Polygamy reasons in Islam Essay Example for Free

Polygamy reasons in Islam Essay Polygamy is a Greek word that means the practice of multiple marriages. Polygamy was considered to fulfill men’s desires on the grounds of strong cultural considerations. Nowadays, Polygamy is considered in Islamic countries and some rural areas around the word. However, it was difficult to provide statistics on the issue of polygamy because of the lack of communication. The man can marry up to four wives. Each wife constitutes a separate household with the husband visiting his wives in turn. Human Rights: Human rights deny gender differences and strive to maintain equality in social rules. Gender equality means an equal visibility, empowerment and participation of both sexes in all spheres of public and private life. Human rights discourse prohibits polygamy and the act of practicing it. Human rights theory is against the notion of polygamy. Human rights discourse states that polygamy is against the dignity of women and their human rights. Polygamy violates the right of equality between men and women; indeed, by allowing men to have more than one wife but preventing women from doing it, the right of equality is violated. In addition, human rights discourse is against the practice of polygamy. It violates women’s right of spending enough time with their husband and children’s right to be raised within a stable family. The idea of allowing the husband to choose polygamy is not considered as slavery or exclusion of the women’s right to decide; on the other hand, it is considered as traditional family life in which the husband is the head of the family. However, the wife can take the place of her husband as the head of the family when the law deprives his civil rights, as if the husband is in jail. On the other hand, polygamy violates the rights of children. Men that have more than one wife do not have enough time to spend it with their children compared with men that have one wife. In addition, their wives try to compete with other wives in order to impress and entertain the man. As a result, children will not have enough time to spend it with their parents. Polygamy requires a lot of time and money; indeed, the man is ordered to fulfill the needs of his wives equally. That will decrease his financial status and this will result in a decrease in health and educational status. Kent acknowledges that polygamists refuse the common life styles and beliefs they live apart from public scrutiny or association, and are more vulnerable to violating civil rights (Kant, 2006). Canadian civil marriage act (2005) defines marriage as â€Å"the lawful union of one two persons to the exclusion of others†. This definition of marriage excludes polygamy. Even though there were laws in Canada prohibiting polygamy before 2009, Winston Blackmore and James Oler were the first polygamists arrested in Canada in January 2009. The maximum penalty for polygamists is 5 years in jail. Although Canadian law assures freedom of religious expression, Polygamy is prohibited. Legal experts say the case promises to pit Canadas antipolygamy law against the countrys Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of religious expression. Divine Command: Divine command theory in Islam respect gender differences and it maintains equality between men and women. However, it is different in some cases. Divine command explains gender differences as being compatible to each other, which explains the differences in some cases. One of these few cases is polygamy. Islamic law allows polygamy as stated in the quran â€Å"And if you fear that you cannot act equitably towards orphans, then marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice between them, then marry only one or what your right hands possess; this is more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course† (4:3). There are several conditions to be maintained in order for the man to marry more than one woman. The first and most fundamental condition is justice, the man have to maintain equality between his wives. He has to be equal in the time spent with the wife and the financial matters, but not his heart inclination. The man can love a wife or her children more than the other but he should keep that to himself and do not show it to his other wives by his behavior. A man should have a reasonable issue to have more than one wife, he should not have more than what he wants. As a result, if two women are enough their husband does not have to marry a third wife and so on. In addition, the man should be able to aid his family, so he cannot marry more than one wife if he is not able to satisfy all of his wives equally. There are several types of aid: financial aid that extends to his children, the ability to satisfy the wives sexual desires. If the man is not able to satisfy the sexual desires of one wife, then he is not allowed to marry more than one. If a women states that her husband does not satisfy her sexual desires, she has the right to ask for divorce. To sum up, the man has to apply justice in the concepts of expenses, sex, and treatment in order to be eligible to have more than one wife. Polygamy is allowed in Islam due to several reasons. First of all is increasing the population. Although one says that increased population causes problems on the society, it results in increased labour, which will increase economy. For example, China has the largest population in the world and they have a strong economical force. Another reason is the increased number of women compared with men in some countries. For example, an official statistic in Germany shows that in 1990 there were approximately 2.7 million more females than males; moreover, the incidents of dying men are more then women. This means that there will be many women without a husband that will lead to a decrease in the population and an increase in adultery and sexually transmitted disease. Childs of