. More than half of the respondents in the sampling in the first generation (55%) observe Chuvash traditions and holidays, especially representatives of younger and middle cohorts; in the second generation, ethnic culture is somewhat fading (27%). More than half of the respondents in the first generation (58.6%) intend to transmit knowledge about their ethnic culture to children. Women in the sampling rather tend to transmit material culture, while men spiritual one. The author concludes that, despite the fact that living far from the small homeland affects the preservation of ethnic culture, however, at present, in the conditions of polycultural urban environment, the diaspora is the most demanded form of social adaptation, especially among the younger generation, among whom many demonstrate an active life position and involvement in the process of preserving Chuvash ethnic culture in the Moscow region.

Honor and esteem in society Madura considered highly sensitive, and drawn on the term “lebbi bagus pote tolang etembang pote mata” (preferably white bones of the white of the eye, which means it’s better to die than live with the shame). After migration to Java Madura people, have consequences on the socio-cultural adaptation of the local area through associations and everyday social relations. This phenomenon is interesting to study how the traditions and customs of Madura in the Java community, especially with regard to self-esteem, which is represented in its view of women. The experiment was conducted in the village of Gondanglegi Kulon Gondanglegi District Malang Regency. Data mining techniques used were interviews, participant observation, and documentation. Research to get the fndings: (1) Wife depending husband; (2) Women’s advocate family economy; (3) Regardless, the woman returned to the kitchen; (4) Self-esteem is the Madura is Islam with slogan Madura-Mecca-Medina; (5) Haji improve self-esteem; (6) The woman is the family honor in a religious context. From the fndings of this study indicate that the Madurese in Java in accordance with their ancestral cultures on the island of Madura but for its application has undergone a unique adaptation that means being on a problem in life is largely determined by the surrounding environment. Moreover, Madurese in Java sees problems related to women who are still considered family pride is not easy anymore to violence even in the last 10 years there were no cases of violence because of the issue of women.

Padang restaurants with specialty food rendang represent the Minangkabau's eating culture. The effect of modernization and media social in the eating culture has indistinct the origin of Minangkabau's eating culture and leads to the uniformity of design, mostly its space and physical elements in the traditional building. Whereas in the roots, eating activities according to the Minangkabau custom still carried out, such as Makan Bajamba. It is essential to study the origin of Minangkabau space and eating culture before learning design development. The main problem is how the relationship between space and eating culture in the life cycle of Minangkabau society carried out at Rumah Gadang. By using a mix-method, a qualitative approach is a case study at Rumah Gadang Istana Rajo Alam Tuanku Disambah and quantitative approaches using space syntax analysis on the dimensions of connectivity and integrity. Data were from literature studies, interviews, and direct observations on how Rumah Gadang facilitated eating activities. The result shows that Rumah Gadang effectively assisted the eating culture in the life cycle of its people. The space configuration in the process of eating activities is following the roles of women and men based on a matrilineal kinship system. The seat position rules for Minangkabau men from the matrilineal kinship system divided Ruang Lepas into smaller areas, marked by walls, columns, and seprah clothes. All space of eating activities is a social space where interactions took place as a reflection of Minangkabau customs. The space syntax analysis clarifies the relationship between space and eating activities based on the matrilineal kinship system and the social interactions that occur with the space used. For future research, the space syntax analysis is useful as a perspective to learn the relationship between space and culture.

AbstrakKarya tari yang berjudul “Guriah Limpapeh” terinspirasi dari kehidupan sosial perempuan Minangkabau yang pengkarya amati di sekeliling pengkarya bersikap dan bertingkah laku tidak sesuai dengan etika idealnya perempuan Minangkabau. Dalam aplikasinya menginterpretasikan bergesernya nilai dan etika perempuan hari ini dan mengungkap nilai yang relevan dengan adat dan budaya Minangkabau. Dalam konsep gerak sebagai media utama tari pengkarya mengembangkan gerak yang relevan dengan konsep garapan, selain itu diperkuat dengan menggunakan drum sebagai properti dan setting. Karya ini digarap dalam tiga bahagian yakni pada bagian pertama menginterpretasikan tentang kehidupan dan aktivitas masyarakat di Kecamatan Matur, bahagian kedua menggambarkan perubahan memori pada dahulu dan zaman sekarang, kemudian bahagian ketiga menginterpretasikan bagaimana pola tingkah laku perempuan yang dalam adat Minangkabau yang disebut Simarewan dan Mambang Tali Awan yang menjadi konflik dalam garapan, sedangkan bagian endingnya adalah mengekspresikan idealnya perempuan Minangkabau yang disebut dengan Parampuan. Karya ini diperkuat dengan musik untuk memperkuat suasana, demikian juga elemen-elemen dan artistik lainnya untuk penampilannya memilih ruang terbuka atau outdoor. Kata Kunci: interpretasi, perempuan, adat MinangkabauAbstractThis work of dance entitled as "Guriah Limpapeh" which is inspired from the social life of Minangkabau women, that the observed around the worker’s attitude and behaved not in accordance with the ideal ethics of Minangkabau women. In its application interpet the shifting values and ethics of women today and reveal values relevant to the customs and culture of Minangkabau. In the concept of motion as the main medium of the dance the developer develops a motion that is relevant to the concept of arable, besides being strengthened by using drums as property and settings. This work is worked on in three parts, namely in the first part of interpreting the life and activities of the community in the mature sub-district, the second part describes the change of memory in the past and present, then the third part interprets how the female behavior patterns in the Minangkabau tradition called simarewan and mambang tali awan which becomes conflict in claim while the final part is expressing ideally the Minangkabau women who is called parampuan. This work is strengthened by music to strengthen the atmosphere, as well as other artistic and elements for his appearance in choosing open space or outdoor.Keywords: interpretation, women, adat Minangkabau.

: Traditional cultural practices reflect values and beliefs of members of a community. Culture is an umbrella term, which explains common things people share such as language, customs, beliefs and the way of life. This paper seeks to look at male circumcision culture of a certain indigenous group in South Africa. Male circumcision is associated with ethnic marks, virility, masculinity, rite of passage to manhood however, there are many ethical concerns centering on male circumcision. Hence, this paper seeks to explore the ethical concerns surrounding male circumcision culture of a selected ethnical group in order to contribute to ethical execution of the practice. Little has been done on ethical issues surrounding male circumcision. The fallacy surrounding this phenomenon needs further investigation. The paper intends to contribute to the debate on male circumcision as a way of mitigating HIV/AIDS infections. The Social Norm Theory has been used to explain the phenomenon under study. The constructivist research paradigm enabled the interviewing of participants from the target population, as the study is inductive in nature. The key finding was that they do male circumcision mostly in an unethical way that it also affects women and children. They also do it based on the misconception and the fallacy that they will not get HIV/AIDS.

It has been shown that in recent years in Ukraine the pressure of religious organizations on the legislative and executive authorities has increased and information campaigns and projects of anti-gender and anti-Ukrainian trends have been implemented. The author analyzed how in the regions staying under Russian informational pressure the religious fundamentalism shows the potential of development develop into religious extremism. It has been demonstrated that in Ukraine the gender aspects of security are not well-developed and are heavily influenced by religion. It has been shown that the lack of high-quality gender analytics significantly complicates the forecasting of social processes. The article deals with the question how religious fundamentalism manipulates women's security issues in favor of religious interests. It is noted that the pressure of pro-religious anti-gender movements on the authorities in Ukraine can lead to negative consequences, and that the establishment of a state policy based on religious perceptions of the world can threaten the country's internal security. It was concluded that in times of conflict, religious extremism does not recognize the rule of human rights and proclaims the primacy of religious customs over women's human rights. It is proved that, considering direct conflict with Russia, the spread of religious fundamentalism in Ukraine and the spread of structural gender violence will be relevant and require the immediate development of gender and biopolitical aspects of security. It was concluded that for the progressive democratic development of Ukraine, as well as safe living conditions and the well-being of its citizens, the security services should turn to gender analytics. It has been proven that, in order to protect their interests, religious leaders can initiate a departure from state-guaranteed compliance with international agreements on gender equality in all spheres of life. In this regard, Ukraine's implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1325 on Women, Peace, Security and the similar resolutions as well as Recommendations of the UN Committee on the Status of Women for Countries that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, other UN instruments is important for Ukraine. Also important are the country's European commitments in the field of gender equality. In particular, the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) needs to be ratified.

