Sweden’s Most Notorious Cannibal To Marry Vampire Murderess
The world’s most evil matrimony? MSNBC writes:
Two infamous Swedish murderers, the “Skara Cannibal” and the “Vampire Woman,” hope to get married, according to Expressen, a Swedish newspaper. The couple met at their high-security psychiatric ward in eastern Sweden, the paper said, and flirted over Internet chat rooms.
Isakin Jonsson, known as the ”Skara Cannibal,” was convicted in March 2011 of killing of his girlfriend, Helle Christensen, a mother of five, Expressen said. After stabbing her to death and cutting off body parts, he ate some of them.
Gustafsson was convicted in 2010 of the stabbing death of a father of four in Stockholm, the paper said. She wrote chilling lyrics on her blog about killing people and posted pictures of herself dressed as a vampire with bloody lips.
Man Assaults Wife For Not ‘Liking’ His Facebook Status
Violence stemming from the inevitable confusion over marital duties in the internet age, via Yahoo! News:
A 36-year-old Texas man has pleaded not guilty to battery charges after allegedly attacking his estranged wife for failing to “Like” a status update he posted to Facebook.
Benito Apolinar had posted an update to his Facebook page about the anniversary of his mother’s death. Angry that the post had elicited no response from his wife of 15 years, he confronted her after dropping off their children at her home in Carlsbad, New Mexico on Tuesday.
“That’s amazing everyone ‘Likes’ my status but you, you’re my wife. You should be the first one to ‘Like’ my status,” he allegedly told her before punching her in the cheek and pulling her hair.
Is Temporary Marriage The Wave Of The Future?
Is a lifetime of monogamy fast becoming an impossible dream, and an until-death marriage agreement nothing but an unfair trap, sprung by your past self onto your future self? Mexico City likely will test out a system in which matrimonial contracts run for two years, as a solution to the problems associated with messy divorces and drawn-out unhappy unions. In the future, lifelong marriage will likely be seen as an arcane and barbaric institution. Reuters reports:
Mexico City lawmakers want to help newlyweds avoid the hassle of divorce by giving them an easy exit strategy: temporary marriage licenses.
Leftists in the city’s assembly — who have already riled conservatives by legalizing gay marriage — proposed a reform to the civil code this week that would allow couples to decide on the length of their commitment, opting out of a lifetime.
The minimum marriage contract would be for two years and could be renewed if…
President Obama Endorses ‘Respect For Marriage’ Act
It’s not often that the White House endorses a bill before it goes through the Senate or House, but President Obama did just that when he endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act today. With same-sex marraiges becoming legal in more and more states, this bill is a step towards equal taxation and social security survivor benefits, since there are “more than 1,000 federal rights and responsibilities gays and lesbians do not have access to because of DOMA.” From Joe Mirabella at Change.org:
Today President Obama endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would strike down DOMA and give legally married gays and lesbians the same federal rights and responsibilities as married straight couples.
Shin Inouye, a spokesperson for the White House, told Change.org, “The President has long called for a legislative repeal of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” which continues to have a real impact on the lives of…
Monkey Wedding Called Illegal By Indian Officials
Humanity, look out. There is no way by causing this action, it will turn out well for all of humanity. Via the Huffington Post:
In the small village of Talwas, Rajasthan, Raju, a well-known cigarette smoking monkey, and his bride Chinki were married, according to Stuff.
Raju had become a local celebrity after Ramesh Saini, a rickshaw driver, adopted him three years ago when he found the monkey unconscious.
He’s been a surrogate son to the childless Ramesh ever since.
“I want to enjoy the feelings of a son’s marriage through Raju’s wedding.” Ramesh told the publication. “We will welcome the bride in our house … after the wedding with all rituals.”
Nearly One in Three American Children Live Without A Father
Via the Huffington Post:
The number of children living apart from their fathers has more than doubled in the last fifty years, from 11 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 2010.
That’s one of the key findings from a new report on fatherhood in the United the States that was released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project — just in time for Father’s Day.
The findings paint a grim picture of many fathers’ lack of involvement in their children’s lives, using data from over 10,000 people to determine the percentage of “absent” or “non-resident” fathers in America, which the report defines as those who do not live with their children.
A decline in marriage rates may be partially to blame. In 1960, 72 percent of the adult population was married; that share had dropped to 52 percent by 2008. Eighty seven percent of children ages 17 and younger were living with two married parents in 1960 compared with 64 percent in 2008.
