Mixed Blessings: Laws, Religions and Women's Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region (Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights)

301 Pages·2006·0.81 MB·English

by  Amanda Whiting

Mixed Blessings
Laws, Religions, and Women’s Rights
in the Asia-Pacific Region
STUDIES IN RELIGION, SECULAR BELIEFS
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
VOLUME 1
Mixed Blessings
Laws, Religions, and Women’s Rights
in the Asia-Pacific Region
Edited by
Amanda Whiting
and
Carolyn Evans
MARTINUS NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2006
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN: 1871-7829
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15141-3
ISBN-10: 90-04-15141-9
© 2006 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood
Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
PRINTEDINTHENETHERLANDS
For my grandparents, Alice and Colin Websdale
CME
For my daughter, Miriam
AJW

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
CHAPTER ONE
Situating the Issues, Framing the Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Carolyn Evans and Amanda Whiting
CHAPTER TWO
Sex or Sangha? Non-normative Gender Roles for Women
in Thai Law and Religion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Lucinda Peach
CHAPTER THREE
Women and Witchcraft: Positivist, Prelapsarian, and
Post-Modern Judicial Interpretations in PNG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Jean G. Zorn
CHAPTER FOUR
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Women, Religion, and
Law in Solomon Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Jennifer Corrin Care
CHAPTER FIVE
Women, Religion, and the Law in Aotearoa/New Zealand:
The Complexity of Accommodating Different Value
Systems in Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Margaret Bedggood and Leah Whiu
CHAPTER SIX
The Roman Catholic Church and the Rights of East
Timorese Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Susan Harris Rimmer
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER SEVEN
Muslim Women’s Political Struggle for Marriage Law Reform in
Contemporary Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Kathryn Robinson
CHAPTER EIGHT
Islamization, Modernity, and the Re-positioning of
Women in Brunei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Ann Black
CHAPTER NINE
“She’s a Woman but She Acts Very Fast”: Women, Religion,
and Law in Singapore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Li-ann Thio
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book deals with a topic that is of great significance and it has taken sev-
eral years to develop and complete. During that time we have been grateful
for the assistance and support of a number of people.
The first of these is our outstanding research assistant Kathleen Kelly
whose work was exemplary. We are also grateful to Professor Tim Lindsay for
his encouragement and advice and for making funding available through the
Asian Law Centre to assist with work on the book and to the Faculty of Law,
University of Melbourne for its financial support. Chris Holt gave us wise
advice in the early stages of the project, and we thank him for this.
In the initial stages of the project we were given direction and support by a
number of generous academics in this field including Patricia Martinez, Juliet
Sheen, Lori Beaman, Marion Maddox, Alice Tay, Jim Richardson, Virginia
Hooker, Veronica Taylor, and Evalyn Ursua.
We are grateful to all at Martinus Nijhoff for their prompt and professional
handling of the production of the book and in particular to Lindy Melman
and Leonieke Aalders. We also acknowledge Angela Costi for her fine work
on the index.
Finally, we are grateful to our families: Brendan, Gabriel and Miriam (for
Amanda) and Stephen, Caitlin and Michael (for Carolyn) for their on-going
support and love.