adultery are missing the traditional family life and that will reverse it on their behaviour. There are many men that can not handle their sexual interactions and they need more than one women, so if they had more than one that will prevent them from adultery. In addition, men are prohibited to have sex during menstruation or confinement due to its medical harm. The most reason that makes men marry is to make a family, but this dream is impossible if the woman is infertile or has an illness. As a result, it is fair to marry another fertile women. One says that polygamy will cause problems to the family and the wives will be competing with each other. The response for this critique is that problems can occur in every family even if there is one wife. Moreover, each wife has the right to live in her own house and the man can not force them to live in the same house. Another one argues that if polygamy is allowed for men, it should be allowed for women as well. The response to this critique is that women are the carrier of the off spring and by having sex with more than a man the child’s identity will be lost. The children will not be able to recognize their father and it will confuse the society. In addition, the ties of the fatherhood with the children are going to be weak. On April 15th, 2009 Afghanistan women protested in a Shia mosque in the country’s capital city because of a new law that was passed which forbid women to leave their homes without permission from a male relative and these women were also not allowed to refuse to have sex with their husbands. The 300 women who protested were young and organized by women’s rights activists. These Afghan women believed this new law was unacceptable and was a return to Taliban rule. Many local men were outraged by the protesting of these women and threw gravel and small stones at them. As a result, polygamy will decrese these problems. Conclusion: From my point of view, I think that polygamy have more advantages and disadvantages. We can adapt and solve the disadvantages to make polygamy more successful. For example, one can spend more time with his family to make sure that the women and children are satisfied. On the other hand, polygamy should not be allowed without its provisions. Indeed, courts should make sure that polygamy conditions are accomplished, especially the right of justice and equality. References: Kent, S. (2006, August). A matter of principle: fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, children, and human rights debates. Nova religio, 10(1), 7-29. Retrieved June 18, 2009, from ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials database. Polygamists arrested for first time in Canada. (2009, February 10). Christian Century, Retrieved June 18, 2009, from Humanities International Complete database. Polygamy Is Against Womens Human Rights and Their Dignity, Experts Say, (2000). Retrieved June 14, 2009, from http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/51DA40508951B238C1256988002EE12E?opendocument Polygamy reasons and conditions in Islam, (2007). Retrieved June 17, 2009, from http://akhawat.islamway.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=49647 Polygamy reasons in Islam, (2002). Retrieved June 14, 2009, from http://www.islamway.com/?iw_s=Articleiw_a=viewarticle_id=218#(1)

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Written around 1606, Macbeth is recognized as one of Shakespeare’s greatest works. Macbeth deals with the downfall of the title character Macbeth as he falls from a respected, decorated soldier to a despised, tyrannical monarch. This fall from grace is accompanied by the motif of darkness. Darkness serves to set the ominous and superstitious tone of the story, foreshadows events, and is used as a symbolic device. One of the uses of darkness is to establish the dark and mysterious tone. One example of darkness being used to establish tone is when Lennox notes of the â€Å"unruly night.† (Act 2, Scene 3) Lennox also points out that â€Å"the chimmneys were blown down†, meaning there were odd wind patterns, and that the â€Å"obscure bird†, meaning owl, often associated with darkness, was noisy all night. This quote shows the eerie events that happen at night and associates the darkeness of night with mysterious happenenings. Another use of darkness for tone is when Lady Macbeth mentions it when she decides that she would help Macbeth do the necessary dirty work to take the throne after reading his letter to her. While she calls upon the dark spirits to strip away her feminity she also says â€Å"†¦nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry â€Å"Hold, hold!†Ã¢â‚¬  (Act 1, Scene 5) In this quote Lady Macbeth is also using darkness metaphorically as a way that she and her husband can keep their ambitions secret and how the darkness serves as a cover so that no one can see them commit the murder. The secrecy that the Macbeths desire helps add to the dark tone of the story. In both these quotes, darkness establishes the enigmatic and cryptic tone that dominates the play. In addition, darkness is used to ... ...l things since she decided to help Macbeth become king. It is a vain attempt to keep herself in a good light even though she has done many bad things. While it physically keeps her in a bright state, it cannot take the darkness out of her heart. This struggle adds to her insanity. In this scene darkness and light represent good and evil as they often do in many stories. Darkness is one of the more prominent motifs in Macbeth. It establishes the tone, foreshadows events in the story, and is used as a symbolic device. When its uses are put together darkness helps show us the theme. Macbeth is a tragedy, creully showing how fearless ambition can have disastrous effects. One cannot get so far without suffering some consequences. Sometimes all the work put in just isn’t worth the price you pay. And unfortunately for Macbeth it him cost everything.