AbstractWhat occupies us in this volume is how women at all social levels devise their own coping mechanisms to deal with the impact of externally imposed pressures. Their stories reflect the creative solutions with which they have come to terms with some of the resulting problems, but always in a very personal way and without recourse to any form of collective action or organization. With a few exceptions, most of these women are still committed to traditional roles and the perception of obligations, even if the content of the role has changed. At least these "core" roles seem ideologically more resistant to change, such that there is a considerable lag between changing social conditions and the values underpinning them (cf. Goody, 1984). Apparently, it is only when women have become exposed, either through education, overseas travel or scholarly professions, that outside ("Western") notions of feminism and gender equality emerge. It is the highly unique and privileged upper middle class who agitate and raise the consciousness of their "deprived" sisters, and who also initiate women's organizations and support centres. If an awareness of womanhood for itself, a gender-as-class type of feminism has yet to surface in most of the societies of Southeast Asia, it is still legitimate to pursue the question of situation of women as a group-in-itself, as a potential action group. If we focus on the kinship system, as we have seen above, there is little in the ideology, distribution of resources and male-female relationships in traditional Southeast Asian practice (the immigrant Chinese here being something of an exception), to suggest an undue exploitation or oppression of women as a whole. In the domestic arrangements of most of them, a modus vivendi had been struck, an acceptance of role complementarily whether labelled the "myth of male dominance" (Rogers, 1975; Hirschon, 1984), or the false consciousness so readily perceived by many outsiders. Operating from the domestic core, women devise all manner of individual strategies to pursue their interests, influence their kin and turn events towards their chosen direction. Whether within or outside the household, such strategies are in the broadest sense political and can have substantial impact upon the male world (Collier, 1974). Commonly, women act or achieve their goals indirectly through men, particularly by the manipulation of husbands, brothers and sons, so that even the Chinese woman may eventually come into her own as a mother-in-law. In this collection of stories, Chat is the supreme example of this kind of successful manipulator. Satisfaction may even be had vicariously, as in Tok Nyam's pleasure in seeing her husband and sons make the pilgrimage to Mecca ahead of her. All of these women have managed to make, within their own small worlds, a choice of action between two or more options: Maimunah and Ah Ling opted for a non-traditional life of their own in the city, while Zainab chose to retreat from it and ease her family into compliance with her choice. The Singapore women's solutions to their working situation constantly result in a creative tension and some changes in the original Chinese family organization. For all the poverty of her family, even Yurni has been bold enough to spurn employment with and dependence on Ibu Ica, whom she dislikes, taking up alternative sharecropping and embroidery jobs instead. Rufina left Manila to marry the man of her own choosing, and in the most desperate of circumstances, devises a constant series of strategies of survival, while she and Tia Lilia are both victims of a system of rural proletarianization endemic in the Philippines. The deprivations of the latter two women stem, not from their position in a kinship, domestic or male-dominated system, but rather from the inequities of the wider society beyond them. In the case of the Muslim women in particular, some "interference" or even conflict emerges between the ideologies of their religion and kinship customs. In matrilineal Minangkabau society, Islam's main impact on Yurni has been in diverting the girls to an inferior or less modern type of education in favour of preparing the boys for a profession or other career. Islam moulded the sequence of Tok Nyam's divorce, remarriage and such important events in her life as the pilgrimage, but in no way prevented her from enjoying an active community life and the profits of her pandanus mat trade. Zainab happened to be growing up at a time when Islam was on the upswing in her social set and the immediate pressures of her social environment undoubtedly provided some coercive effect. Yet the final choice was still her own: Maimunah, living in the same time and place, charted a different path for herself. In the final analysis, it is probably to the world beyond the kin and family group that we must turn to seek the locus of the real inequities and the sources of oppression as they affect women, both in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. As noted above, the origins of most of the problems of the disadvantaged women of our collection lie in their overall class position, or in the political situation of their country. Rufina and Tia Lilia are the most dramatic examples here, and to a lesser degree, Yurni. In these cases, it must be recognized that the men, alongside the women, are also in positions of dependence and deprivation lacking the means to take control of their own lives and condition. It is a fallacy to assume that women represent an undifferentiated common interest group on the basis of their gender alone, for factors more powerful emerge on the backs of such distinctions as wealth, status, class, ethnicity and religion. Even the "advantages" of involvement in modern economic development, employment and education institutions are dependent upon these same distinctions, such that, for example, elite women may benefit more than those of lower status, as shown by Ibu Ica and Yurni, or women of one ethnic origin may be eligible for certain employment opportunities less available to those of other backgrounds for political reasons, as the urban careers of Maimunah, Zainab and Ah Ling illustrate. In the Philippines, it is to the destructive process of increasing rural proletarianization and poverty affecting the country as a whole that Rufina and Tia Lilia owe their pitiful existence, of which their menfolk are equally victims. Women in their own daily lives take cognisance of these various roles in devising strategies of action and charting paths to particular goals. None of this is quantifiable in any reliable way and to attempt to do so is to reduce the women actors to the anonymous shadow, dependent role occupants that most feminists would strenuously avoid. The alternative pursued here is the biographical method which allows us to present more of the individual richness of the situations of a small sample of selected women, as seen through their own eyes. In this exercise, the observer/biographers have deliberately refrained from passing judgment of a cultural, feminist or other variety, instead using the opportunity for interaction with their subjects to gain insights into both cultures through a process of defamiliarization and refamiliarization simultaneously.

On 27-28 March 2006, Pennsylvania State University hosted an internationalconference on “Islam and Bioethics: Concerns, Challenges, and Responses.”Cosponsored by several academic units in the College of Liberal Arts, theconference brought in historians, health care professionals, theologians, and social scientists from ten different countries. Twenty-four papers were presented,along with Maren Grainger-Monsen’s documentary about an Afghaniimmigrant seeking cancer treatment in California.After opening remarks by Susan Welch (dean, College of Liberal Arts)and Nancy Tuana (director, Rock Ethics Institute), panelists analyzed“Critical Perspectives on Islamic Medical Ethics.” Hamada Hamid’s (NewYork University Medical School) “Negotiating Autonomy and Religion inthe Clinical Setting: Case Studies of American Muslim Doctors andPatients,” showed that few doctors explore the role of religion in a patient’sdecision-making process. She suggested that they rethink this practice.Hassan Bella (College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Dammam)spoke on “Islamic Medical Ethics: What and How to Teach.” His survey, conductedin Saudi Arabia among medical practitioners, revealed that most practitionersapproved of courses on Islamic ethics but did not know if suchcourses would improve the doctor-patient relationship. Sherine Hamdy’s(Brown University) “Bodies That Belong to God: Organ Transplants andMuslim Ethics in Egypt” maintained that one cannot easily classify transplantpatients’ arguments as “religious” or “secular,” for religious values are fusedtogether with a patient’s social, political, and/or economic concerns.The second panel, “Ethical Decision-Making in Local and InternationalContexts,” provoked a great deal of discussion. Susi Krehbiel (Brown University)led off with “‘Women Do What They Want’: Islam and FamilyPlanning in Tanzania.” This ethnographic study was followed by Abul FadlMohsin Ebrahim’s (KwaZulu University, Durban) “Human Rights andRights of the Unborn.” Although Islamic law is commonly perceived asantagonistic to the UN’s charter on human rights, Ebrahim argues that bothmay be used to protect those who can and cannot fight for their right to dignity,including the foetus. Thomas Eich (Bochum University) asserted in“The Process of Decision Making among Contemporary Muslim ReligiousScholars in the Case of ‘Surplus’ Embryos” that decisions reached by internationalMuslim councils were heavily influenced by local politics and contentiousdecisions in such countries as Germany and Australia.The afternoon panel, “The Fetus and the Value of Fetal Life,” focusedon specific issues raised by artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs).Vardit Rispler-Chaim (Haifa University) presented “Contemporary Muftisbetween Bioethics and Social Reality: Pre-Selection of the Sex of a Fetus asParadigm.” After summarizing social customs and religious literature fromaround the world, she claimed that muftis generally favor pre-selection techniquesand suggested that their reasoning is guided by a general social ...