According to the report’s co-author Gretchen Livingston, an increase in divorce rates over the last half-century may also play a role.
Married Couples Are No Longer a Majority in U.S.
Sabrina Tavernise writes in the New York Times:
Married couples have dropped below half of all American households for the first time, the Census Bureau says, a milestone in the evolution of the American family toward less traditional forms.
Married couples represented just 48 percent of American households in 2010, according to data being made public Thursday and analyzed by the Brookings Institution. This was slightly less than in 2000, but far below the 78 percent of households occupied by married couples in 1950.
What is more, just a fifth of households were traditional families — married couples with children — down from about a quarter a decade ago, and from 43 percent in 1950, as the iconic image of the American family continues to break apart.
In recent history, the marriage rate among Americans was at its highest in the 1950s, when the institution defined gender roles, family life and a person’s place…
Quakers Welcome Government Move On Civil Partnerships
Via Ekklesia:
Quakers in Britain have welcomed the government’s announcement, today, (17 February), that the celebration of civil partnerships will be allowed on some religious premises, if a faith group wishes. This was introduced as part of the Equality Act 2010, section 202.
Michael Hutchinson, Acting Recording Clerk for Quakers in Britain said: “We are delighted that the government has heard us and others. We ourselves see no distinction between heterosexual or homosexual in terms of commitment and wish to move further to allow legal marriage for same sex couples, but this is a welcome step along the way to full equality.
“We are also heartened by proposals to address calls for full equality of civil marriages and civil partnerships, as our religious experience leads us to seek a change in the law so that same sex marriages can be celebrated, witnessed and reported to the state in the same way as heterosexual…
5 Year-Old Syrian Boy Gets Engaged To 3 Year-Old Girl
While vacationing with his family, young Khalid met Hala and immediately fell in love. After returning home, the distance between him and his new love threw him into a depression. That is, until he reunited with Hala and popped the big question. This sounds like a love story that Lifetime would make a movie about, but the big twist is that Khalid is still in nursery school! From CBS News:
Two Syrian children may be the youngest couple ever to get engaged.
Khalid, 5, popped the question to Hala, who’s just 3, “of his own free will,” following a whirlwind holiday romance.
The families of both children are not only taking the betrothal seriously, they insist the school children are in love and are already planning a wedding for 10 years down the road — when Khalid will be 15 and Hala 12.
The parents arranged the engagement ceremony in their home town of Homs,…
I Should Have Read My Islamic Marriage Contract
Why didn’t I? Why don’t a lot of Muslim women? By Ayesha Nair, writing in Slate:
I have two master’s degrees from Columbia, keep the h silent in haute couture (you’d be surprised at how few Pakistanis like me do so), and know to scour the fine print before I sign anything. But I scrawled my signature on the most important contract of my life without reading a word. And, as I later found out, many of my also well-educated female friends did the same. Why do Pakistani women agree to marriage contracts without scrutinizing them first and making sure they won’t be sorry later?
For my nikah, or official marriage ceremony, in March 2008, I chose a majestic monument in Lahore, aptly known as the Badshahi or the King’s mosque. It was 8 a.m., and the spring sun was strong as I sat decked out in a heavily embellished duputta (long head veil). My…
Man Injects Sleeping Wife With HIV
New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times carries the most disturbing personal tragedy I’ve read about in a very long time:
An HIV-positive man injected his wife with his own blood while she slept, infecting her with the virus that causes Aids.
It is believed the man wanted to give her the disease so she would start having sex with him again. She told police he also hoped it would prevent her from finding another man and leaving him.
The man, 35, admitted infecting his wife, in the first case of its kind in New Zealand. In other cases, HIV-positive people have infected others through unprotected sex.
The man has been remanded in prison awaiting sentence for wilfully infecting another with a disease, an offence that carries a maximum 14 years’ imprisonment. The pair cannot be identified.
In court documents, the woman, 33, described how her husband twice pricked her with a sewing needle laced with his infected blood…
The States of Marriage and Divorce
The veritable Pew Research people have published a fascinating new study showing, among other things, that:
In Arkansas and Oklahoma, men and women marry young — half of first-time brides in these states were 24 or younger on their wedding day. These states also have above-average shares of women who divorced in 2007-2008.1
It’s the opposite state of affairs in Massachusetts and New York. Their residents marry late — half of ever-married New York men were older than 30 when they first wed. These states also have below-average shares of men and women who divorced in 2007-2008.
The most interesting parts of the study are the maps, though:
