Rites of Passage

Key Issues

Titles

• Believing in God
• Celebration
• choice, personal and corporate identity
• Hindu Family Relationships
• Hindu Rites of Passage
• innocent suffering and the concept of evil
• Lifestyle and Social Practices
• Living the Hindu Life
• love, marriage and divorce
• Marriage and the Family
• Matters of Life and Death
• medical ethics and the sanctity of life
• Morality
• RELIGION AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
• RELIGION AND MEDICAL ETHICS
• Religion in the Community and the Family

Chapters

• Arranged marriages
• beliefs about death and dying
• Birth and childhood: mundan (shaving)
• Birth and childhood: Nam Samskar (naming)
• birth rites and the nurture of the young
• Changing attitudes in the United Kingdom to cohabitation
• Changing attitudes in the United Kingdom to marriage
• Changing attitudes to divorce in the United Kingdom. Differences among Hindus in their attitudes to divorce including the reasons for the attitudes
• Changing attitudes to homosexuality in the United Kingdom. Hindu attitudes to homosexuality, including the reasons for the attitudes
• consideration of the ceremonies which mark these events (samskaras)
• Contraception allowed; social and economic factors more influential than religious
• Death rites, including shraddha rites
• Death: cremation and associated rituals
• Differences among Hindus in their attitudes to contraception, and the reasons for those attitudes
• Differences among Hindus in their attitudes to life after death (moksha)
• Differences among Hindus in their attitudes to life after death (reincarnation)
• Differences among Hindus in their attitudes to relationships between the sexes and sex outside marriage (pre-marital sex, promiscuity and adultery), including the reasons for the attitudes
• Divorce permitted but uncommon
• funeral rites
• Hindu attitudes to adultery
• Hindu attitudes to birth control
• Hindu attitudes to divorce
• Hindu attitudes to family life: the roles, rights and duties of children
• Hindu attitudes to family life: the roles, rights and duties of men
• Hindu attitudes to homosexuality
• Hindu attitudes to marriage outside one's caste
• Hindu attitudes to pre-marital sex
• Hindu attitudes to purpose of sex
• Hindu attitudes to remarriage
• Hindu attitudes to separation
• Hindu attitudes to the nature and purpose of marriage
• Hindu beliefs about contraception
• Hindu beliefs about sexual relationships
• Hindu beliefs about the ethics of divorce
• Hindu marriage ceremonies, and the ways in which these reflect and emphasise Hindu views about marriage
• Hindu responses to issues raised by fertility treatment
• Hindu teachings on family life and its importance
• How religious upbringing in a Hindu family and community can lead to or support belief in God
• Initiation: Upanayana (sacred thread ceremony)
• life after death
• Life journey: the arranged marriage
• Love marriages
• Marriage and divorce
• Marriage rites
• Marriage: betrothal and ceremony
• mundar upanayana
• Nam samskara
• Naming ceremonies
• Pre-marital relationships strictly regulated by family
• Problems of male inheritance with use of IVF
• Reasons for belief in life after death not specific to any religion including near-death experiences and the paranormal
• Samskars and the values they represent with particular reference to cremation
• Samskars and the values they represent with particular reference to the rites of naming
• Samskars and the values they represent with particular reference to the sacred thread
• Shiva as symbolic of death and rebirth
• The changing nature of family life (nuclear family, extended family, re-constituted family) in the United Kingdom
• The importance of the family
• the marriage ceremony
• The purposes of marriage in Hinduism including the main features of a Hindu marriage ceremony (havan, saptapadi, grihastha ashrama)
• the role of the family
• The roles of men within a Hindu family
• the sacred thread ceremony
• The sacred-thread ceremony
• The samskara of commitments (artha)
• The samskara of commitments (dharma)
• The samskara of commitments (kama)
• The samskara of marriage ritual
• the significance of the events (samskaras) for Hindus
• the ways in which the ceremonies which mark these events (samskaras) reflect Hindu belief
• Why Hindus believe in life after death
• Why some people do not believe in life after death