Canada’s controversial honour killing trial has ended with a conviction of murder in the first degree for Montreal’s Shafia family. Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Shafia and their son Hamed were found guilty Sunday of murdering three sisters and the father’s first wife. They were sentenced to life with no chance of parole for 25 years. A recent ...
Should polygamy be banned in Canada? It’s still a valid question, but do former special prosecutor Richard Peck a favour and leave him out of it. The Vancouver lawyer was appointed to the polygamy investigation in 2007, where he recommended not pressing misconduct charges against Bountiful, B.C. individuals, but now makes it clear he wants no role ...
Today the Supreme Court of Canada decided whether polygamy is a constitutional right or simply a marriage option for people with varying tastes. The court has been listening to arguments for and against why polygamy should be legalized. This topic was brought to the court’s attention in relation to the Mormon fundamentalist group residing commune ...
Is monogamy natural for humans, or are we actually predisposed to a life of promiscuity? In answering either of those questions many would look to human biological norms to find an answer. But after thousands of years spent developing complex societies and civilizations how much of our behaviour is based on what is so-called “normal” ...
Real life sister-wife, Vicki Darger, opens up about her experiences with polygamy and how it affected her post-partum depression in an article for the Huffington Post. “Most men don’t enter this lifestyle so they can have more sex; rather, they have a sincere sense of a higher purpose. I’d rather share Joe than have a ...
Polygamy is outlawed in many nations for multiple reasons. One of them, a scholar explains, is a link between monogamy and democracy. Get ready to get pissy, ladies. Apparently, since the first sun rose over Mount Olympus, men in democratic nations have been expected to have only one wife. For, in a democracy, all men ...
After the success of the fictional series “Big Love,” the world was dying to know about real-life polygamists. Happy to oblige, TLC brought us “Sister Wives,” which features Kody Brown, his four wives and 16 children. Originally form Utah, where polygamy was outlawed, they moved to Nevada once they were investigated for their lifestyle. But ...
Despite the myth of finding “the one,” we’re all increasingly aware that we might not actually be made for one person: people fall in love more than once, go through several serious relationships and sometimes cheat. So why do we desperately hold on to the idea that there’s only one mate for us? The first ...
A Thousand Splendid Sunsby Khaled Hosseini is a story about love, hope, survival, and the strength of women. The story follows the lives of two women living in Afghanistan during times of civil war and upheaval, who are forced into situations they don’t want to be in. The first part of the book follows the ...
Polygamy both fascinates and repels us. On one hand the idea is titillating, while on the other it seems old-fashioned and prudish. Are the wives brain-washed by their religious sects, or are they open-minded enough to acknowledge what works for them? The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff has parallel plots which explore the 18th C. ...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized...
Skincare. Not so very long ago, a man would have been mocked mercilessly for using just the word, never...
Laptop bags; conspiracy of the patriarchal overlords. Oh yes. I am a woman with hands. The average-sized hands of...