Shakuntala is one of the most acclaimed women characters of Indian Literature. For the first time Shakuntala’s character originated in The Mahabharata. Since then she has been represented in various texts in various languages of India. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the representation of Shakuntala by the authors from ancient times to the present. For this purpose ancient work Abhijnana Shakuntalam by Kalidasa and the modern work Shakuntala: The Play of Memory by Namita Gokhale are studied. In Kalidasa’s Abhijnana Shakuntalam Shakuntala is the real daughter of Sage Vishvamitra and nymph Menka. However, she is adopted and brought up by Sage Kanva and his wife Gautmi. She is a rustic girl, brought up in a hermitage. With the progress of the play, she is married to King Dushyanta who forgets her because of a curse. Later, she was adopted by sage Kashyapa and his wife Aditi. She gives birth to a brave child Bharat and finally reunites with her husband. Shakuntala: The Play of Memory by Namita Gokhale was Published in 2005 and it is a challenging work of Indian English fiction. Like the remakes of films there may be re-invention and re-interpretation of old myths embodied in literary works. In her masterpiece Shakuntala, Namita Gokhale has portrayed the story of a woman named after the heroine of Kalidasa’s classic drama Abhijnana Shakuntalam. In contrast to her legendary namesake, she is bold, spirited and imaginative. Right from her childhood she is conscious of the discrimination towards female. In her marriage with a mahasamant, Srijan, she feels suffocated by social customs. Hungry for experience she deserts home to travel with a Greek horse merchant, Nearchus. Together they travel far and wide and surrender to unbridled pleasures. Shakuntala assumes the identity of Yaduri: the ‘fallen woman.’ But she forsakes this life as well to meet her salvation in her death at Kashi.

AbstrakDi lingkungan masyarakat Sunda, khususnya pada kalangan seniman Sunda, daerah Subang dikenal sebagai ‘lumbung” sinden yang telah mengorbitkan dan mengantarkan beberapa nama sinden ke puncak popularitasnya. Kondisi ini tidak luput dari lingkungan sosial budaya masyarakat Subang itu sendiri yang gemar berkesenian, baik sebagai seniman praktisi, pemerhati, maupun penikmat karya seni tradisional. Di samping itu, masyarakat Subang yang dalam kehidupan religinya masih kuat memegang adat istiadat, juga turut memengaruhi perkembangan seni sinden. Kepercayaan masyarakat setempat terhadap dunia gaib dan kekuatan-kekuatan gaib, turut pula mewarnai perkembangan dunia pesinden di daerah ini. Tidak sedikit para sinden di daerah Subang yang memanfaatkan tenaga-tenaga magis yang diperoleh melalui ritual-ritual tertentu ataupun melalui jasa paranormal, seperti dukun dan kuncen. Tulisan ini berupayamenggali penggunaan magi pada kalangan sinden yang telah lama menggejala di daerah Subang. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif serta menggunakan metode deskriptif dengan teknik memaparkan berbagai fenomena yang didapati di lapangan terkait dengan penggunaan magi oleh sinden, selanjutnya dianalisis menggunakan teori-teori kebudayaan. AbstractIn Sundanese community, especially in sundanese artist, Subang area well known as ‘the centre’ of sinden (women singer) that has bring a popularity for several singer. This condition are related to the social and cultural of Subang society that love arts, even though as practitioner, observer, or devotee/spectator of traditional arts. Meanwhile, the life of their beliefs still hold the customs, and it’s also influenced the developing of sinden arts. Believe in superstition also enriching the sinden worlds in this area. A lot of sinden who utilize magical power through rituals or paranormal services. This paper are try to dig deeper about the use of magical power in sinden of Subang area. This research is qualitative research, and use descriptive method, with roll out several of phenomena in the field that related to the use of magical power by sinden. The next step is analysis by using the theory of culture.

AbstractThis article recreates the lives of two settlers in Antigua between the years 1690 and 1740. As such, it is a key addition to the paltry number of studies of the island of Antigua and the other Leeward Islands of the West Indies. It takes as its base point the study of the Antigua settler elite identified by Richard Sheridan in his article, now forty years old, which constructed the institutional systems of landholding, taxation, customs and the Slave Trade which produced so-called Plantation Society. In the years preceding this, however, life for everyone concerned in the West Indies was uncertain and insecure. is was as much the case for those at the top of the socio-political ladder, such as island governors and Crown viceroys, as for relatively modest settlers, such as the subjects of this essay, Lawrence and Sarah Crabb. For all of those who were incorporated into the 18thcentury Plantocracy, many more were sacrificed in the struggles of early capitalism, buoyed up not by the level of 'credit' that they were accorded, but by the levels of debt they carried. The construction of a social history of modest settlers is made possible through the survival of documents which were kept by the Crabb's agent, George Moore, and which he would subsequently use in a Chancery case against his late friend's widow. These manuscripts have not been used before, except for occasional references to the legal precedents established by the case, Moore v. Meynell, and, given the paucity and patchiness of manuscript survivals for the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, show what can be reconstructed from otherwise overlooked sources. The result is a study of the measurement of a person's worth, and the increasing elision of God and Mammon in gauging credit, value and trust. In the case of the Crabbs, particularly because Lawrence was himself a man of little initial wealth who clawed his way up through his own ingenuity and his wife's family's West Indian estates, we are able to demonstrate how the language of credit and worthiness applied not only to men of business and politics but also to women.