Be a Powerful or Powerless Woman

Be a Powerful or Powerless Woman? In â€Å"The Englishwoman†, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writes about Sadie, a fifty-two-year-old Englishwoman who leaves her husband and children behind after her marriage with her husband for thirty years. Sadie goes back to her home country, England, to spend the rest of her life since she is not satisfied with the stifling life in India. Sadie feels disappointed when life in India is not the same as she expected, which she experiences in a culture clash between Indian culture and her own.However, in Isabel Allende’s â€Å"The Judge’s Wife†, Casilda is presented as a powerful woman in front of her husband, Judge Hidalgo. When Judge Hidalgo sets up a trap for Nicolas Vidal, the leader of a gang of bandit, by caging his mother, Juana the Forlorn, Casilda goes to save her. In their seven years of married life, it was the first time that Casilda had gone against Judge Hidalgo. After the sudden death of Hidalgo, Casilda gives hersel f completely to Nicolas Vidal, who is willing to sacrifice his life for her, in order to gain time for her children.Sadie decides to leave her family and marriage behind because of her powerless status within her husband’s culture; whereas Casilda holds great power against her husband and Nicolas Vidal. Due to the conflict between the culture of Sadie’s husband and her own, the Englishwoman despairs of the unbearable life in India. Although Sadie has been married to an Indian for thirty years, it seems that she has no power or influence in the family. Jhabvala says that, â€Å"Her husband’s family enjoyed and abetted her attempts to become Indian.A whole lot of them – mother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunts, cousins, and friends – would cram into the family car† (1258). It shows that Sadie’s husband has a large family, hence Sadie loses her hostess’s status and the other family members seem to have more rights than her. Moreover, S adie starts living in this family with quite a lot of family members, and she needs to follow the rules, style and culture of the Indian family. In short, Sadie, as an Englishwoman, cannot adapt the Indian’s culture and because of the big family, she shows no status and influence in the family.This may be one of the reasons why Sadie decides to leave the Indian family. In addition to the culture clash, roles of other relatives like the mother-in-law, aunts, even the servants are more important than Sadie when her son, Dev, was sick. Jhabvala states that, â€Å"He lay burning in the middle of a great bed, with his eyes full of fever; he was very quiet except for an occasional groan. All the women in the house had gathered round his beside and all were giving advice and different remedies† (1260).When Sadie notices that all women in the house come to her son’s bedroom, she realizes that she is insignificant in the family, even less important than the servants. Jha bvala describes that some women sit on the chairs and some sit on the floor. This implies that the room of Dev is flooded with the relatives and servants. Besides, Sadie cannot bear the mother-in-law, who is still smoking and reading a novel, squatted cross-legged on the end of Dev’s bed. Sadie feels sad for her son since she thinks the women who cram into her son’s bedroom are stifling her son and that he cannot breathe too.Other than that, Sadie remembers when she was sick in her childhood, â€Å"the only person who ever came in was her mother when it is time for her medicine† (1260). Thus, Sadie thinks that she should be the only person to look after her son instead of the crowd of relatives and servants. The Englishwoman finds that she loses her status of a mother for taking care of her ill son and this brings up a foreshadow that aids her to leave the Indian family In contrast with Jhavala’s story, Casilda holds a lot of power over her husband, Judge Hidalgo, and she influences his overall behavior after she married to him.Judge Hidalgo is a severity, stubbornness man and â€Å"didn’t have the slightest notion of how to go about pleasing a woman† (1226). Although Judge Hidalgo is twice as Casilda’s age, she is happy and she gave birth to three lovely kids after their marriage. Also, Allende states that, â€Å"he flung off his gloomy apparel, rollicked with his children, chuckled as he sat Casilda on his lap† (1227). He becomes a caring husband and lovely father for Casilda and their children after Casilda married him. Casilda not only influences her husband’s behavior towards family, but also transforms his character from a stubborn mind to a mercy thought.After Judge Hidalgo sets up a trap for Nicolas Vidal, which put Vidal’s mother, Juana the Forlorn, in a specially made cage for three days with a jug of water; Casilda brings food and water to save her. Initially, Judge Hidalgo ignore s the people who â€Å"plead with Judge Hidalgo for Christian mercy and to beg him to spare the poor old innocent woman such a frightful death† (1229). In other words, though people protest the way of setting this trap by caging the ill-treated old woman, the Judge doesn’t change his mind at all. Yet, Allende says that â€Å"Judge Hidalgo himself opened the cage to elease the prisoner† (1229) because