Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions Read Online Free PDF

and households.
    Eleventh, most of these religions reinforced intergenerational honor and obligations, but they differed in degree and manner of this reinforcement. Confucianism and Hinduism gave special emphasis to this value, and Buddhism, which inherited many of its family values from Hinduism, followed suit, even though it also saw family as a distraction from higher spiritual pursuits. Even though Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all emphasized honoring parents (father and mother), Christianity warned that family obligations could conflict with the will of God and the demands of the kingdom.
    Twelfth, these religions differ considerably on their respective views of sexuality and the erotic. Although all of these religions see sexuality as a potentially unruly force in human affairs, all affirm its rightful place when guided by certain constraints. They all viewed marriage, with few exceptions, as one of the most important such constraints, though this was no substitute for personal sexual discipline. Within marriage religions varied with regard to their appreciation for erotic enjoyment, with Islam and perhaps Hinduism being the most forthright in their affirmation, but Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism never completely losing an understanding of the role of mutual sexual satisfaction in marriage.
    Thirteenth, each tradition kept an ample roll of sexual sins or crimes— incest, bestiality, sodomy, rape, and pedophilia being the most commonly pro-xxvi introduction hibited, with more variant treatment of concubinage, prostitution, and mastur-bation. A growing conflict in many religious communities today, particularly in North America and Western Europe, is whether to retain traditional prohibi-tions against homosexuality. Some denominations within western Christianity are now experimenting with the legitimation of same-sex unions, and comparable experiments are afoot in small segments of western communities of Judaism and Hinduism.
    Fourteenth, each tradition draws a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Legitimate children are those born to a lawfully married couple. Illegitimate children are those born outside of lawful marriage—products of adultery, fornication, concubinage, rape, incest, and in some communities products of illicit relations between parties of different castes, races, or religions. Illegitimate children were historically stigmatized, sometimes se-verely, and formally precluded from holding or inheriting property, gaining various political, religious, or social positions, and attaining a variety of other public or private rights. In western societies, as well as in modern-day Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, and parts of southeast Asia, illegitimate children have gained constitutional protections and state welfare provisions and have benefited from the expansion of adoption. But in some Islamic, Hindu, and Confucian communities illegitimate children and their mothers still suffer ample social stigmatization, and they are still sometimes sentenced to “honor kill-ings” or mandatory abortions or infanticide.
    Fifteenth, these traditions varied in their handling of sex, marriage, and family depending on whether they perceived themselves to be a majority or minority religion. Judaism since the diaspora has viewed itself as a minority religion, and this affected some of its perspectives on sexual issues, especially in contrast to the official views of the state or the dominant religion. Buddhism has seldom viewed itself as a dominant religion within a particular territory or state. On the other hand, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism have all perceived their traditions at various times to be dominant religions, and this has affected the range of issues in sex, marriage, and family that they addressed. As majorities these groups have often looked to the state to implement their basic teaching on sex, marriage, and family. In the twentieth century