The article analyses the national-moral values of Azerbaijan for the first decade of Sovietization in the political context of the soviet state and explains the peculiarities that characterize the communist totalitarianism. It says that, all spheres of society, including economic life undergo total control, private property is annulled and any and all basis of the autonomy of the members of the society and the activity are removed. The government and people struggle against “enemy”, and the “enemy” against the surrounding. The effect of de-jure and de-facto contradictions (the contradictions that were applied to people who are enforced to build a socialist state) to the national and moral values are explained by historic facts as it is in the other fields. According to the information provided by the archival sources, the soviet regime that invaded the Northern Azerbaijan in a short period of time sacrificed 48 thousand people to the “red terror”, and the single-party dictatorship regime established in the country left the concepts of “nation” and “homeland” a step behind in the soviet empire through the single “traditional” system built for cultural development of the nation, having banned the national thinking of the Azerbaijani nation. The ideology, including the personal life of the citizens passed on to all spheres of public life and banned tough sanctions against certain acts. In fulfillment of the socialist purposes in the current policy, the soviet government, as an ideological gun, pursued an offensive policy, strengthened the promotion of international upbringing and godlessness and used all means to affect the children practically in this field. More than 2000 Turkish teachers were persecuted and exiled in 1923 and thousand of teachers with “pasha” and “bay” titles in their surnames were dismissed from their positions. The religious marriages concluded after September 08, 1923 have not been attached any legal force. The person of that period was treated as a social being with “traditional atheism” spirit, prohibitions were put against the muharrem rituals, the traditional customs of wedding, the purposes and reasons of the Ramadan were distorted by referring to some countries, the month of fasting was prohibited and atheism was propagated among the youth. The “Atheists union” organization put different official prohibitions to the national traditions of the nation and created new traditions that were quite far away from the national spirit (Red wedding, civilians’ burial and so on) which led to disrespect to the national and spiritual values by time. Since 1929, 219 mosques, 2 madrasahs and 18 churches were utilized for other purposes (horse stables, barn and so on.) in 13 provinces. The women were forced to take off their veils and “antihat” propaganda was launched against the remnants of the old period. It was decided to take off hat that has been considered as a symbol of national self-esteem for thousands of years and “Novruz” Holiday was removed from the list of the public holidays as a result of obvious pressures against the religious and national holidays. The facts show that, the peculiarities of the administrative domination in the official national and religious policy, enlightenment system and industry in the 20-30s years have affected the public policy realized in Azerbaijan. These were the invisible sides of the policy pursued by the totalitarian regime.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.本文以《後漢書˙列女傳》為例，探討女性在節死問題上的道德取向及對自殺行為的道德詮釋。筆者認為，《列女傳》所體現的價值取向屬於儒家道德的大傳統，同時由於其“性別倫理”的特質，又涵蓋了特殊的生死觀，反映出儒家在“肉身”價值與“精神”價值議題上的考量。本文試圖說明，女性自殺有其背後特有的時代精神與文化傳統，因此對它的道德評估要比儒家大傳統中所謂“為己性”與“為他性”的劃分更為複雜，它既反映出儒家在女性問題上的奇特性，也反映出儒家在生死問題上的複雜性。“節死”議題所反映的不僅僅是一個單一的儒家價值取向，因為任何道德理論或規範在“具體化”的實踐過程中都會存在詮釋上的多元性與複雜性。The Lienüzhuan (LNZ) or the Collected Life-Stories of Women complied by the late-Western Han Confucian scholar Liu Xiang (79-8 B.C.E.), consists of 125 exemplary life stories of women covering a broad period from earlier legendary time to the Han Dynasty. LNZ, like many other narratives in the early Chinese tradition, is a form of character-focused narrative based on quasi-historical accounts. To locate this Han text in a comprehensive framework of Confucian moral philosophy is not an easy task, and neither is recreating the moment of interpretative creativity. What intrigues the reader today about this work is not whether it accurately represents the lives of early Chinese women, but how it represents an ideal of female virtues within the Confucian ethical system, especially Confucian morality on life and death.The LNZ has eight chapters, of which six are devoted to six forms of virtuous conduct: (1) maternal rectitude (muyi); (2) sage intelligence (xianming); (3) benevolence and wisdom (xianzhi); (4) purity and obedience (zhenshun); (5) chastity and righteousness (jianyi); (6) skillfulness in argument, rhetorical/ tactical skill (biantong). Each form of conduct is exlicated in a specific narrative. This essay focuses on two chapters of the book, “Purity and Obedience” (zhenshun) and “Chastity and Righteousness” (jieyi), which explore the ethical dimension of female virtues and suicide.The LNZ offers various stories about why women commit suicide, and they all deal with the female virtues of chastity, loyalty, and righteousness. Some stories give examples of women who refuse remarriage. This kind of practice became an ethical norm in the following dynasties, emphasized by what is called “the cult of chastity”. Other stories talk about the importance of women practicing traditional rituals and customs. The “Wife of the Duke of Song” （《宋恭伯姬》）gives an account of how a woman refused to flee a fire because she insisted on performing the ritual that does not allow a woman to walk out of the inner chamber alone at midnight. But there are exceptions to this kind of gender-based ethics in the LNZ. For instance, the “Chaste Woman from the Capital” （《京師節女》）is a totally different kind of story where a woman’s husband is in the danger of being murdered. The assassin hears that this chaste woman possesses the virtues of benevolence, filial piety, and righteousness, and kidnaps her father as a hostage to get to the husband. Here the woman is facing a moral dilemma: if she does not meet the assassin’s demand, her father will be killed. That would violate the virtue of filial piety; if she were to turn her husband in, that would violate the virtue of righteousness. “Without filial piety or righteousness, I am not worthy living in this world,” says the woman. It follows that the woman decides to sacrifice her own life to save the lives of her father and husband. At the end of the story, she tells the assassin that she will help him to have her husband murdered. She tells him that she will open the window that night and the one lying on the east side of the house will be her husband. That night, the assassin goes in through the window and murders the one lying on the east side, only found out that it is the wife. The murderer is deeply touched by the woman’s heroic act and decides to give up the killing altogether (LNZ 5.15). The eulogy states: The woman of chastity shows benevolence and filial piety, and values righteousness more than her life. In this story, the notion of benevolence, filial piety, and righteousness fits perfectly into Confucian virtue ethics. From such narratives the author draws the contention that the Confucian notion of “honor” in terms of chastity, filiality, and righteousness is by no means a simple moral principle to be taken as dogma. The gender-based suicide has to be explicated within the broad framework of Confucian moral philosophy, especially its view of life and death. The essay attempts to show that the moral dilemma exemplified by female virtues in the case of the LNZ is much more complicated than the dichotomy between corporeality and spirituality, or the self-regarding suicide and other-regarding suicide. Furthermore, the embodiment of a particular virtue has always been influenced by a broader social context and the established value system that is based on its own understanding of early tradition. The moral ambiguities of suicide cases represented by the “cult of chastity” (Ming and Qing periods in particular) lie in its misinterpretations of the moral pronouncements and properties of suicidal actions advocated by early Confucianism.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 1687 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Latar belakang Kualitas hidup manusia ditentukan oleh tingkat sosiodemografi, status kesehatan umum dan rongga mulut yang saling berkaitan. Ras dan suku menentukan genetika dalam merespon keradangan, kerentanan jaringan rongga mulut terhadap bakteri atau injuri, meregulasi hormon reproduksi, dan sindrom menopause. Akan tetapi hubungan faktor tersebut masih belum banyak terungkap, khususnya pada Suku Osing. Suku Osing merupakan salah satu suku yang masih memegang kuat adat istiadat.Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui status kesehatan rongga mulut wanita suku Osing. Metode Penelitian observasional dengan desain cross sectional.Subyek penelitian dikelompokan menjadi kelompok usia produktif dan menopause. Pada subyek penelitian dilakukan pemeriksaan status kesehatan rongga mulut meliputi jumlah gigi yang tersisa di rongga mulut, indeks periodontal, karies dan kebersihan rongga mulut. Semua data dikategorikan kemudian akan dilakukan uji korelasi non parametric (p?0,05). Hasil Kelompok wanita usia menopause pada penelitian ini sudah mengalami menopause dalam kurun waktu 5-10 tahun.Jumlah gigi wanita usia menopause lebih sedikit dibanding wanita usia produksif (p?0,05). Wanita usia menopause lebih banyak menderita penyakit periodontal yang bersifat irreversible (2,65 ± 0,35) daripada wanita usia produktif (1,16 ± 0,27). Indeks karies kelompok wanita usia menopause (D=166, M=570) lebih tinggi dibanding wanita usia produktif (D=247, M=162). Akan tetapi, kedua kelompok ini mempunyai tingkat kebersihan mulut yang sama. Selain itu terdapat hubungan antara tingkat kebersihan mulut, penyakit periodontal, karies dan lamanya menopause (R>0,3). Simpulan Status kesehatan rongga mulut wanita usia menopause suku Osing di Desa Kemiren, Kecamatan Glagah, Banyuwangi lebih buruk dibanding wanita usia produktif. Akan tetapi, perlu penelitian lebih lanjut mengenai faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi status kesehatan rongga mulut tersebut. Background Social-demography, health status, and oral health specify a quality life, which all of them are correlated. Races and ethnic assign genetic aspect, especially in inflammation respond, oral tissue susceptibility to bacterial infection and injuries, hormone regulation, and menopause syndrome. However, the relationships are unexplored yet, especially in osingese. Osingese is one of ethnic which hold the customs strongly. The objective of this study was to know the oral health status of Osingese Women. Method This study was observational with a cross-sectional design. The subjects were classified into productive and menopause age. All of the subjects were examined their oral health, including remain teeth, periodontal index, caries index, and oral hygiene index. All of the data were categorized and analyzed by non-parametric correlation analysis (p?0.05). Result Menopause aged group experienced menopause period about 5-10 years. The number of teeth of the menopause group was less than productive group (p?0.05). The menopause group more sustained irreversible periodontal diseases (2.65 ± 0.35) than the productive group (1.16 ± 0.27). Caries index in the menopause group (D=166, M=570) was higher than the productive group (D=247, M=162). However, their oral hygiene index was the same. Moreover, there presented the relationship between oral hygiene, caries index, periodontal index, and menopause status (R>0.3). Conclusion Oral health status menopause aged osingese women was poorer than the productive group. However, it needed further study to investigate the other factor influencing oral health status. Keywords: caries, periodontal disease, oral hygiene, menopause, Osingese

