Collection of the notorious poet's essays transcends the squalor of his financial ruin and the torture of physical decline to offer compelling thoughts on his world, society, and philosophy.
William Clayton is best remembered today for his hymns, especially "Come, Come Ye Saints." But as one of the earliest Latter-day Saint scribes, he made intellectual as well as artistic contributions to his church, and his records have been silently incorporated into official Mormon scripture and history. Of equal significance are his personal impressions of day-to-day activities, which describe a social and religious world largely unfamiliar to modern readers. In ministering to the sick, for instance, Clayton anointed with perfumed oil and rum. He performed baptisms to heal the sick. Church services, held irregularly, were referred to as "going to meeting" and seemed to be elective. He testifies of people speaking in tongues and of others "almost speaking in tongues." When introduced to plural marriage, he was reluctant but eventually became one of its most enthusiastic proponents, marrying ten women and fathering forty-two children. Since polygamy was initially secret, Clayton spent much of his time putting out the fires of innuendo and discontent. He caught his first plural wife rendezvousing with her former fianc�; later, when she became pregnant, her mother-his unaware mother-in-law-was so overwrought that she attempted suicide. Joseph Smith reassured him: "Just keep her at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will set you ahead as good as ever." Clayton was also the object of Emma Smith's attentions, allegedly part of a jealous wife's plan to make a cuckold of her errant husband.
These selections from George Sand's journals form an integrated whole and show Sand as a woman, lover, mother, artist, politician, chatelaine, and friend. Sand's journal writing is thought by many to be her most expressive and natural; here the artist's most complex and interesting character is revealed: George Sand herself.
How do couples build intimacy in an era that valorizes independence and self-responsibility? How can a man be a good husband when full-time jobs are scarce? How can unmarried women find fulfillment and recognition outside of normative relationships? How can a person express their sexuality when there is no terminology that feels right? In contemporary Japan, broad social transformations are reflected and refracted in changing intimate relationships. As the Japanese population ages, the low birth rate shrinks the population, and decades of recession radically restructure labor markets, Japanese intimate relationships, norms, and ideals are concurrently shifting. This volume explores a broad range of intimate practices in Japan in the first decades of the 2000s to trace how social change is becoming manifest through deeply personal choices. From young people making decisions about birth control to spouses struggling to connect with each other, parents worrying about stigma faced by their adopted children, and queer people creating new terms to express their identifications, Japanese intimacies are commanding a surprising amount of attention, both within and beyond Japan. With ethnographic analysis focused on how intimacy is imagined, enacted, and discussed, the volume's chapters offer rich and complex portraits of how people balance personal desires with feasible possibilities and shifting social norms. Intimate Japan will appeal to scholars and students in anthropology and Japanese or Asian studies, particularly those focusing on gender, kinship, sexuality, and labor policy. The book will also be of interest to researchers across social science subject areas, including sociology, political science, and psychology.
What are the roots of violence between spouses? What do we know about the precursors of wife battering? Who are the victims of domestic abuse? This book discusses causes and precursors of violence, exploring the psychological characteristics of perpetrators of violence, and describing and evaluating potential responses to it. Each chapter contributes to the reader′s understanding of violence in intimate relationships. Part I establishes the "what" and the "who" of violence; Part II examines the interpersonal and situational context that may contribute to violent interaction, or the "how" and "why" that underlie violent interactions; and Part III provides an account of what happens to victims as a result of physical and psychological abuse and how relationships change following violent interactions. The book provides an up-to-date supplemental textbook for courses on a variety of disciplines that deal with violence between spouses and intimate spouses. CONTRIBUTORS: S. Oskamp, X. B. Arriaga, M. A. Straus, A. Holtzworth-Munroe, J. C. Meehan, K. Herron, G. L. Stuart, D. G. Dutton, S. A. Lloyd, K. E. Leonard, I. Arias, P. W. Sharps, J. Campbell, T. N. Bradbury, & E. Lawrence
This book advances debates over the relationship between care and economy through the concept of intimate labor—care, domestic, and sex work—and thus charts relations of race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship in the context of global economic transformations.
Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women—the Mothers—make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Côte d’Ivoire’s civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers’ nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies.
The poet and author’s “beautiful . . . wise and warm” journal of time spent in her New Hampshire home alone with her garden, her books, the seasons, and herself (Eugenia Thornton, Cleveland Plain Dealer). “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” —May Sarton May Sarton’s parrot chatters away as Sarton looks out the window at the rain and contemplates returning to her “real” life—not friends, not even love, but writing. In her bravest and most revealing memoir, Sarton casts her keenly observant eye on both the interior and exterior worlds. She shares insights about everyday life in the quiet New Hampshire village of Nelson, the desire for friends, and need for solitude—both an exhilarating and terrifying state. She likens writing to “cracking open the inner world again,” which sometimes plunges her into depression. She confesses her fears, her disappointments, her unresolved angers. Sarton’s garden is her great, abiding joy, sustaining her through seasons of psychic and emotional pain. Journal of a Solitude is a moving and profound meditation on creativity, oneness with nature, and the courage it takes to be alone. Both uplifting and cathartic, it sweeps us along on Sarton’s pilgrimage inward. This ebook features an extended biography of May Sarton.
Drawing from extensive research and in-depth interviews, an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to understand—or prevent—the collapse of a relationship. How do relationships end? Why does one partner suddenly become discontented with the other—and why is the onset of that discontentment not so sudden after all? What signals do partners send each other to indicate their doubts? Why do those signals so often go unnoticed? And how do people who saw themselves as part of a couple come to terms not just with absence and abandonment, but with a new, single identity? This groundbreaking book reveals a process that begins in secret but gradually becomes public, implicating not only partners but their social milieu. Enlightening, accessible, and deeply affecting, Uncoupling offers a startling vision of what really happens behind the surface when relationships come apart.