The Practice of Love, Intimacy and Its Relation to the Ideas of Property - Term Paper Example

Love and intimacy Name: Number: Course: Title: Lecturer: Love and intimacy The practises of love and intimacy such as marriage and relationships relate to ideas of property. The word property is defined in order to understand and argue why marriage, relationships and kinship are related to ideas of property. First this essay will explore the historical context of marriage, traditional customs, the legal and social bounds of marriage and how it relates to the ideas of property. The essay will do this by looking at marriage through both western and eastern perspectives to gage fully the extent of love and intimacy is related to the idea of property. Furthermore, the essay will look at love and intimacy through a non heterosexual perspective by looking at kinship and how that challenges the traditional ideas of marriage and property. Through the argument and discussion within this essay the reader will see that practises of intimacy and love are linked to ideas of property. Property defined In this paper, property is taken to be an individual whom which another person has specific rights over them which are sanctioned by social institutions. In this regard, property is a person who’s freedoms in making sensitive and important decisions are affected by another person (Pateman, 1988); (Siwan, 2003). Historical context of Marriage From the religious perspective, families had a patriarchal structre and they were taken to be the properties of their husbands or their husbands. The main reason that marriage was practised in this perspective was for procreation and the perpetuation of the man’s name (Pateman, 1988). In the Western civilization, marriage was regarded as a union where values were created. In this regard, it was expected that a man and woman will come together to be united in a matrimony. The bearing of children in most instances of marriage remain the priority (Pateman, 1988). If a woman does not bear children, she is blamed and in most cases, she is thrown out of the family by the man (reference). In African culture, it goes a little further. If the woman does not bear a male child, she is the one to take the blame (reference). All these point out to the fact that women are regarded as child-bearing properties for men in marriage relationships (Pateman, 1988). Marriage, historically and to this day, remains an exercise to procreate where the women carries the burden of being a tool to bear children for the man as a way to extend his lineage. For a long time, women have endured a marriage because they feared leaving the marriage would jeopardize their social status, financial security and stability (Butler, 2002, p. 37). With the notion that women require their husbands to provide for and protect them, women have had to endure abusive relationships with the pretext that they are properties of their husbands (reference). Women have had to stay in marriages however stressing they are for the sake of their names in the community. This has been due to the fact that many laws have argued that they are supposed to depend on their husbands for financial and moral support. This has rendered women to be properties of men. In situations where the women own property, this property is hinged on men. Although women have the power to stop men from selling the property by men, their property is regarded as men’s in the African culture. Because historically women have relied on their husbands for a means of financial security and stability it can become implied that within a marriage a woman remains the property of a man. Arranged marriage is a marriage arrangement where parents or guardians decide for their children the person they are to get married to. Arranged marriage has been an issue and practice that has shown that girls and women are properties of their parents (Fish, 2010). Arranged marriages have been practised in several placesin many traditional societie, parents or guardians have the right to look for a person who will be married to their children. This is in contrast to love marriages where an individual looks for their own marriage partners. The reasons that arranged marriage are carried out is that young people are too young to make decisions which are wise and elder people are likely to make for them better decisions. Fish (2010) argues that love marriages lasted for the next five years while arranged marriages lasted for the next thrirty years. This has been attributed to the fact that the newly wed couple will take time before they have things in common. In some situatins, a man and women may meet for their first time during wedding. This is due to the fact that here are programs that prevent men and women from meeting to avoid sexual temptation. Evenafter the couples have been married, the segregation will go onm in the families where the women will live a liufe behind closed doors and away from men (Pateman, 1988). Dowry Dowry is an issue which has been there for a long time in African and Indian culture and is still being practised to this day. (Siwan, 2003) This is where a price is paid to the parents of the bride as compensation for giving their daughter to a man (Siwan, 2003). This is an issue which takes two routes. One route is that in paying a dowry, the daughter’s value takes on whatever she is exchanged for. In this situation, the daughter is taken to be property which can be moved like a camel or a table (Siwan, 2003). On the other hand, the husband is seen to be buying off the bride and therefore taking her as his property. This creates a particular mindset within the family where the wife is seen as another item which the groom paid for and thus has the right to do as he pleases with her (Siwan, 2003). The institution of marriage provides couples certain legal rights over each other which ordinarily an individual would not have over another. One of the legal rights of married couples is that one is to take the surname of the other (Pateman, 1988). Traditionally, in many instances around the world including Africa and Asia a woman once she is married will take on the surname of her husband and any subsequent children that are bore will do the same (Pateman, 1988). According to Lewis (2011), when partriach’s death occurred in the mid of 20th century, the state had to take the wealth if the wife did not have male chiuldren. Historically, the women was regarded as an extension of the man and therefore they were to take the name. from as early as 17th century, marriage insured women from physical harm and threats. The threats that she experienced came from other men. There was therefore the need to make sure that she had some sense of belonging. By taking on their husband’s name, it was believd that she belongs to someone and therefore would alienate those with the intention of threatening them (Lewis, 2011). The issue of one married person legally required to stand by the side of the other one in terms of sickness. A married person is required to stand by the bedside of the other person because it is legally required to do so (Caldwell, 2010). This is an act of one being a property of another person because you are not required to be standing anywhere apart from where the sick person is. This is another situation where both genders can be regarded to be the property of ther other person. This is like the one guarding the sick is guarding their property (Caldwell, 2010). When a married couple divorces, there are rights that each of them have regarding children settlement and property. if someone is married and have children in their custody living with them, then that means they have the right to live in that house upto the time that the children have left for school (Stevenson, 2007). If the partner tries to force the person out of the house, the person can seek legal redress immediately. Regarding property, there are no hard rules regarding this but courts will rule in favour of the person in custody of the children. If one person has the ability to quickly generate wealth on their own, that person will likely to lose (Stevenson, 2007). Regaring the rights of children, children have the right to have parenatal attention. The custody of children has been that children will be under the mother upto the age of 18 when they can decide on their own and make a decision of who between their two parents they would like to stay with.This law is under arguments that both parents have the right to take care of their children (Stevenson, 2007). The issue of women being regarded as property for men has been attibuted to the long-time view of marriage as an heterosexual arrangement. According to Butler (2002, p. 24), kinship has been defined to deviate from the normal form to emanate from the family. For this reason, Butler (2002, p. 43) argues that kinship has been seen to exist in a group of people who are not tied or bound by biological or nuclear family models. People who choose to not seek a normative nuclear model of a family have the ability to create relationships and raise functional and succesful families (Butler, 2002, p. 27). There are efforts in the west to let the state recognise marriage rights even for unions which are not heterosexual which atleast alters the link between marriage and ideas of property.These efforts would alter the dynamics between the traditional heterosexual relationship. A traditional heterosexual marriage no longer applies thus the traditional links to property are also challenged (Butler, 2002, p. 31). Because non heterosexual relationships are becoming recognised and may gain legal marital status, the practise of marriage and the ideas of property changes shape and are being challenged to take on new characteristics and dynamics. The issue of property and gay marriage are closely related. It is being argued in America that heterosxual marriages are the way to go and that kinship no longer works unless it takes a form where it forms some family (Butler, 2002, p. 29). At present gay marriage proposals in the United States and Germany do not affect family law directly. The movement to have the recognition of heterosexual recognition is to make the state recognise heterosexual marriages and also make it distribute this kind of marriage without any form of bias whatsoever. When we look at the arrangement that is offered by the state concerning kinship and the arrangement of marriage that is tasked with bearing children and taking care of these children, it is clear that women were initially supposed to be properties of men and used to be tools for bearing and rearing children (Butler, 2002, p. 25). This is no longer the case. Nowadays, women can live in relationships that is not primarily constituted for money purposes. It is now possible to have relationships that serve various purposes in marriage and not just to bear children (Butler, 2002, p. 19). Gay marriage shows that non heterosexual relationships do exist and that they are gaining influence to become legally binding (Butler, 2002, p. 28). It will soon be not a requirement to have a man and a woman forming a family (Butler, 2002, p. 28) which weakins the link between marriage and ideas of property. The issue of marriage and property will need to be seen from both modern and traditional societies (Butler, 2002, p. 28). We shall accordingly assume that modern society is to be distinguished from older social formations by the fact that it has become more elaborate in two ways. It affords more opportunities both for impersonal and for more intensive personal relationships (Butler, 2002, p. 35). This double adaptive capacity can be further expanded because present society is, as a whole, more complex, can more effectively regulate interdependencies between different forms of social relations and is better able to filter out potential disturbances (Butler, 2002, p. 25). This serves to show that relationships are getting to have more meaning where both partners have some form of authority. The issue of a husband having excessive power over a wife within a marriage is then questioned which allows for equilibrium in a marriage setting. In conclusion, the practices of love and intimacy such as marriage still remain related to ideas of property in many parts of the world, especially those which requires a woman to be a tool to bear man children for the patriarchal lineage to continue. In these countries arranged marriages and dowry’s remain an ongoing custom which this essay argues implies a bride becomes no more than property herself being traded for other goods and services. Even in western countries ideas of property permeate through marriage as a married couple share legal rights to one another not usually held by one individual over another such as the right to physical property, rights to custody of children, and rights to make decisions on behalf of their spouse. The notion that marriage is linked to the ideas of property is challenged when non normative non heterosexual relationships are formed. The arguments presented clearly show that practices of love and intimacy are linked to ideas of property References Butler, J. (2002). Is kinship always already heterosexual? A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies , 13 (1), 23. Caldwell, R. (2010). The hidden issues of marriage. Retrieved on 20 October 2011 from http://www.psychsight.com/ar-hidden.html Fish, J. (2010). Arranged marriages. Psychology Today. Retrieved on 12 October 2011 from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/looking-in-the-cultural-mirror/201004/arranged-marriages Lewis, L. (2011) why brides change last names. Retrieved on 13th October 2011 from http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/ChangeName.htm Life and Style. (2010). Our cheating hearts. Life and Style , 2. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press Simmel, G. (1984). Flirtation. In G. Simmel, On women, sexuality and love. Yale: Guy Oaks. Siwan, A. (2003). Why dowry payments declined with modernization in Europe but are rising in India. Journal of Political Economy. 111(2), 2003. Stevenson, B. (2007). The impact of divorce laws on marriage-specific capital. Journal of Labor Economics. 54(3). 76-78. Read More