The Californian lifestyle Essay Example for Free

The Californian lifestyle Essay Having lived my entire life in California, I have always dreamed about expanding my horizons and experiencing a different lifestyle. As a teenager, online games and their model economies would spark my curiosity. This curiosity was the beginning of my interest in the driving force behind money and investments. As a senior year in high school, I was lucky to have my first professional position in charge of advertising, sales and customer service for a small company. In addition to professional experience, I also learned good business values and financial responsibility from working closely with the owner. Thus, when I was accepted to UC Riverside, my decision to be a Business Administration major seemed logical. But after reading a few books on investing and contemplating everything that my mother taught me about being smart with money, concentrating in Finance made perfect sense. But my world still felt enclosed. I had vague ideas of where a degree in business could take me, but nothing concrete. My life was too narrow and Californian. I wanted to see the world and how social interactions and motivations were different in a foreign culture. I needed to experience life away from home and meet new people from around the world to recognize what my career path would be. With these goals and dreams, I applied for the UC Education Abroad Program (EAP) to study abroad in Hong Kong. To say that I have discovered myself would be clichà © and a terrible understatement. The Californian lifestyle is often stereotyped as laidback and carefree but I never realized the merit of this stereotype until I experienced life in Hong Kong. The hustle on the crowded streets of Hong Kong is nauseating compared to even the busiest areas of Los Angeles or San Francisco. As a product of the competitiveness of getting into college, the students of HKUST are insanely driven and literally, the best of Hong Kong and China. The fast paced lifestyle and difficult competition adds crushing pressure and I love it; the pressure drives me towards success. The friends that I made in Hong Kong come from around the world and they broadened my perception on life, education and career. The bottom line of their outlook simply boils down to being passionate about who you are and  knowing what you want. Clichà ©, but what impressed me about my friends was that they all had set career paths, relevant internships and understood how everything that they were doing would help them achieve their goals. Upon broadening my views on the world in Hong Kong, I became motivated with a firey vigor to succeed in the finance world. I took my first finance class at HKUST which was both the worst and best course decision I made in Hong Kong: worst because HKUST is notorious for driving their finance majors insane and best because it solidified my decision in concentrating in finance. My passion and curiosity in the workings of money and investments motivated me to welcome the challenge of beating the curve against the the finance majors of HKUST. Deep conversations with different people such as my friend from UPenn about his internship with Morgan and Stanley, a local friend getting ready for an internship in Shanghai and even a stranger that I met at a rooftop steakhouse about her experiences in a law firm while investing on the side motivated me to walk my career path in finance. I am grateful for the opportunity to apply for the Bank of America Business Leaders Scholarship and Walter A. Henry Memorial Scholarship. Financially independent from my parents since my second year at UC Riverside, the financial aid of the scholarship will be a great support in finishing my college career. Rather than money however, what will truly impact my goals from winning this scholarship is the achievement. This achievement means that I have taken another step and standing that much closer to achieving my goal of a prestigious career in finance.

Divorce Reform Act

Divorce Reform Act In 1963 the law still denied divorce except to those who could provide evidence sufficient to convince a court of a partners adultery or other matrimonial offence. In that year, a determined attempt was made to change the law to allow divorce where a couple had lived apart for at least seven years. The attempt failed. But less than a decade later the Divorce Reform Act 1969 allowed divorceif the parties had lived apart for two years (and both consented) or five years (if one did not consent). How did such a dramatic change come about in what, in this context, seems a remarkably short time? (Castles, 1994) One answer no doubt lies in what could be called the spirit of the age. 1963 was, after all, the year in which (according to Philip Larkin) sexual intercourse began. It was also the year of the so-called Profumo affair in which a Minister of the Crown admitted lying to Parliament about his relationship with a woman; and unprecedented press publicity was given to the surrounding events and rumours. (For example, another Minister was said to indulge in weird sexual practices involving his appearing nakedsave for a maskat parties.) Lord Dennings exhaustive investigation into these matters (concluding that although there had indeed been orgies where guests indulged in sexual activities of a vile and revolting nature and that it was true dinner had been served by a naked masked man yet there was not a shred of evidence that the man in question was a Minister) did little to calm the fevered atmosphere. In the circumstances, it became increasingly difficult to believe that civilisation woul d be endangered by allowing the thousands of (often elderly and usually eminently respectable) couples living together in what came to be called stable illicit unions to crush the empty legal shell of an earlier marriage so that they could become in law what they had long been in fact (Castles and Flood, 1991). Increase in divorce The massive increase in divorce associated with the two twentieth-century World Wars had been a source of grave anxiety to conventional opinion, which saw in the insidious growth in the divorce rate a tendency to take the duties and responsibilities of marriage less seriously than formerly and a threat to the whole stability of marriage as the basis of a secure and stable family life. At a somewhat less lofty level, those concerned with the administration of the family justice system became preoccupied with avoiding its collapse under the apparently relentless pressure of dirvorce petitions. 