Education in Oceania continues to reflect the embedded implicit and explicit colonial practices and processes from the past. This paper conceptualises a cultural approach to education and leadership appropriate and relevant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. As elementary school leaders, we highlight Kanne Lobal, a traditional Marshallese navigation practice based on indigenous language, values and practices. We conceptualise and develop Kanne Lobal in this paper as a framework for understanding the usefulness of our indigenous knowledge in leadership and educational practices within formal education. Through bwebwenato, a method of talk story, our key learnings and reflexivities were captured. We argue that realising the value of Marshallese indigenous knowledge and practices for school leaders requires purposeful training of the ways in which our knowledge can be made useful in our professional educational responsibilities. Drawing from our Marshallese knowledge is an intentional effort to inspire, empower and express what education and leadership partnership means for Marshallese people, as articulated by Marshallese themselves. Introduction As noted in the call for papers within the Waikato Journal of Education (WJE) for this special issue, bodies of knowledge and histories in Oceania have long sustained generations across geographic boundaries to ensure cultural survival. For Marshallese people, we cannot really know ourselves “until we know how we came to be where we are today” (Walsh, Heine, Bigler & Stege, 2012). Jitdam Kapeel is a popular Marshallese concept and ideal associated with inquiring into relationships within the family and community. In a similar way, the practice of relating is about connecting the present and future to the past. Education and leadership partnerships are linked and we look back to the past, our history, to make sense and feel inspired to transform practices that will benefit our people. In this paper and in light of our next generation, we reconnect with our navigation stories to inspire and empower education and leadership. Kanne lobal is part of our navigation stories, a conceptual framework centred on cultural practices, values, and concepts that embrace collective partnerships. Our link to this talanoa vā with others in the special issue is to attempt to make sense of connections given the global COVID-19 context by providing a Marshallese approach to address the physical and relational “distance” between education and leadership partnerships in Oceania. Like the majority of developing small island nations in Oceania, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) has had its share of educational challenges through colonial legacies of the past which continues to drive education systems in the region (Heine, 2002). The historical administration and education in the RMI is one of colonisation. Successive administrations by the Spanish, German, Japanese, and now the US, has resulted in education and learning that privileges western knowledge and forms of learning. This paper foregrounds understandings of education and learning as told by the voices of elementary school leaders from the RMI. The move to re-think education and leadership from Marshallese perspectives is an act of shifting the focus of bwebwenato or conversations that centres on Marshallese language and worldviews. The concept of jelalokjen was conceptualised as traditional education framed mainly within the community context. In the past, jelalokjen was practiced and transmitted to the younger generation for cultural continuity. During the arrival of colonial administrations into the RMI, jelalokjen was likened to the western notions of education and schooling (Kupferman, 2004). Today, the primary function of jelalokjen, as traditional and formal education, it is for “survival in a hostile [and challenging] environment” (Kupferman, 2004, p. 43). Because western approaches to learning in the RMI have not always resulted in positive outcomes for those engaged within the education system, as school leaders who value our cultural knowledge and practices, and aspire to maintain our language with the next generation, we turn to Kanne Lobal, a practice embedded in our navigation stories, collective aspirations, and leadership. The significance in the development of Kanne Lobal, as an appropriate framework for education and leadership, resulted in us coming together and working together. Not only were we able to share our leadership concerns, however, the engagement strengthened our connections with each other as school leaders, our communities, and the Public Schooling System (PSS). Prior to that, many of us were in competition for resources. Educational Leadership: IQBE and GCSL Leadership is a valued practice in the RMI. Before the IQBE programme started in 2018, the majority of the school leaders on the main island of Majuro had not engaged in collaborative partnerships with each other before. Our main educational purpose was to achieve accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), an accreditation commission for schools in the United States. The WASC accreditation dictated our work and relationships and many school leaders on Majuro felt the pressure of competition against each other. We, the authors in this paper, share our collective bwebwenato, highlighting our school leadership experiences and how we gained strength from our own ancestral knowledge to empower “us”, to collaborate with each other, our teachers, communities, as well as with PSS; a collaborative partnership we had not realised in the past. The paucity of literature that captures Kajin Majol (Marshallese language) and education in general in the RMI is what we intend to fill by sharing our reflections and experiences. To move our educational practices forward we highlight Kanne Lobal, a cultural approach that focuses on our strengths, collective social responsibilities and wellbeing. For a long time, there was no formal training in place for elementary school leaders. School principals and vice principals were appointed primarily on their academic merit through having an undergraduate qualification. As part of the first cohort of fifteen school leaders, we engaged in the professional training programme, the Graduate Certificate in School Leadership (GCSL), refitted to our context after its initial development in the Solomon Islands. GCSL was coordinated by the Institute of Education (IOE) at the University of the South Pacific (USP). GCSL was seen as a relevant and appropriate training programme for school leaders in the RMI as part of an Asia Development Bank (ADB) funded programme which aimed at “Improving Quality Basic Education” (IQBE) in parts of the northern Pacific. GCSL was managed on Majuro, RMI’s main island, by the director at the time Dr Irene Taafaki, coordinator Yolanda McKay, and administrators at the University of the South Pacific’s (USP) RMI campus. Through the provision of GCSL, as school leaders we were encouraged to re-think and draw-from our own cultural repository and connect to our ancestral knowledge that have always provided strength for us. This kind of thinking and practice was encouraged by our educational leaders (Heine, 2002). We argue that a culturally-affirming and culturally-contextual framework that reflects the lived experiences of Marshallese people is much needed and enables the disruption of inherent colonial processes left behind by Western and Eastern administrations which have influenced our education system in the RMI (Heine, 2002). Kanne Lobal, an approach utilising a traditional navigation has warranted its need to provide solutions for today’s educational challenges for us in the RMI. Education in the Pacific Education in the Pacific cannot be understood without contextualising it in its history and culture. It is the same for us in the RMI (Heine, 2002; Walsh et al., 2012). The RMI is located in the Pacific Ocean and is part of Micronesia. It was named after a British captain, John Marshall in the 1700s. The atolls in the RMI were explored by the Spanish in the 16th century. Germany unsuccessfully attempted to colonize the islands in 1885. Japan took control in 1914, but after several battles during World War II, the US seized the RMI from them. In 1947, the United Nations made the island group, along with the Mariana and Caroline archipelagos, a U.S. trust territory (Walsh et al, 2012). Education in the RMI reflects the colonial administrations of Germany, Japan, and now the US. Before the turn of the century, formal education in the Pacific reflected western values, practices, and standards. Prior to that, education was informal and not binded to formal learning institutions (Thaman, 1997) and oral traditions was used as the medium for transmitting learning about customs and practices living with parents, grandparents, great grandparents. As alluded to by Jiba B. Kabua (2004), any “discussion about education is necessarily a discussion of culture, and any policy on education is also a policy of culture” (p. 181). It is impossible to promote one without the other, and it is not logical to understand one without the other. Re-thinking how education should look like, the pedagogical strategies that are relevant in our classrooms, the ways to engage with our parents and communities - such re-thinking sits within our cultural approaches and frameworks. Our collective attempts to provide a cultural framework that is relevant and appropriate for education in our context, sits within the political endeavour to decolonize. This means that what we are providing will not only be useful, but it can be used as a tool to question and identify whether things in place restrict and prevent our culture or whether they promote and foreground cultural ideas and concepts, a significant discussion of culture linked to education (Kabua, 2004). Donor funded development aid programmes were provided to support the challenges within education systems. Concerned with the persistent low educational outcomes of Pacific students, despite the prevalence of aid programmes in the region, in 2000 Pacific educators and leaders with support from New Zealand Aid (NZ Aid) decided to intervene (Heine, 2002; Taufe’ulungaki, 2014). In April 2001, a group of Pacific educators and leaders across the region were invited to a colloquium funded by the New Zealand Overseas Development Agency held in Suva Fiji at the University of the South Pacific. The main purpose of the colloquium was to enable “Pacific educators to re-think the values, assumptions and beliefs underlying [formal] schooling in Oceania” (Benson, 2002). Leadership, in general, is a valued practice in the RMI (Heine, 2002). Despite education leadership being identified as a significant factor in school improvement (Sanga & Chu, 2009), the limited formal training opportunities of school principals in the region was a persistent concern. As part of an Asia Development Bank (ADB) funded project, the Improve Quality Basic Education (IQBE) intervention was developed and implemented in the RMI in 2017. Mentoring is a process associated with the continuity and sustainability of leadership knowledge and practices (Sanga & Chu, 2009). It is a key aspect of building capacity and capabilities within human resources in education (ibid). Indigenous knowledges and education research According to Hilda Heine, the relationship between education and leadership is about understanding Marshallese history and culture (cited in Walsh et al., 2012). It is about sharing indigenous knowledge and histories that “details for future generations a story of survival and resilience and the pride we possess as a people” (Heine, cited in Walsh et al., 2012, p. v). This paper is fuelled by postcolonial aspirations yet is grounded in Pacific indigenous research. This means that our intentions are driven by postcolonial pursuits and discourses linked to challenging the colonial systems and schooling in the Pacific region that privileges western knowledge and learning and marginalises the education practices and processes of local people (Thiong’o, 1986). A point of difference and orientation from postcolonialism is a desire to foreground indigenous Pacific language, specifically Majin Majol, through Marshallese concepts. Our collective bwebwenato and conversation honours and values kautiej (respect), jouj eo mour eo (reciprocity), and jouj (kindness) (Taafaki & Fowler, 2019). Pacific leaders developed the Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative for and by Pacific People (RPEIPP) in 2002 to take control of the ways in which education research was conducted by donor funded organisations (Taufe’ulungaki, 2014). Our former president, Dr Hilda Heine was part of the group of leaders who sought to counter the ways in which our educational and leadership stories were controlled and told by non-Marshallese (Heine, 2002). As a former minister of education in the RMI, Hilda Heine continues to inspire and encourage the next generation of educators, school leaders, and researchers to re-think and de-construct the way learning and education is conceptualised for Marshallese people. The conceptualisation of Kanne Lobal acknowledges its origin, grounded in Marshallese navigation knowledge and practice. Our decision to unpack and deconstruct Kanne Lobal within the context of formal education and leadership responds to the need to not only draw from indigenous Marshallese ideas and practice but to consider that the next generation will continue to be educated using western processes and initiatives particularly from the US where we get a lot of our funding from. According to indigenous researchers Dawn Bessarab and Bridget Ng’andu (2010), doing research that considers “culturally appropriate processes to engage with indigenous groups and individuals is particularly pertinent in today’s research environment” (p. 37). Pacific indigenous educators and researchers have turned to their own ancestral knowledge and practices for inspiration and empowerment. Within western research contexts, the often stringent ideals and processes are not always encouraging of indigenous methods and practices. However, many were able to ground and articulate their use of indigenous methods as being relevant and appropriate to capturing the realities of their communities (Nabobo-Baba, 2008; Sualii-Sauni & Fulu-Aiolupotea, 2014; Thaman, 1997). At the same time, utilising Pacific indigenous methods and approaches enabled research engagement with their communities that honoured and respected them and their communities. For example, Tongan, Samoan, and Fijian researchers used the talanoa method as a way to capture the stories, lived realities, and worldviews of their communities within education in the diaspora (Fa’avae, Jones, & Manu’atu, 2016; Nabobo-Baba, 2008; Sualii-Sauni & Aiolupotea, 2014; Vaioleti, 2005). Tok stori was used by Solomon Islander educators and school leaders to highlight the unique circles of conversational practice and storytelling that leads to more positive engagement with their community members, capturing rich and meaningful narratives as a result (Sanga & Houma, 2004). The Indigenous Aborigine in Australia utilise yarning as a “relaxed discussion through which both the researcher and participant journey together visiting places and topics of interest relevant” (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010, p. 38). Despite the diverse forms of discussions and storytelling by indigenous peoples, of significance are the cultural protocols, ethics, and language for conducting and guiding the engagement (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010; Nabobo-Baba, 2008; Sualii-Sauni & Aiolupotea, 2014). Through the ethics, values, protocols, and language, these are what makes indigenous methods or frameworks unique compared to western methods like in-depth interviews or semi-structured interviews. This is why it is important for us as Marshallese educators to frame, ground, and articulate how our own methods and frameworks of learning could be realised in western education (Heine, 2002; Jetnil-Kijiner, 2014). In this paper, we utilise bwebwenato as an appropriate method linked to “talk story”, capturing our collective stories and experiences during GCSL and how we sought to build partnerships and collaboration with each other, our communities, and the PSS. Bwebwenato and drawing from Kajin Majel Legends and stories that reflect Marshallese society and its cultural values have survived through our oral traditions. The practice of weaving also holds knowledge about our “valuable and earliest sources of knowledge” (Taafaki & Fowler, 2019, p. 2). The skilful navigation of Marshallese wayfarers on the walap (large canoes) in the ocean is testament of their leadership and the value they place on ensuring the survival and continuity of Marshallese people (Taafaki & Fowler, 2019; Walsh et al., 2012). During her graduate study in 2014, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner conceptualised bwebwenato as being the most “well-known form of Marshallese orality” (p. 38). The Marshallese-English dictionary defined bwebwenato as talk, conversation, story, history, article, episode, lore, myth, or tale (cited in Jetnil Kijiner, 2014). Three years later in 2017, bwebwenato was utilised in a doctoral project by Natalie Nimmer as a research method to gather “talk stories” about the experiences of 10 Marshallese experts in knowledge and skills ranging from sewing to linguistics, canoe-making and business. Our collective bwebwenato in this paper centres on Marshallese ideas and language. The philosophy of Marshallese knowledge is rooted in our “Kajin Majel”, or Marshallese language and is shared and transmitted through our oral traditions. For instance, through our historical stories and myths. Marshallese philosophy, that is, the knowledge systems inherent in our beliefs, values, customs, and practices are shared. They are inherently relational, meaning that knowledge systems and philosophies within our world are connected, in mind, body, and spirit (Jetnil-Kijiner, 2014; Nimmer, 2017). Although some Marshallese believe that our knowledge is disappearing as more and more elders pass away, it is therefore important work together, and learn from each other about the knowledges shared not only by the living but through their lamentations and stories of those who are no longer with us (Jetnil-Kijiner, 2014). As a Marshallese practice, weaving has been passed-down from generation to generation. Although the art of weaving is no longer as common as it used to be, the artefacts such as the “jaki-ed” (clothing mats) continue to embody significant Marshallese values and traditions. For our weavers, the jouj (check spelling) is the centre of the mat and it is where the weaving starts. When the jouj is correct and weaved well, the remainder and every other part of the mat will be right. The jouj is symbolic of the “heart” and if the heart is prepared well, trained well, then life or all other parts of the body will be well (Taafaki & Fowler, 2019). In that light, we have applied the same to this paper. Conceptualising and drawing from cultural practices that are close and dear to our hearts embodies a significant ontological attempt to prioritize our own knowledge and language, a sense of endearment to who we are and what we believe education to be like for us and the next generation. The application of the phrase “Majolizing '' was used by the Ministry of Education when Hilda Heine was minister, to weave cultural ideas and language into the way that teachers understand the curriculum, develop lesson plans and execute them in the classroom. Despite this, there were still concerns with the embedded colonized practices where teachers defaulted to eurocentric methods of doing things, like the strategies provided in the textbooks given to us. In some ways, our education was slow to adjust to the “Majolizing '' intention by our former minister. In this paper, we provide Kanne Lobal as a way to contribute to the “Majolizing intention” and perhaps speed up yet still be collectively responsible to all involved in education. Kajin Wa and Kanne Lobal “Wa” is the Marshallese concept for canoe. Kajin wa, as in canoe language, has a lot of symbolic meaning linked to