Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Marriage becomes a social construct to adjudicate the conflicts of interest between consenting individuals and a transactional means to fulfill their needs. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding, while a private marriage is sometimes called an elopement.
A spouse is a significant other in a marriage. The word 'spouse' can only ever be used when a couple is married legally or by common law. A male spouse is called a husband while a female spouse is called a wife.
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others, they are ignored and suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls, in favor of men and boys.
Child marriage is a marriage or domestic partnership, formal or informal, between a child and an adult, or between a child and another child.
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender.
Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
The Mudawana, short for mudawwanat al-aḥwāl al-shakhṣiyyah, is the personal status code, also known as the family code, in Moroccan law. It concerns issues related to the family, including the regulation of marriage, polygamy, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. Originally based on the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, it was codified after the country gained independence from France in 1956. Its most recent revision, passed by the Moroccan parliament in 2004, was praised by human rights activists for its measures to address women's rights and gender equality within an Islamic legal framework.
Feminism in India is a set of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and opportunities for women in India. It is the pursuit of women's rights within the society of India. Like their feminist counterparts all over the world, feminists in India seek gender equality: the right to work for equality in wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights. Indian feminists also have fought against culture-specific issues within India's patriarchal society, such as inheritance laws.
The roles of women in Lebanon have evolved throughout history. The legal status of women transformed over the 20th century, but traditional patriarchal norms and conservative versions of Islamic law continue to influence women's rights in Lebanon.
The status of women in Nepal has varied throughout history. In the early 1990s, like in some other Asian countries, women in Nepal were generally subordinate to men in virtually every aspect of life. Historically, Nepal has been a predominantly patriarchal society where women are generally subordinate to men. Men were considered to be the leader of the family and superior to women. Also, social norms and values were biased in favor of men. This strong bias in favor of sons in society meant that daughters were discriminated against from birth and did not have equal opportunities to achieve all aspects of development. Daughters were deprived of many privileges, including rights, education, healthcare, parental property rights, social status, last rites of dead parents, and were thought to be other's property and liabilities. In the past century, there has been a dramatic positive change in the role and status of women in Nepal, reducing gender inequality. While the 1990 Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights to all citizens without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, caste, religion, or sex, the modernization of society, along with increased education of the general population, have also played an important role in promoting gender equality. The roles of women have changed in various ways in the modern Nepalese society.
Women in Russia have a rich and varied history during numerous regimes throughout the centuries. Since Russian society is multicultural, the experiences of women in Russia vary significantly across ethnic, religious, and social lines. The life of an ethnic Russian woman can be dramatically different from the life of women of minority groups like the Bashkirs and the life of a woman from a lower-class rural family can be different from the life of a woman from an upper-middle-class urban family. Nevertheless, a common historical and political context provides a framework for speaking about women in Russia in general.
People of the Palestinian territories—the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—are bound by differing laws that handle marital unions on the basis of the couple's national status and religious affiliation. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Palestinian residents of the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip became subject to Jordanian marriage law and Egyptian marriage law, respectively. After the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which saw Israel capture the Palestinian territories from Jordan and Egypt, those original laws largely remained in place.
The status of women in Taiwan has been based on and affected by the traditional patriarchal views and social structure within Taiwanese society, which put women in a subordinate position to men, although the legal status of Taiwanese women has improved in recent years, particularly during the past two decades when the family law underwent several amendments.
Women in Yemen have historically been placed at a disadvantage due to their gender, with a highly patriarchal society. Although the government of Yemen has made efforts that will improve the rights of women in Yemen, many cultural and religious norms, along with poor enforcement of this legislation from the Yemeni government, have prevented Yemeni women from having equal rights to men.
Since the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia and protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began, Tunisian women have played an unprecedented part in the protests. Habib Bourguiba began instituting secular freedoms for women in 1956, such as access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and certain job opportunities. Women in Tunisia enjoy certain freedoms and rights that are denied to women in neighboring countries, although the social norms have shifted since 2011.
In 2021, China ranked 48th out of 191 countries on the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Inequality Index (GII). Among the GII components, China's maternal mortality ratio was 32 out of 100,000 live births. In education 58.7 percent of women age 25 and older had completed secondary education, while the counterpart statistic for men was 71.9 percent. Women's labour power participation rate was 63.9 percent, and women held 23.6 percent of seats in the National People's Congress. In 2019, China ranked 39 out of the 162 countries surveyed during the year.
Women in South Sudan are women who live in and are from South Sudan. Since the Independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011, these women have gained more power but still face issues of inequality. Many women in this area do not have adequate access to health resources and education. While these women often face inequality, there has been progress since South Sudan's official declaration of independence. In recent years, this inequality has gained national attention and people have become more interested in the issue of child marriage that this area faces. Along with this, there has started to be a focus on the very high level of maternal mortality in South Sudan. With a maternal mortality rate of 789 deaths per 100,000 live births, South Sudan has one of the highest rates in the world.
Women in Bulgaria refers to women who live in and are from Bulgaria. Women's position in Bulgarian society has been influenced by a variety of cultures and ideologies, including the Byzantine and Ottoman cultures, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, communist ideology, and contemporary globalized Western values.
Gender inequality has been improving a lot in Bangladesh, inequalities in areas such as education and employment remain ongoing problems so women have little political freedom. In 2015, Bangladesh was ranked 139 out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index and 47 out 144 countries surveyed on the Gender Inequality Index in 2017. Many of the inequalities are result of extreme poverty and traditional gender norms centred on a patrilineal and patriarchal kinship system in rural areas.
A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law, or rape-marriage law is a rule of rape law in a jurisdiction under which a man who commits rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or other similar act is exonerated if he marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for the accused to avoid prosecution or punishment.
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