1But even amongst those who firmly believed the ideal of marriagein particular as a way of providing children the settled and harmonious life on which so much of their future happiness depends to be the traditional union for better for worse, for richer for poorer . . . till death us do part there was concern about the lot of the hundred thousand or more people living apart from their legal spous es in stable unions to which the law denied recognition. The impossibility of legalising such relationships against the will of an innocent legal spouse denied many men and women (and in particular the children they bore) adequate social and financial protection (Ceschini, 1995). In 1951 in an attempt to meet this concern, Mrs Eirene White had introduced a Private Members Bill into the House of Commons, avowedly intended to deal with marriages in which the spouses have lived separately for seven years, but in which no hitherto recognised ground for divorce exists or in which one partner, having grounds for action, declines to take it and keeps the other partner tied against his or her will, generally for life. The Bill did this by invoking a new principle, in that it looks to the breakdown of the marriage as the ground for divorce (whilst not prejudicing the right of an injured party to seek divorce under the existing matrimonial offence provisions). This was to be achieved by adding seven years separation to the existing grounds for divorce; but divroce was only to be granted on the separation ground if the court was satisfied, first, that there was no reasonable prospect of cohabitation being resumed; and secondly, that a petitioning husband had made adequa te provision for his familys maintenance (Chesnais, 1996). Everyone who spoke on the Bill conceded that the existing law, particularly by denying the freedom to remarry to those whose marriages were long functionally dead, was capable of causing considerable hardship and unhappiness. But opponents of change claimed that in relieving this unhappiness the Bill would weaken the institution of marriage and thereby produce much more unhappiness in the future (Smith, 2002). The Labour Government The Labour Government accepted that the problem of the stable illicit union was a real one. But the Attorney-General suggested that there were many other problems with the marriage laws, that it would be wrong to select one of them and deal with it in isolation, and that the right course would be to set up a Royal Commission to make a comprehensive study of the marriage laws. Although the House of Commons gave a second reading to the White Bill by 131 votes to 60, Mrs White eventually acceded to Government pressure and withdrew her Bill on terms that the Government would set up the Royal Commission it had proposed. In reality, as Lord Chancellor Jowitt told Archbishop Fisher, he had agreed to the Royal Commission in the hope of avoiding (the White Bill] which had given rise to it (Clark, 1999). The Royal Commission, established as one of the last acts of the Attlee Labour Government in September 1951 under the chairmanship of Lord Morton of Henryton was thus a temporising measure of a once traditional kind; and its Reportthe fruit of four years deliberation certainly did not satisfy the hopes of those who had seen a Royal Commission as the only chance of getting a real reform of the divorce laws, much less the expressed wish of Archbishop Fisher that a full inquiry would lead to a settlement lasting fifty years (Chester, 1977). On the main issue of the ground for divorce, the Commission was hopelessly divided. On only one proposition was there any broad agreement. All save one of the Commissioners agreed that the existing (and much criticised) law based on the doctrine of the matrimonial offence should be retained. Nine of the nineteen signatories went further and took an even more conservative view: they rejected the introduction of the doctrine of breakdown of marriage in any form. For this group such a doctrine would inevitably entail recognition of divorce by consenta change disastrous to the nation encouraging people to abandon their marriages on the flimsiest provocation–whilst divorce simply on the basis of a period of separation would have even more damaging consequences for the institution of marriage . . . it would mean that either spouse would be free to terminate the marriage at pleasure . . . [and] people would enter marriage knowing that no matter what they did or how their partners fel t, they could always get free. For these nine members, the proper function of the law was to give relief where a wrong had been done, not to provide a dignified and honourable means of release from a broken marriage. The matrimonial offence doctrine might indeed be artificial in its application to some cases, but it none the less provided a clear and intelligible principle; and the external buttress of a system of law specifying the circumstances in which individuals had the right to seek the dissolution of marriage helped them to strengthen their good impulses and weaken the bad (Smith,1992). Commissioners Another nine Commissioners did take a more positive view of reform. This group did not accept that divorce should only be available on proof of a matrimonial offence; and recommended making divorce available when a marriage had broken down irretrievably as demonstrated by the fact that the spouses had lived apart for seven years or more. But five of this group would have refused divorce for separation if either party objected; and even the four prepared to accept separation divorce against the will of one spouse would have insisted on an applicant in such a case demonstrating that the separation was attributable to unreasonable conduct of the other spouse. Only one member of the Commission, the Scottish judge Lord Walker, was prepared to take his stand on the ground of principle that the law should favour the dissolution of marriages which had indeed broken down, irrespective of the guilt or innocence of the petitioner; and that divorce should be available to a spouse who had lived a part from the other for at least three years and could establish that the facts and circumstances were such as to make it improbable that an ordinary husband and wife would ever resume cohabitation (Castles, 1994). Although the (Conservative) Government was sensitive to charges that Royal Commissions were a recognised and timely method of shelving inconvenient questions no one, in the light of the divergent views put forward in the Morton Report, could possibly expect any government to introduce legislation permitting divorce (even by consent) after a separation of seven years and any kind of official support for legislation permitting a man who had gone off leaving a guiltless wife for seven years [to] come back and divorce her against her will seemed even less likely (Smith, 1997). Not surprisingly, this setback was a bitter disappointment; and the criticisms made of the Morton Report by Professor O. R. McGregor have been influential in creating an enduring and strongly unfavourable perception of the Morton Commission. In McGregors view, the Morton Report contributed nothing to our knowledge; and had proved to be a device for obfuscating a socially urgent but politically inconvenient issue. It was ( McGregor conceded) a matter of opinion whether the Morton Commission was intellectually the worst Royal Commission of the twentieth century (although since he thought there could be no dispute that [it] is the most unreadable and confused it would seem the competition for the wooden spoon was, in McGregors view, not severe) (Simotta, 1995). This is not the place for a detailed examination of McGregors polemic; but subsequent events suggest