of Casilda’s begging. In their seven years marriage life, it is the first time that Casilda uses her power to challenge with Judge Hidalgo because she wants to persuade him to become a lenient man. This proves the importance of Casilda’s status in her husband’s mind and completely influences her husband’s personality to make him become a merciful man. Using her power and grandeur, Casilda finds a cliff for hiding her three children so as to avoid being killed by the Vidal's party, and tries her best to satisfy Vidal as to gain more time f or her children.To his surprise, Nicolas Vidal realizes that Casilda is the first person who faces him without fear in his life. Moreover, Casilda focuses on gaining time for her children by pleasuring Nicolas Vidal. At last, Casilda begged Nicolas Vidal to escape since the soldiers are going to kill him. However, Allende says that, â€Å"Nicolas Vidal chose to fold her in a last embrace, thus fulfilling the prophecy that had sealed his fate from the start† (1231). Nicolas Vidal gives himself up to exchange for the last embrace because of Casilda, the only woman who influences him most of his life and is willing to sacrifice his life for her.To conclude, Sadie attempts to become an Indian in the beginning of her marriage life. However, she fails and leaves her husband and children behind due to her helpless status and the differences between the culture of her husband and her own. On the other hand, Casilda uses her great power to influence her husband’s behavior and N icolas Vidal who was even willing to lose his life for her. Among these different situations, the two women have no opportunity to choose between a powerful or powerless woman because their life is destined by fate.

Reading Comprehension for Presidential Elections

This reading comprehension focuses on Presidential elections. Its followed by key vocabulary relating to the US elections system. Presidential Elections Americans elect a new president on the first Tuesday in November. Its an important event that happens once every four years. Currently, the president is always elected from one of the two main parties in the United States: the Republicans and the Democrats. There are other presidential candidates. However, it is unlikely that any of these third party candidates will win. It certainly hasnt happened in the last one hundred years. In order to become the presidential nominee of a party, the candidate must win the primary election. Primary elections are held throughout each state in the United States in the first half of an election year. Then, the delegates attend their party convention in order to nominate their chosen candidate. Usually, as in this election, its clear who will be the nominee. However, in the past parties have been divided and choosing a nominee has been a difficult process. Once the nominees have been selected, they campaign throughout the country. A number of debates are usually held in order to better understand the candidates points of view. These points of view often reflect their partys platform. A party platform is best described as the general beliefs and policies a party holds. Candidates travel the country by plane, bus, train or by car giving speeches. These speeches are often called stump speeches. In the 19th century, candidates would stand on tree stumps to deliver their speeches. These stump speeches repeat the candidates basic views and aspirations for the country. They are repeated many hundreds of times by each candidate. Many people believe that campaigns in the United States have become too negative. Each night you can see many attack ads on the television. These short ads contain sound bites which often distort the truth  or something the other candidate has said or done. Another recent problem has been voter turnout. There is often less than 60% turnout for national elections. Some people dont register to vote, and some registered voters dont show up at the voting booths. This angers many citizens who feel that voting is the most important responsibility of any citizen. Others point out that not voting is expressing an opinion that the system is broken. The United States maintains an extremely old, and some say inefficient, voting system. This system is called the Electoral College. Each state is assigned electoral votes based on the number of senators and representatives that state has in Congress. Each state has two Senators. The number of representatives is determined by the states population but is never less than one. The electoral votes are decided by the popular vote in each state. One candidate wins all of the electoral votes in a state. In other words, Oregon has 8 electoral votes. If 1 million people vote for the Republican candidate and one million and ten people vote for the Democratic candidate all 8 electoral votes go to the Democratic candidate. Many people feel that this system should be abandoned. Key Vocabulary to electpolitical partyRepublicanDemocratthird partycandidatepresidential nomineeprimary electiondelegateto attendparty conventionto nominatedebateparty platformstump speechattack adssound biteto distort the truthvoter turnoutregistered votervoting boothElectoral CollegeCongresssenatorrepresentativeelectoral votepopular vote