deeply-held Marshallese values and practices. The canoe was the foundational practice that supported the livelihood of harsh atoll island living which reflects the Marshallese social world. The experts of Kajin wa often refer to “wa” as being the vessel of life, a means and source of sustaining life (Kelen, 2009, cited in Miller, 2010). “Jouj” means kindness and is the lower part of the main hull of the canoe. It is often referred to by some canoe builders in the RMI as the heart of the canoe and is linked to love. The jouj is one of the first parts of the canoe that is built and is “used to do all other measurements, and then the rest of the canoe is built on top of it” (Miller, 2010, p. 67). The significance of the jouj is that when the canoe is in the water, the jouj is the part of the hull that is underwater and ensures that all the cargo and passengers are safe. For Marshallese, jouj or kindness is what living is about and is associated with selflessly carrying the responsibility of keeping the family and community safe. The parts of the canoe reflect Marshallese culture, legend, family, lineage, and kinship. They embody social responsibilities that guide, direct, and sustain Marshallese families’ wellbeing, from atoll to atoll. For example, the rojak (boom), rojak maan (upper boom), rojak kōrā (lower boom), and they support the edges of the ujelā/ujele (sail) (see figure 1). The literal meaning of rojak maan is male boom and rojak kōrā means female boom which together strengthens the sail and ensures the canoe propels forward in a strong yet safe way. Figuratively, the rojak maan and rojak kōrā symbolise the mother and father relationship which when strong, through the jouj (kindness and love), it can strengthen families and sustain them into the future. Figure 1. Parts of the canoe Source: https://www.canoesmarshallislands.com/2014/09/names-of-canoe-parts/ From a socio-cultural, communal, and leadership view, the canoe (wa) provides understanding of the relationships required to inspire and sustain Marshallese peoples’ education and learning. We draw from Kajin wa because they provide cultural ideas and practices that enable understanding of education and leadership necessary for sustaining Marshallese people and realities in Oceania. When building a canoe, the women are tasked with the weaving of the ujelā/ujele (sail) and to ensure that it is strong enough to withstand long journeys and the fierce winds and waters of the ocean. The Kanne Lobal relates to the front part of the ujelā/ujele (sail) where the rojak maan and rojak kōrā meet and connect (see the red lines in figure 1). Kanne Lobal is linked to the strategic use of the ujelā/ujele by navigators, when there is no wind north wind to propel them forward, to find ways to capture the winds so that their journey can continue. As a proverbial saying, Kanne Lobal is used to ignite thinking and inspire and transform practice particularly when the journey is rough and tough. In this paper we draw from Kanne Lobal to ignite, inspire, and transform our educational and leadership practices, a move to explore what has always been meaningful to Marshallese people when we are faced with challenges. The Kanne Lobal utilises our language, and cultural practices and values by sourcing from the concepts of jouj (kindness, love), kautiej (respect), and jouj eo mour eo (reciprocity). A key Marshallese proverb, “Enra bwe jen lale rara”, is the cultural practice where families enact compassion through the sharing of food in all occurrences. The term “enra” is a small basket weaved from the coconut leaves, and often used by Marshallese as a plate to share and distribute food amongst each other. Bwe-jen-lale-rara is about noticing and providing for the needs of others, and “enra” the basket will help support and provide for all that are in need. “Enra-bwe-jen-lale-rara” is symbolic of cultural exchange and reciprocity and the cultural values associated with building and maintaining relationships, and constantly honouring each other. As a Marshallese practice, in this article we share our understanding and knowledge about the challenges as well as possible solutions for education concerns in our nation. In addition, we highlight another proverb, “wa kuk wa jimor”, which relates to having one canoe, and despite its capacity to feed and provide for the individual, but within the canoe all people can benefit from what it can provide. In the same way, we provide in this paper a cultural framework that will enable all educators to benefit from. It is a framework that is far-reaching and relevant to the lived realities of Marshallese people today. Kumit relates to people united to build strength, all co-operating and working together, living in peace, harmony, and good health. Kanne Lobal: conceptual framework for education and leadership An education framework is a conceptual structure that can be used to capture ideas and thinking related to aspects of learning. Kanne Lobal is conceptualised and framed in this paper as an educational framework. Kanne Lobal highlights the significance of education as a collective partnership whereby leadership is an important aspect. Kanne Lobal draws-from indigenous Marshallese concepts like kautiej (respect), jouj eo mour eo (reciprocity), and jouj (kindness, heart). The role of a leader, including an education leader, is to prioritise collective learning and partnerships that benefits Marshallese people and the continuity and survival of the next generation (Heine, 2002; Thaman, 1995). As described by Ejnar Aerōk, an expert canoe builder in the RMI, he stated: “jerbal ippān doon bwe en maron maan wa e” (cited in Miller, 2010, p. 69). His description emphasises the significance of partnerships and working together when navigating and journeying together in order to move the canoe forward. The kubaak, the outrigger of the wa (canoe) is about “partnerships”. For us as elementary school leaders on Majuro, kubaak encourages us to value collaborative partnerships with each other as well as our communities, PSS, and other stakeholders. Partnerships is an important part of the Kanne Lobal education and leadership framework. It requires ongoing bwebwenato – the inspiring as well as confronting and challenging conversations that should be mediated and negotiated if we and our education stakeholders are to journey together to ensure that the educational services we provide benefits our next generation of young people in the RMI. Navigating ahead the partnerships, mediation, and negotiation are the core values of jouj (kindness, love), kautiej (respect), and jouj eo mour eo (reciprocity). As an organic conceptual framework grounded in indigenous values, inspired through our lived experiences, Kanne Lobal provides ideas and concepts for re-thinking education and leadership practices that are conducive to learning and teaching in the schooling context in the RMI. By no means does it provide the solution to the education ills in our nation. However, we argue that Kanne Lobal is a more relevant approach which is much needed for the negatively stigmatised system as a consequence of the various colonial administrations that have and continue to shape and reframe our ideas about what education should be like for us in the RMI. Moreover, Kannel Lobal is our attempt to decolonize the framing of education and leadership, moving our bwebwenato to re-framing conversations of teaching and learning so that our cultural knowledge and values are foregrounded, appreciated, and realised within our education system. Bwebwenato: sharing our stories In this section, we use bwebwenato as a method of gathering and capturing our stories as data. Below we capture our stories and ongoing conversations about the richness in Marshallese cultural knowledge in the outer islands and on Majuro and the potentialities in Kanne Lobal. Danny Jim When I was in third grade (9-10 years of age), during my grandfather’s speech in Arno, an atoll near Majuro, during a time when a wa (canoe) was being blessed and ready to put the canoe into the ocean. My grandfather told me the canoe was a blessing for the family. “Without a canoe, a family cannot provide for them”, he said. The canoe allows for travelling between places to gather food and other sources to provide for the family. My grandfather’s stories about people’s roles within the canoe reminded me that everyone within the family has a responsibility to each other. Our women, mothers and daughters too have a significant responsibility in the journey, in fact, they hold us, care for us, and given strength to their husbands, brothers, and sons. The wise man or elder sits in the middle of the canoe, directing the young man who help to steer. The young man, he does all the work, directed by the older man. They take advice and seek the wisdom of the elder. In front of the canoe, a young boy is placed there and because of his strong and youthful vision, he is able to help the elder as well as the young man on the canoe. The story can be linked to the roles that school leaders, teachers, and students have in schooling. Without each person knowing intricately their role and responsibility, the sight and vision ahead for the collective aspirations of the school and the community is difficult to comprehend. For me, the canoe is symbolic of our educational journey within our education system. As the school leader, a central, trusted, and respected figure in the school, they provide support for teachers who are at the helm, pedagogically striving to provide for their students. For without strong direction from the school leaders and teachers at the helm, the students, like the young boy, cannot foresee their futures, or envisage how education can benefit them. This is why Kanne Lobal is a significant framework for us in the Marshall Islands because within the practice we are able to take heed and empower each other so that all benefit from the process. Kanne Lobal is linked to our culture, an essential part of who we are. We must rely on our own local approaches, rather than relying on others that are not relevant to what we know and how we live in today’s society. One of the things I can tell is that in Majuro, compared to the outer islands, it’s different. In the outer islands, parents bring children together and tell them legends and stories. The elders tell them about the legends and stories – the bwebwenato. Children from outer islands know a lot more about Marshallese legends compared to children from the Majuro atoll. They usually stay close to their parents, observe how to prepare food and all types of Marshallese skills. Loretta Joseph Case There is little Western influence in the outer islands. They grow up learning their own culture with their parents, not having tv. They are closely knit, making their own food, learning to weave. They use fire for cooking food. They are more connected because there are few of them, doing their own culture. For example, if they’re building a house, the ladies will come together and make food to take to the males that are building the house, encouraging them to keep on working - “jemjem maal” (sharpening tools i.e. axe, like encouraging workers to empower them). It’s when they bring food and entertainment. Rubon Rubon Togetherness, work together, sharing of food, these are important practices as a school leader. Jemjem maal – the whole village works together, men working and the women encourage them with food and entertainment. All the young children are involved in all of the cultural practices, cultural transmission is consistently part of their everyday life. These are stronger in the outer islands. Kanne Lobal has the potential to provide solutions using our own knowledge and practices. Connie Joel When new teachers become a teacher, they learn more about their culture in teaching. Teaching raises the question, who are we? A popular saying amongst our people, “Aelon kein ad ej aelon in manit”, means that “Our islands are cultural islands”. Therefore, when we are teaching, and managing the school, we must do this culturally. When we live and breathe, we must do this culturally. There is more socialising with family and extended family. Respect the elderly. When they’re doing things the ladies all get together, in groups and do it. Cut the breadfruit, and preserve the breadfruit and pandanus. They come together and do it. Same as fishing, building houses, building canoes. They use and speak the language often spoken by the older people. There are words that people in the outer islands use and understand language regularly applied by the elderly. Respect elderly and leaders more i.e., chiefs (iroj), commoners (alap), and the workers on the land (ri-jerbal) (social layer under the commoners). All the kids, they gather with their families, and go and visit the chiefs and alap, and take gifts from their land, first produce/food from the plantation (eojōk). Tommy Almet The people are more connected to the culture in the outer islands because they help one another. They don’t have to always buy things by themselves, everyone contributes to the occasion. For instance, for birthdays, boys go fishing, others contribute and all share with everyone. Kanne Lobal is a practice that can bring people together – leaders, teachers, stakeholders. We want our colleagues to keep strong and work together to fix problems like students and teachers’ absenteeism which is a big problem for us in schools. Demetria Malachi The culture in the outer islands are more accessible and exposed to children. In Majuro, there is a mixedness of cultures and knowledges, influenced by Western thinking and practices. Kanne Lobal is an idea that can enhance quality educational purposes for the RMI. We, the school leaders who did GCSL, we want to merge and use this idea because it will help benefit students’ learning and teachers’ teaching. Kanne Lobal will help students to learn and teachers to teach though traditional skills and knowledge. We want to revitalize our ways of life through teaching because it is slowly fading away. Also, we want to have our own Marshallese learning process because it is in our own language making it easier to use and understand. Essentially, we want to proudly use our own ways of teaching from our ancestors showing the appreciation and blessings given to us. Way Forward To think of ways forward is about reflecting on the past and current learnings. Instead of a traditional discussion within a research publication, we have opted to continue our bwebwenato by sharing what we have learnt through the Graduate Certificate in School Leadership (GCSL) programme. Our bwebwenato does not end in this article and this opportunity to collaborate and partner together in this piece of writing has been a meaningful experience to conceptualise and unpack the Kanne Lobal framework. Our collaborative bwebwenato has enabled us to dig deep into our own wise knowledges for guidance through mediating and negotiating the challenges in education and leadership (Sanga & Houma, 2004). For example, bwe-jen-lale-rara reminds us to inquire, pay attention, and focus on supporting the needs of others. Through enra-bwe-jen-lale-rara, it reminds us to value cultural exchange and reciprocity which will strengthen the development and maintaining of relationships based on ways we continue to honour each other (Nimmer, 2017). We not only continue to support each other, but also help mentor the next generation of school leaders within our education system (Heine, 2002). Education and leadership are all about collaborative partnerships (Sanga & Chu, 2009; Thaman, 1997). Developing partnerships through the GCSL was useful learning for us. It encouraged us to work together, share knowledge, respect each other, and be kind. The values of jouj (kindness, love), kautiej (respect), and jouj eo mour eo (reciprocity) are meaningful in being and becoming and educational leader in the RMI (Jetnil-Kijiner, 2014; Miller, 2010; Nimmer, 2017). These values are meaningful for us practice particularly given the drive by PSS for schools to become accredited. The workshops and meetings delivered during the GCSL in the RMI from 2018 to 2019 about Kanne Lobal has given us strength to share our stories and experiences from the meeting with the stakeholders. But before we met with the stakeholders, we were encouraged to share and speak in our language within our courses: EDP05 (Professional Development and Learning), EDP06 (School Leadership), EDP07 (School Management), EDP08 (Teaching and Learning), and EDP09 (Community Partnerships). In groups, we shared our presentations with our peers, the 15 school leaders in the GCSL programme. We also invited USP RMI staff. They liked the way we presented Kannel Lobal. They provided us with feedback, for example: how the use of the sail on the canoe, the parts and their functions can be conceptualised in education and how they are related to the way that we teach our own young people. Engaging stakeholders in the conceptualisation and design stages of Kanne Lobal strengthened our understanding of leadership and collaborative partnerships. Based on various meetings with the RMI Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) team, PSS general assembly, teachers from the outer islands, and the PSS executive committee, we were able to share and receive feedback on the Kanne Lobal framework. The coordinators of the PREL programme in the RMI were excited by the possibilities around using Kanne Lobal, as a way to teach culture in an inspirational way to Marshallese students. Our Marshallese knowledge, particularly through the proverbial meaning of Kanne Lobal provided so much inspiration and insight for the groups during the presentation which gave us hope and confidence to develop the framework. Kanne Lobal is an organic and indigenous approach, grounded in Marshallese ways of doing things (Heine, 2002; Taafaki & Fowler, 2019). Given the persistent presence of colonial processes within the education system and the constant reference to practices and initiatives from the US, Kanne Lobal for us provides a refreshing yet fulfilling experience and makes us feel warm inside because it is something that belongs to all Marshallese people. Conclusion Marshallese indigenous knowledge and practices provide meaningful educational and leadership understanding and learnings. They ignite, inspire, and transform thinking and practice. The Kanne Lobal conceptual framework emphasises key concepts and values necessary for collaborative partnerships within education and leadership practices in the RMI. The bwebwenato or talk stories have been insightful and have highlighted the strengths and benefits that our Marshallese ideas and practices possess when looking for appropriate and relevant ways to understand education and leadership. 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Established in apartheid South Africa, the tapestry-weaving venture at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift, was situated in a complex mission environment, on the junction between evangelised and unevangelised isiZulu-speaking communities. Although local women who worked at this centre in the 1960s and early 1970s were trained in creative strategies by Swedish artists, their lives were constrained by missionary strictures, inherited customs and apartheid laws. Little has been written on the tapestries made by these marginalised women, whose experiences were discounted in the socio-political milieu. Yet even as they were subordinated by political and social hierarchies, some found ways to assert their individualities. One of the most prolific was Thokozile Philda Majozi. As this study demonstrates, her woven iconographies, as well as her personal insights on those of others, provide a lens through which local Lutheran agendas and prejudicial social practices may be read. Some works anticipate the mission’s eventual change of heart on inherited customs and African-initiated churches. Majozi’s discussion also reveals how weavers often ignored Lutheran restrictions in the interests of artistic experience, despite the systems of control that defined their lives. Yet Christian weavers such as Majozi also complicated their representations of mission life, deploying images of un-evangelised women that articulated their own ambivalence towards them.