that at least one of McGregors criticisms had touched a sensitive nerve. McGregor claimed that Lord Morton and his colleagues were hostile to the social sciences, that as a result of their ignorance of evidence which social scientists could have providedextending, apparently, to actual knowledge of the types of divorce law most likely to promote marital and familial stability the Commission was unable to penetrate to the heart of the problems set before them. The view that the assistance of social scientists was essential to inquiries became part of the conventional orthodoxy; and, as we shall see, considerable efforts were made to secure a social science input for the group established seven years later by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Peters, 1992). McGregor also seems to have regarded as a weakness the fact that the Morton Committeein contrast to the 1912 Gorrell Commission (whose chairman was known to have strong views in favour of divorce law reform, but whose membership also included some known to take a strongly conservative view)did not include either a representative of the Church on the one hand or any active proponent of reform on the other. It is certainly true that the Government devoted considerable effort to achieving a balanced and impartial membership; but if this was an error it was one which was not repeated. As we shall see, there was no nonsense about impartiality as a criterion in choosing sources of advice in the years leading up to the 1969 reforms (Meisaari-Polsa, 1997). Whatever may be thought about McGregors triumphalist beliefs in the potential of social science research for policy making, in one respect he can be shown to have been plainly wrong. He asserted that it was a safe prediction that divorce reform will take a long, long time; but in fact, little more than a decade later, the Divorce Reform Act swept the concept of the indissoluble marriage into history. Six years after the Morton Report divorce reform was given another chance. A Bill providing for divorce on the ground of seven years separation was brought forward by Mr Leo Abse Mp. The House of Commons gave the Bill a second reading and it passed through its Committee stage. But opponents of separation divorce let it be known that any Bill containing such a provision would be talked out; and, faced with this formidable opposition, Abse withdrew the clause adding separation to the grounds for divorce in exchange for an agreement that the other provisions in the Bill (designed to remove obstacles to reconciliation attempts ) would reach the statute book. An attempt in the House of Lords to reinstate the separation divorce provisions also failed (Kooy, 1977). A significant factor in this apparent further reverse for the cause of reform was thenow much more sophisticatedopposition of the Church, organised behind the scenes with great efficiency by the first holder of the post of Lay Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Beloe. Beloea distinguished educationalist and in that capacity a member of the Morton Commission had special responsibility for organising episcopal representation in the House of Lords and moved easily and confidently between Lambeth Palace, the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall. It is true that the contents of the Abse Bill at first took Beloe by surprise; but intelligenceon such matters as the religious affiliations and marital status of Cabinet Ministers was rapidly gathered and put efficiently to use. During the passage of the Abse Bill through the Commons, Beloe took an active part in the efforts to organise MPs opposed to separation divorce. He scrutinised the list of MPs nominated to serve on the Stan ding Committee considering the Bill (and he appears to have been successful in getting one change made). Finally, he masterminded the publication of a firm statement of the Churches opposition to separation divorce (Haskey, 1992). But Beloe really came into his element when the Abse Bill got to the House of Lords and Lord Silkin and others made a determined attempt to reinstate the clause permitting separation divorce. Beloes briefing paper for the Archbishop was prophetically headed How to secure rejection of Mr Abses clause; and to that end he skillfully organised opposition. Ramsey made a speech in the debate uncompromisingly rejecting the proposed addition of seven years separation to the existing grounds for divorce, and the Lords defeated the proposal on a division. Beloe appreciated that this could not be the end of the matter. He had been warned by the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office that a Bill providing for separation divorce was almost certain to be introduced by a private member the following session; and he was concerned that the Conservative Party faced with the need to modernise its image in the run-up to a General Election might see divorce reform as one means of doing so (Smith, 1 997). Divorce provision Everyone agreed to be an unsatisfactory law and of not being prepared to face reality in its approach to social questions, while the way in which Abse had been forced to drop the separation divorce provision had given rise to a great deal of anti-clerical feeling. Against this background, the Church clearly needed to take some action; and the links and understandings established by Beloe during the progress of the Abse Bill became of crucial importance in apparently restoring the Church to its position of influence over policy (Simotta, 1995). The Churchs Board for Social Responsibility had in fact already initiated conversations about the possibility of some alternative basis for divorce, but progress had been slow. This led Beloe to float, at a meeting with senior officials from the Home Office and Lord Chancellors Department, the notion that the Archbishop might set on foot a somewhat more formal investigation into marriage and its dissolution; and the suggestion that the Archbishops mediation might be aimed at the possibility of substituting for all other grounds the ground that a marriage had come to an end emerged. Evidently this was favourably received; and in June the Archbishop announcedalbeit in a somewhat low key way that he had asked some fellow churchmen to seek to find a principle at law of breakdown of marriage . . . free from any trace of the idea of consent, which conserved the point that offences and not only wishes are the basis of breakdown, and which was protected by a far more thorough insistence on r econciliation procedure first (Peters, 1992). It is difficult to believe that this announcement brought much cheer to the supporters of divorce reform faced as they were with yet another failure to carry legislation through Parliament, or indeed whether the civil servants who had become involved had any real expectation that the Archbishops initiative would bear fruit; but in the event it proved to be of decisive importance in preparing the ground for the 1969 Reforms. The composition of what came to be called the Archbishops Group (chaired by Robert Mortimer, Bishop of Exeter was somewhat different from the group of churchmen originally envisaged