CQUniversity Australia
 

Engaging Indigenous people within Higher Ed

CQUniversity's Office of Indigenous Engagement recently hosted a visit from the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), at Rockhampton Campus.

Professor Anita Lee Hong, Director of the Oodgeroo Unit, and Lone Pearce, Project Officer, met with Office of Indigenous Engagement staff to discuss employment issues and best practice models for engaging Indigenous people within the higher education sector, including governance matters.

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Family expert gives insight into the history of marriage 

Published on 29 January, 2007 

Noted American authority on the contemporary family, Stephanie Coontz, provided a historical backdrop for the challenges and changes facing modern day family life at a public seminar held at CQU Gladstone over the weekend.

According to Ms Coontz, families around the world are facing similar changes, although in different forms.

PhotoID:3662 Ms Coontz said that around the world and across history the reasons why people get married and how they make that marriage successful have changed.

“For most of our history, marriage was not a relationship based on mutual love between a breadwinning husband and an at-home wife, but an institution devoted to acquiring wealth, power, and property,” said Ms Coontz.

“Picking a mate on the basis of something as irrational as love would have been considered absurd".

Through research for her latest book, 'Marriage, a History', Stephanie found women in the workforce are not a new phenomenon.

“Women have always done equal work (on farms and in business) but they have not always had equal rights to control income,” said Ms Coontz.

“Up until the 1970s, there were still head and master laws giving the males the right to control the relationship".

Ms Coontz said marriage has changed more in the last 30 years than in the previous 5000, and few of the old "rules" still apply.

“Relationships can’t be based on stereotypes any more,” said Ms Coontz.

“We have to work harder at achieving equality and negotiate the roles in a relationship".

PhotoID:3663 There has also been a change in the time it takes to move into independent adulthood. Parents are now spending more time with their children, supporting them economically through university and providing for them for longer, said Ms Coontz.

Stephanie believes that people need to understand and accept the historical sea change that is occurring in marriage and family life.

“We need to embrace the new options open to us and accept the challenges ahead without trying to revert to a past that never really existed,” said Ms Coontz.

Stephanie was in Australia to visit Heron Island on a recommendation of her father who first visited 25 years ago.

This is her third visit to Australia and she said she would love to come back again.