Child birth is a very significant event in a married woman’s life. She is filled with fear and anxiety mixed with a feeling of joy and expectation of the coming child. Apart from physical care psychological care and assurance are equally important. Present study deals with the women of poor workers of the factories who have to undergo deliveries either at home or ill equipped hospitals causing much suffering and even mortality. Detailed history of such 250 women was taken in a questionnaire proforma prepared for the study. A history of age, caste, education, para, occupation, husband’s income and knowledge about pre and post-natal care was recorded. Thus 21 tables were made of each case and analyzed in detail. It is a practice to marry girls at an early age as they feel it ensures their safety. Husband’s income was quite low and 50% of them were uneducated. 30.8% could only read and only 8.8% were graduate. Illiteracy was a major problem in safe delivery of the child. Old traditional customs were followed some which were not hygienic. Only 19% were employed. Rest were only house wives. Ground delivery was preferred in 74% cases, squatting position in 71.2% and 56% preferred sand in place of mattress. All these are not preferred methods currently. In the second stage of labor birth canal was lubricated in only 8.8% cases. In 76% cases massage of abdomen was done to hasten the delivery. The cord was cut mainly by knife after delivery. Placentas were mainly buried after delivery (74.8%). 56% of women remained lying in for about a week after delivery. 78% mothers took their first bath 3 to 6 days after delivery.