by Ramsey, in part because both the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor took an active part in suggesting who should (and who should not) be asked to serve. It is true that membership was confined to those thought to be Christians, but no requirement of religious observance was imposed; and the selection process came to resemble that traditionally conducted in Whitehall trawls of th e great and the good, with slots being allocated to particular professions (for example, child psychiatry) and interests (for example, marriage guidance). There was one particular problem: criticism about the lack of social science expertise in the Morton Commission made it seem imperative that a sociologist be a member of the Archbishops Group; but considerable difficulty was experienced in identifying a sociologist who could be described as a Christian, even in the broadest interpretation of the word. Eventually Professor Donald MacRae accepted an invitation to join the group (Meisaari-Polsa, 1997). Invitations to join the group were ultimately sent out in January 1964; and the members held their first meeting at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on 26 May 1964. It had been decided (after some discussion) to make public the existence and remit of the Group. Ramseys letter of invitation to join the Group had made clear the dilemma the Church faced. He and other church leaders were opposed to seven years separation as a ground for divorce since if it did not also require consent this would cause great injustice whilst if it did it would undermine the nature of the marriage contract as a life-long intention. For those reasons it had been right to reject the Abse proposal. But the law remained unsatisfactory not least because there is often recourse to a fictitious planning of matrimonial offences in order to obtain a divorce (Kooy , 1977). How was the Group to resolve the dilemma? At the outset, Mortimer made it clear that the ultimate objective was to try to put forward proposals which would be acceptable to humanists and Christians alike. The numerous letters he had received touched on (1) the desire of one party to a marriage to be free to legitimise a new union and its issue and the reluctance of the other party to permit this; (2) the general ignorance of and impatience with legal procedures, particularly those which submit an undefending spouse to hearing unexpectedly the material facts alleged against him without opportunity to reply; (3) the difficulty of obtaining payment of maintenance without burdensome and costly visits to court; (4) the fear that divorce for separation might endanger general acceptance of marriage as a life long contract (Haskey, 1992). The Group met on eighteen occasions between May 1964 and March 1966, and considered an impressive body of evidence from some distinguished and expert witnesses. It did not take long for it to reach a consensus. The law as it stood was universally agreed to be unsatisfactory; and there was a strong prima-facie case for the substitution of irretrievable breakdown as the sole ground for divorce, replacing the matrimonial offence. The court would have power to dissolve marriage if having regard to the interests of society as well as of those immediately affected by its decision, it judged it wrong to maintain the legal existence of a relationship that was beyond all probability of existing again in fact.This would involve the court giving a judgment on the state of the marriage; and its decree would no longer be against the respondent but rather against further legal recognition of the marriage (Haller, 1977). The Group remained adamantly opposed to divorce by consent: which (as Bishop Mortimer was to say ) was open to the grave, indeed overwhelming objection that it would reduce marriage to a purely private contract and would ignore the interest of the community. Hence, it was to be for the court, representing the community, to decide whether the marriage had indeed irretrievably broken down; and, although the agreement of the parties in wanting a divorce would not be a bar (and might even count in favour of a decree) in no case would such an agreement of itself suffice to effect divorce. It was, for the Archbishops Group, essential that the court should always examine the issue of breakdown according to the evidence; and it made it clear that its recommendation for amendment of the substantive law was conditional upon procedural changes to enable the court to conduct the inquest it believed to be necessary into the alleged fact and causes of the death of the marriage relationship and to get to grips with the realities of the matrimonial relationship instead of havingas it thought was the case under the offence based lawto concentrate on superficialities (Gray, 1998). The Group refused to accept that any of the well-rehearsed objections to the breakdown principle outweighed its advantages. No doubt (the Group accepted) critics would point to the economic deprivation caused by divorce; but the solution to that lay primarily in reforms of the law of property, pensions (a topic much discussed) and insurance. The Group was correct in its prophesyindeed, the problem of pensions after divorce remains a source of difficulty more than thirty years laterbut it did not see it as part of its remit to prescribe detailed remedies for these problems (Graham-Siegenthaler, 1989). What of the objection that breakdown divorce would allow the guilty to take advantage of their own wrong? The Group thought that the courts judgment could and should be seen as the recognition of a state of affairs and a consequent redefinition of status (rather than as a verdict of guilty after a law suit), and for that reason the maxim would have no general application. But even so, the Group accepted the need for a safeguardin the form of an absolute bar on divorcein cases in which to grant a divorce would be outweighed by other considerations of fundamental importance such as the public interest in justice and in protecting the institution of marriage (Goode, 1993). On one matter in particular the Group was adamant: the doctrine of breakdown was an alternative to divorce founded on the matrimonial offencethe lesser of two evils. On no account should breakdown be introduced into the existing law in the form of an additional ground for divorce. Indeed, the Group thought that rather than to inject into [the offence based law]a small but virulent dose of incompatible principle it would be better to keep the law based firmly on the matrimonial offence and to consider how the administration of the law could be improved (Glendon, 1989). The Established Church had traditionally opposed any further erosion of the great principle proclaimed by Christ holding marriage to be a life-long obligation terminable only by death with all the sacrifice which such an obligation imposed; but as long ago as 1937 the Church had come to accept that it was no longer possible to impose the full Christian standard by law on a largely non-Christian population. On that basis, Putting Asunder at the outset drew a distinction to which it attached great