One congressional wife says emphatically: “Receptions are a danger zone. Members need to quickly learn that attending receptions is optional, and there are very few they actually need to attend. Members need to learn where to buy quick meals and how to use the microwave. Receptions should not be viewed as the place to get dinner. Married Members should avoid alcohol use in public and private conversations with single women. Do not give out or request private contact info. Staff can handle legitimate requests. Talk about the wife and kids to any and all women!”

I have a friend who pointed out to me when I complained to her about the unwanted advances of a (single) man that emails with too much detail can send the wrong signal. I had been emailing a single man with whom I had what I wanted to remain a fully platonic relationship. He did not perceive my emails thus. In any case, I took it as instructive. Merely emailing, forget any personal contact, was quite enough to get things started. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to put rules in place for male/female friendship, if one values one’s marriage, because something small and innocuous can get the ball rolling–and it gets away from people often enough.

However, I was reading in the Post about the post-Canucks loss riots in Vancouver  and had a thought. The article is called “Fans aren’t off the hook” and describes how it is ridiculous to claim that only a small criminal element is responsible for the riots. The author is right: certainly there were regular Vancouver Canucks fans looting, burning and destroying stuff. It wasn’t just career protestors.

So we know that regular Vancouver Canucks fans were among the criminals. My question is: how many married men with families were among the crowd? “Hey honey, I’m going to be late tonight. Just have to burn a police car.” I’m not saying our dwindling marriage rate is responsible for looting and violence. But marriage does, some theorize, civilize young men. I’d have to guess the numbers of family men among that crowd were low.

Just a small social theory point this morning.

Mwana Palibe, a cultural belief very popular in the lower shire districts of Nsanje and Chikhwawa has been named as one of the contributing factors to the wide spread of HIV and AIDS in the two districts.The belief, which prohibits couples from exercising their conjugal rights unless all the children who live in that particular house are in, is very popular among the Mang’anja people.

People of the two districts believe that once this tradition is breached, children fall ill from Kwashiorkor like diseases and they eventually die.

But speaking after Journalist Association Against Aids in Malawi, a grouping of media practitioners in the fight against Aids, visited the district, Traditional Authority Mlilima of Nsanje said there was no harm in couples having sex in the absence of their children.

“There is no any other connection in couples enjoying in bed and children falling ill. These are some of the beliefs we must eliminate if we are to win the fight against AIDS,” said the chief.

The association’s Chairperson Deogratias Mmana said the custom fires up men to be seeking relief outside their matrimonial circles.

“This is very dangerous because men can be tempted to go behind their wives and seek relief to other women, a thing which can accelerate the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country,” he said.

Wow, blaming wives for the spread of AIDS by cheating spouses, that’s rich! Ultimately, they’re saying “No no, your children won’t get ill and die if you have sex with your husband. They’ll get ill and die if you DON’T have sex with your husband.” I can’t imagine this message going over well, anywhere, or having any impact on the spread of HIV and AIDS.

“Smart, fair-minded, hard-working good men make all sorts of mistakes in divorce. Executives and professors and doctors make the same mistakes as plumbers and truck drivers,” according to Joseph Cordell in The 10 Stupidest Mistakes Men Make When Facing Divorce. The lawyer and his wife run a bustling St. Louis law practice specializing in men’s divorce. “You can’t make a mistake we haven’t seen,” he writes.

Apparently, one of the worst mistakes is not censoring what your new girlfriend writes on Facebook.

When men ask his firm, “What can my girlfriend put up on Facebook about me and our relationship?” Cordell says their answer is: “Nothing. Not a word. Not a single photo. Nothing.” He goes further, telling men to buy a new computer at the first sign of marital discord. “The cost of a new computer is cheap compared with the cost of an incriminating browsing history.”

Sigh. I suppose “trying to work out a way to save the marriage together” would be too boring and simple.

________________________

Véronique agrees: I always thought that if people spent half as much time and energy working on their marriage as they spend working-out their divorce, the divorce rate would be significantly reduced.

Yes, marriage can be challenging. And yes, everybody has a good reason why everybody else should have worked on their marriage but they couldn’t. Marriage is like riding a bike: you have to keep it going or you fall. And it takes two to tango: it takes two people to make a marriage work and it takes two to ruin it. But people are fooling themselves thinking that the end of the marriage will mean the end of their problems, especially when children are involved. Divorce with children means that you will be in almost daily contact with your ex-spouse over child-rearing and finances, the two leading causes of divorce. So why not seek help and learn to make it work?

CAIRO — Year after year, the 42-year-old Saudi surgeon remains single, against her will. Her father keeps turning down marriage proposals, and her hefty salary keeps going directly to his bank account.

The surgeon in the holy city of Medina knows her father, also her male guardian, is violating Islamic law by forcibly keeping her single, a practice known as “adhl.” So she has sued him in court, with questionable success.

Adhl cases reflect the many challenges facing single women in Saudi Arabia. But what has changed is that more women are now coming forward with their cases to the media and the law. Dozens of women have challenged their guardians in court over adhl, and one has even set up a Facebook group for victims of the practice.

Read the whole thing…

LUCKNOW, India — A northern Indian village has banned unmarried women from using cell phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death, a local official said Wednesday.

The Lank village council decided unmarried boys could use mobile phones, but only under parental supervision, council member Satish Tyagi said. Local women’s rights group criticized the measure as backward and unfair.

Marriages between members of the same clan are forbidden under Hindu custom in some parts of north India, where unions are traditionally arranged by families. In conservative rural areas, families sometimes mete out extreme punishments, including so-called honor killings, for those who violate marriage taboos. In some cases, village councils themselves have ordered the punishments, though police often intervene to stop them.

The Lank village council feared young men and women were secretly calling one another to arrange forbidden elopements.

Part of me laughs, but mostly I’m horrified, of course. Marriage is tough enough without all those ridiculously backward rules one finds in ridiculously backward societies. Shame on these people.

Americans are taking a cautious approach to marriage and are seeking more prenuptial agreements before walking down the aisle.

[. . .]

More women and middle-class couples are opting for prenups, which can also include adultery clauses, protection of retirement benefits and even custody of the dog, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), which represents more than 1600 lawyers.

“It’s a planning tool. Given that half of marriages end in divorce it makes sense to plan,” said Marlene Eskind Moses, the president of the AAML.

Sure, I can understand that a pre-nup makes sense from a legal standpoint, but from a relational standpoint? I don’t think beginning your marriage with, “Hey, I love you but I don’t think I can ever fully trust you” is a good way to start.

It’s also worth pointing out that the “half of marriages end in divorce” statement isn’t true. No wonder they’re so cynical, they’re getting bad facts. Not that it should matter, everybody else’s divorce rate holds no bearing on your own marriage.

And now these pre-nups include requirements for date nights, nights per week a spouse can go out without the other, and who gets the puppies if their dog gives birth (somebody please tell me when a divorce is really going to coincide with a litter of puppies being born?). Sounds like a recipe for a legalistic marriage if it’s just full of rules as to who can do what and when.

But I’m a traditional girl, my vows included, “I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life . . . to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poor, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” If that’s not good enough for people, then I don’t know what is!