The enlightened and moderated teachings of Islam empowered every one of the human society, specially the woman who used to be much oppressed in all civilizations of the world before emergence of Islam. Islam gave them an elevated status in all over the world in the status of mother, sisters, daughter and wife. It declared null and void the ignorance rules against them and, prohibited their sexual exploitation. Moreover, Islam gave a regular system of nikkah and marriages for women. The holy Prophet peace be upon him declared nikkah and marriage as his Sunnah and kept its procedure very simple. Furthermore, he described marriage as a gigantic source of achieving chastity, but today in Pakistan the marriages have been made very complex and costly because of the unIslamic customs and traditions. Those unIslamic customs became the part and parcel of the Pakistani marriages which not only made nikkah and marriage a difficult task but also devastated the economic, social and the religious life of Muslims. The Pakistani marriages are conducted with such customs of Mehndi, big congregations: Bharat, beating drums and singing songs. The article briefly discusses status of mirages in the pre Islamic era, Islamic concept and importance of nikkah and the new customs practiced in Pakistani marriages and their economic, social and religious impacts by best use of old and new resources.

This study discusses how the existence of Women in Culture Society in West Aceh regency is known to be religious. It was formed centuries ago, so it was reflected in various aspects of life, both in behavior, social system, economic system, traditional art and so on, so habitus was formed in Aceh society. The problem in this research is how people in Aceh society culture. This research was conducted in West Aceh Regency using qualitative approach, mainly through the technique of face-prevention interview and observation. This paper is very useful to overcome social problems, culture and things that can be the background of the formation of Acehnese society culture towards women. The results of this study indicate that women in Acehnese culture are more determined by the customs, social, cultural, and values that a person or group of people in West Aceh have. Key Words: Women, Culture, People of Aceh