importance. How the doctrine of Christ concerning marriage should be interpreted and applied within the Christian Church is one question: what the Church ought to say and do about secular laws of marriage and divorce is another question altogether . . . Our own terms of reference make it abundantly clear that our business is with the second question only. Hence (as the Observer newspaper put it) the Report was not in any sense another theological tract written by theologians for the Churchs c ommunicants. (Glendon, 1987) The Commission accordingly produced a Paper, which was discussed at a meeting with Representatives of the Archbishops Group on 17 February 1966. Mortimer insisted that any presumption of breakdown arising from the various fact situations enumerated by the Commission should be capable of being rebutted in order to avoid any suggestion that the matrimonial offence was to be preserved under another name; and he repeatedly emphasised the need to ensure the effectiveness of the various safeguards proposed by the Group. However, the two sides agreed that there appeared to be no difference in principle between the Group and the Commission; and the Commission redrafted its paper to reflect those discussions (Fisher, 1992). In the meantime, opinion was being prepared for a breakthrough. The Lord Chancellor announced that the gap between the two bodies was being narrowed; and the Church Assembly on 16 February 1967after an important debate in the course of which Professor J. N. D. Anderson warned of the mounting and increasingly broadly based demand for reform which he thought it would be disastrous for the Church to ignore resolved to welcome Putting Asunder (Federkeil, 1997). Eventually on 2 June 1967the terms of the agreement between the Archbishops Group and the Law Commission were finalised and in due course published: irretrievable breakdown was to be the sole ground for divorce, but there should be no detailed inquest. Rather, breakdown was to be inferred, either from one of several specified facts askin to the traditional matrimonial offences or from the fact that the parties had lived apart for two years if the respondent consented to divorce or for five years if there were no consent. Mortimer had insisted on one alteration to what had been intended as the final draftnamely that the power to refuse a Decree where the Court thinks that in the circumstances it would be wrong to do so, shall be mandatory and not permissive. This amendment was duly made (whereas various other requests by the Group were not accepted by the Commission) (Friedberg, 1998). But all this was too late to influence events. On 12 October the Cabinet accepted Gardiners advice that a Bill to give effect to the concordat should be drafted by Parliamentary Counsel in the Law Commission and handed to a private member. The Government was to remain neutral on the merits of the Bill but would consider making government time available for the Bill in the light of the degree of support shown for it on Second Reading. The Law Commission settled Instructions to Parliamentary Counsel, and on 29 November the House of Commons ordered the Divorce Reform Bill presented by Mr William Wilson MP to be printed. Although there was inadequate parliamentary time for the Wilson Bill to get onto the statute book the Bill was taken over by another private member, Mr Alec Jones, and received the Royal Assent on 22 October 1969 (Ermisch, 1993). As has long been recognised, the publication of Putting Asunder played an important part in facilitating the reform of the divorce law effected by the Divorce Reform Act 1969not least influencing what has been described as the quite remarkable consensus on the broad lines of reformand Putting Asunder certainly had a decisive influence on the form which the legislation took. But how far did that Act truly give effect to the principles upon which the Archbishops Group founded their support for reform? (Council of Europe, 1998). First, the Group was adamant that irretrievable breakdown should be the only ground for divorce; and it is true that the Divorce Reform Act 1969 provided that the sole ground upon which a petition could be based was that the marriage had broken down irretrievably. But it soon became clear that this ringing assertion was little more than verbiage. However clear it might be that the marriage had broken down, the court could not dissolve it unless the petitioner could establish adultery, behaviour, desertion, or a period of living apart; and if any of those facts could be established the court was bound to dissolve the marriage unless the respondent could discharge the almost impossible task of satisfying the court that the marriage had not broken down. There is no reported instance of a respondent succeeding in so doing; and Mortimers assumption that the evidence of breakdown would be rebuttable rather than conclusive has been demonstrably falsified. The reality is that the effective g round for divorce under the 1969 Act was not breakdown at all but rather the three matrimonial offences referred to above and separation for the prescribed period: Andersons gloomy prophesy turned out to have been well founded. The remarkable consensus was obtained by concealing the truth (Commaille, J., et al, 1983). Moreover, experience soon showed that the divorcing population wanted the speedy divorce which could be obtained on the basis of an allegation of adultery or behaviour, and more than three-quarters of all divorces were granted in that way. This tendency was reinforced in 1977 when court hearings of divorce petitions were effectively abandoned. Far from burying the matrimonial offence, the reforming legislation ensured that it not only survived but flourished (Clark, 1999). Secondly, the Group was adamant that there should be no divorce by consent. The parties might indeed consent to the dissolution of their marriage but this was only to be brought about by court order after appropriate inquiry. Divorce was not only to remain the act of the court, rather than that of the parties; but it was central to the Groups thinking that the Court should first satisfy itself by inquiry that the marriage had truly broken down and (as Mortimer put it in the final debate) the courts must take seriously their duty to enquire into all the facts alleged and to be quite sure that they are satisfied that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. But in fact the court hearings under the Divorce Reform Act were rarely more than a perfunctory formality; and even the formality was effectively abolished in 1977. Yet again, the legislation failed to give effect to the policy on which Putting Asunder had been founded. Those responsible for formulating the concordat must have kn own that there would in practice rarely if ever be any inquiry into breakdown; but, unsurprisingly, they chose not to disabuse Mortimer and his colleagues of their belief that the court would carry out an inquest, at least in cases of doubt (Coase, 1960). Finally, the Group consistently insisted on the need for safeguardsboth of the interests of vulnerable members of the family and of the public interest in upholding the institution of marriage. So far as economic saf

Violence on Televison :: TV Violence

The Effects of Violence on Television What has our society come to these days? Everywhere we look, violence is present; in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. Even if one might be a pacifist, violence will seep its way into our homes through the television. Some children that see violence on television are pulled into its harmful deceptions of problem solving. Scientists have tried to explain why children are so amused by a big glowing box and the action that takes place within it. Research shows that television is a major source of violence for children. This research shows us that violence appeals to every audience, including children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. One example, from Alabama, was when a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested to one of his friends that he send the teacher poisoned candy as revenge. He had seen the same scenario on television the night before. In California, a 7 year old boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television (Howe 72). Some people might not accept a child’s diversion of blame, but it must be pointed out that all of children claimed to have seen a similar act on television. We should not hold television directly responsible for these acts, but understand that it is television that plants a violent seed in the minds of these children. Some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to such violence might unnaturally speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. This can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures into an adult, he can become bewildered, have a greater distrust towards others, a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become an adult (Carter 14). Others see television as an unhealthy imposition into a child’s learning process, substituting easy pictures for the discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into a hypnotized non-thinker (Langone 48). As you can see, television violence can disrupt a child’s learning and thinking ability, which will cause life long problems. The television violence can cause actual violence in a number of ways. Violence on Televison :: TV Violence The Effects of Violence on Television What has our society come to these days? Everywhere we look, violence is present; in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. Even if one might be a pacifist, violence will seep its way into our homes through the television. Some children that see violence on television are pulled into its harmful deceptions of problem solving. Scientists have tried to explain why children are so amused by a big glowing box and the action that takes place within it. Research shows that television is a major source of violence for children. This research shows us that violence appeals to every audience, including children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. One example, from Alabama, was when a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested to one of his friends that he send the teacher poisoned candy as revenge. He had seen the same scenario on television the night before. In California, a 7 year old boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television (Howe 72). Some people might not accept a child’s diversion of blame, but it must be pointed out that all of children claimed to have seen a similar act on television. We should not hold television directly responsible for these acts, but understand that it is television that plants a violent seed in the minds of these children. Some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to such violence might unnaturally speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. This can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures into an adult, he can become bewildered, have a greater distrust towards others, a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become an adult (Carter 14). Others see television as an unhealthy imposition into a child’s learning process, substituting easy pictures for the discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into a hypnotized non-thinker (Langone 48). As you can see, television violence can disrupt a child’s learning and thinking ability, which will cause life long problems. The television violence can cause actual violence in a number of ways.

Heavy Versus Light Reading: The Decipherment of Literary and Non-Liter

Heavy Versus Light Reading: The Decipherment of Literary and Non-Literary Texts In attempting to discriminate between the nature of a "literary" text and a "non-literary" text, a metaphor from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being comes to mind. Especially in considering this same novel in contrast with a novel such as Danielle Steele's Vanished, the idea of lightness versus heaviness presents itself, and with it, a new way of approaching the decipherment of any high/low dichotomy of "literariness". When the "literary" text is imagined as "heavy" and the "non-literary" as "light", an interesting illumination is cast upon the scene, and parallels emerge alongside ideas originally presented in the writings of A. Easthope and Wolfgang Iser. In the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera (in writing a "weighty" novel himself), presents a distinction between the light and the heavy. The lightness of human existence resides in the idea of a life being lived only once - decisions being made only once. The singularity of such an existence seems to render it "unbearably light", or insignificant. An existence which is eternally repeated has, on the contrary, more "weight" to it in its substantive inexhaustibility. There is a seemingly infinite array of different possible choices to be made - multiple paths which could be followed. This "plural" brand of existence seems to carry more significance in its "heaviness". Easthope, in Literary into Cultural Studies, suggests that a high cultural ("literary") text such as Heart of Darkness (or The Unbearable Lightness of Being) possesses certain characteristics whose antitheses are found in a popular ("non-literary") text such as Tarzan (or a novel like Vanished).... ...eaning. Repetition of this kind of heavy reading of a light, insubstantial text, is no more than the repetition of a particular existence - the same life and the same death each time. A reader has one choice to make in experiencing the "non-literary" work: to either read it once (to experience the set lifetime once), or to read it multiple times (to become reincarnated into the same body and destiny time after time). This could very well be the reason that a text which is considered to be "literary" is indeed thought of as better or more fulfilling than a "non-literary" text. It is the "literary" text with all of its afore-mentioned characteristics which makes possible the "reincarnation" of the reader - which carries the potential for a reader to enjoy countless different experiences of lightness, no longer unbearable in such lightness, because of their plurality.

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson - Metamorphosis from Child to Adult Essay

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson - Metamorphosis from Child to Adult Maturity may come at any age and time in a person’s life. One moment he or she may be a carefree child, and then suddenly realize that they have been transformed into a mature adult by a powerful and traumatic experience. An experience they will remember their whole lives. Young David Hayden, the narrator of Montana 1948 by Larry Watson, has a traumatic experience. He discovers that his uncle has been sexually assaulting Native American women in his town. This is a heavy burden for a twelve year old boy, especially since it reveals that his beloved Uncle Frank is the "bad-guy". However, one discovers, as the novel develops, that David matures and grows in order to deal with this situation. He must come to understand what has happened and how the immoral actions of Frank will affect his family and its name. But most importantly, he must know that his integrity will be changed. He will learn shocking things that would mean nothing to a child, but everything to an adult. Lar ry Watson suggests that traumatic experiences transform children into adults. Therefore, disturbing experiences lead to changes of mind, growth in morals, and an emerging sense of adulthood. David changes his mind about Uncle Frank through the traumatic experiences regarding the discovery of Frank’s secret actions. Uncle Frank used to be David’s idol and David adored him. But that all changed when David’s housekeeper and baby sitter, Marie Little Soldier, becomes violently ill and is in need of a doctor. Wes Hayden, David’s father, calls his brother Frank, who is the town doctor, to come and see her. Strangely enough, Marie Little Soldier refuses to be alone in the room with Frank. Later on, Marie tells David’s mother horrible things that Frank has been doing to Native American women. David’s mother, Gail, tells Wes as David overhears. She says, â€Å" ‘Wesley, your brother has been raping these women. These girls. These Indian girls†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ [David states] I was beginning already to think of Uncle Frank as a criminal†¦Charming, affable Uncle Frank was gone for good'; (47, 49). David always thought goodly o f his uncle, until he heard these ghastly statements. All the attractiveness and appeal of Frank dissipated once David learned of his filthy behavior. David knew this information would change him forever. He takes anoth... ...mily and his parents’ well being, emotionally. David exemplifies this and stands by his family when they are in need. He does not desert them or feel shameful. He stays loyal and true to those he cares for and loves. Thus, he has shown his ability to act as an adult would. One can never be too sure when the innocence of childhood is lost, the sure thing is that everyone becomes an adult eventually, and that’s when they lose their innocence. In many cases, this change from child to adult is a harsh one, often it is the realization that the world is not perfect. The shootings at Columbine is just one example. Those children were faced with the severe reality that death does not apply only to older people, but to anyone in the world. This revelation caused many of them to cease their immaturity and become an adult. And it was a very difficult task for many of them. One must be careful for corruption rears its ugly head where you least expect it. The loss of innocence signifies a person’s metamorphosis from a child to an adult. Therefore, it is the events and happenings in life that trigger this change. Work Cited Watson, Larry. Montana 1948. Milkweed (New York)1993

Morality as Anti-Nature Essay

Friedrich Nietzsche stands as one of the philosophers who tackled about the complexities of human existence and its condition. It is noteworthy to state that most of his works made several standpoints to what he refers to as the Ubermensch. The conception of such is designed to inspire the individual to substantiate his existence and rouse his self-overcoming and affirmative character. This can be said to arise from the idea of creating a self through the process of undergoing a destructive condition that enables the self to acquire greater power in relation to others. The development of such a self is dependent upon the recognition of the anti-naturalistic character of morality which he discusses in The Twilight of the Idols in the section entitled â€Å"Morality as Anti-Nature†. Within the aforementioned text, Nietzsche argues that morality hinders the individual from experiencing life as it limits an individual’s freewill thereby in the process leading to the creation of an individual who is incapable of life itself. He states, morality is a â€Å"revolt against life† (2006, p. 467). It is a revolt against life as it is based on the negation of an individual’s basic instinct to act freely in accordance to his passions. According to Nietzsche, this is evident in the case of Christian morality which places emphasis on the control of the passions. Within Christian morality, an individual who is incapable of controlling his passions is considered to be immoral as he is incapable of practicing restraint upon himself. Examples of this are evident if one considers that within Christian morality, to be saintly requires restraining one’s desires and hence one can only follow the path of Christ if one denies all of his desires, the denial of which involves the denial of all worldly things. He states, within the context of this morality â€Å"disciplining†¦has put the emphasis throughout the ages on eradication†¦but attacking the passions at the root means attacking life at the root: the practice of the church is inimical to life (Nietzsche, 2006, p. 66). The practice of the church, its imposition of morality contradicts the essence of life which is the actualization of an individual’s self since it delimits an individual to one particular kind of existence. For example, Christian morality has the Ten Commandments. If an individual follows these commandments, the individual’s spiritual life is ensured in the afterworld. Nietzsche argues that by following these commandments, the individual is at once delimited to one particular form of existence. This does not necessarily mean that Nietzsche applauds acts of murder; he is merely stating that by following moral rules and moral norms the individual is at once preventing himself from the experiencing a particular form of life and hence the actuality of life itself. It is important to note that by presenting a criticism of Christian moral values and moral values in general, Nietzsche does not necessarily prescribe an individual to follow his moral code. In fact one might state that Nietzsche does not possess a moral code. He states, Whenever we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration†¦of life: life forces us to establish values; life itself evaluates through us when we posit values†¦It follows from this that even that anti-nature of a morality which conceives God as the antithesis and condemnation of life is merely a value judgment on the part of life. (Nietzsche, 2006, p. 467) Within this context, Nietzsche recognizes that the anti-nature of morality is a value in itself. It differs however from a moral code since it does not delimit an individual by prescribing actions which he ought and ought not to follow. The importance of the anti-nature of morality lies in its emphasis on the affirmation of the individual. Within the text, Nietzsche claims, â€Å"morality in so far as it condemns†¦is a specific error†¦We seek our honour in being affirmative† (2006, p. 468). It is within this context that one may understand why for Nietzsche; the Ubermensch is an individual whose choices are dependent upon the ends justifying the means since to state that one performs a particular action since the means justifies the end is equivalent to performing a particular action since the act itself adheres to what a particular moral rule considers to be ‘good’. This is evident if one considers that in order for an individual S to consider Q a ‘good’ act wherein Q is good due to P and Q necessarily follows from P, it is necessary for P to be good within the context of a moral norm M. For example, a person may consider giving alms to the poor good since the act of giving alms itself is considered ‘good’ within the context of a particular moral norm. As opposed to the example mentioned above, the Ubermensch acts in accordance to what may be achieved by an act [the end of the act itself] since what the Ubermensch places emphasis on is the joy that may be achieved in the act itself. Alex MacIntyre states, â€Å"joy in the actual and active of every kind constitutes the fundamental end from which Nietzsche develops his critique of morality† (1999, p. 6). Although Nietzsche’s criticism of morality and its constraints upon an individual are valid, it is still impossible to conceive of a world wherein no morality is applied. Within the context of social reality, moral norms function to ensure order within society. Although laws may function by themselves to ensure the order of society, laws themselves are dependent upon a particular moral norm which the society adheres to. References McIntyre, A. (1997). The Sovereignty of Joy: Nietzsche’s Vision of Grand Politics. Toronto: U of Toronto P. Nietzsche, F. (2006). Morality as Anti-Nature. The Nietzsche Reader. Eds. K. Ansell-Pearson & D. Large. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

The Effects of Media on Teenagers

As a teen, I myself think it’s pretty safe to say that TV, as well as movies and other media, are some of our primary sources of information about sex and sexuality. Statistics estimate that the average teen will be exposed to around 15000 references to sex each year on TV. TV shows and movies make it seem normal for teenagers to have sex. And let’s be honest, it probably is. But the fact of the matter is the media has a whole lot of influence over the way we perceive sexuality, and actually a great deal of it comes from the music industry, especially through music videos. You try to think of one song that’s been on MTV music channel, that hasn’t mentioned anything remotely to do with sex or a broken relationship. Now think of one music video you’ve watched on 4music channel that didn’t include one scrap of sexual imagery or expose and focus on a scantily clad female. Yeah, didn’t think you could. What’s worse is that a recent study of video games teenage boys regularly play found that the few female characters in those games are often highly sexualized—wearing tight revealing clothing and having unrealistically large breasts, and unnaturally disfiguring small waists. Is this distorting the way guys view real women? Well, sorry for the wakeup call boys, but you’re in for a shocking discovery. Another study of network television commercials found that nearly one in 4 commercials includes some type of sexual attractiveness as a base for the message. What is going on with the world? Are we so unimaginative we’ve resorted to sexual attraction as a method to persuade people to buy shampoo? Is this nation as gullible to believe that ‘when you buy this insanely expensive bottle of shampoo, you’ll automatically transform from your naught-over-average self into this booby-blonde bimbo who probably eats an average of 200 calories a day’ really? Why don’t we just change it from ‘Advertising Executives’ to freaking ‘Pornography Wholesale’ and be done with it?! Which brings me to another point. Young girls were quoted as saying that they would prefer to have cancer, lose both their parents, or live through a nuclear holocaust than be fat. You might be thinking, ‘Is this a joke? ’ I really wish it was. Because take it from someone who has grown up with only one parent, being fat is the least of your worries. And this problem isn’t limited to just girls, oh no. Because the amount of males with eating disorders has in fact doubled over the past decade. Sorry lads, but you’re not faultless. On the other hand, nobody is. Even the media can’t hide from you that basic fact – the new Rimmel girl, quite frankly, looks almost the double of a frogmouth catfish. Not that they don’t put up a good fight. Take one look at any middle-shelf magazine and you’ll see exactly what every single other woman in the country no doubt sees, – today’s airbrushed perception of the perfect beauty. The elementary trend in the media industry at present is to promote slim, almost unnaturally skinny women’s bodies, and sell it out as the only way to be accepted as beautiful. Women, especially young women, take one look at magazines, TV programmes, movies and other media products and accept this falsified version of a human being, and distressingly of all, believe in it. These images are distinguished in the mind of young women as being a role model to follow, and aspire to be like. Unfortunately girls, attaining this emaciated look doesn’t come naturally (unless you’ve been blessed with an insanely high metabolism – for which, I am extremely resentful), and inevitably leads to exercising some form of diet, excessive amounts of exercise or aberrant eating behaviours. In actual fact, the number of people with some form of eating disorder is triple the amount of people with AIDS. Two in five women have admitted that they were unhappy with their bodies, which means 40% of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. The media does affect us, and there isn’t much we can do about that. What you can do, is stop comparing yourself to the cover models – because they’re not real women. Beauty is natural, not airbrushed, and natural is how you are in yourself – not how you adapt yourself around an image’s expectations.