Marriage
Marriage is a universal human institution which has formed the foundation of the family throughout history. As anthropologist James Q. Wilson said, "In virtually every society, the family is defined by marriage; that is, by a publicly announced contract that makes legitimate the sexual union of a man and a woman." (James. Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense, New York: The Free Press, a Division of Macmillan, Inc., 1993, p. 158.)
Definitions
Marriage is usually understood as a relationship of mutual emotional support, merged economics, a mutually advantageous division of labor, and the procreation of and successful rearing of children. For all these reasons, marriage is predominantly seen as being between one man and one woman. Most of the world's population live in societies where marriages are overwhelmingly heterosexual and monogamous.
In the Christian tradition, a "one man one woman" model for the Christian marriage was advocated by Saint Augustine (354-439 C.E.) with his published letter "The Good of Marriage." Sermons from St. Augustine's letters were popular and influential. In 534 C.E. Roman Emperor Justinian criminalized all but monogamous man/woman sex within the confines of marriage. The Justinian Code was the basis of European law for 1,000 years. Christianity has continued to insist on monogamy as an essential of marriage.
Globally, most existing societies have embraced monogamy as the norm for marriage. However, most societies have at least some history of allowing polygamy and some still do. Polygamy has usually been limited to polygyny—multiple wives—as opposed to polyandry—multiple husbands. In fact, polyandry is almost non-existent in history. The prevalence of polygyny can probably be explained by the need to ensure many offspring.
The State of Matrimony
In modern times, the term marriage is generally reserved for a union that is formally recognized by the state (although some people disagree). The phrase legally married can be used to emphasize this point. In the United States there are two methods of receiving state recognition of a marriage: obtaining a marriage license and common law marriage. The majority of U.S. states do not recognize common law marriage. Many localities do support various types of domestic partnerships. The term wedlock is a synonym for marriage, and is mainly used in the phrase "out of wedlock" to describe a child born of parents who were not married (see illegitimacy).
Many societies require official approval of a religious or civil body for marriage. Sociologists thus distinguish between a marriage ceremony conducted under the auspices of a religion and a state-authorised civil marriage.
In many jurisdictions the civil marriage ceremony may take place during the religious marriage ceremony, although they are theoretically distinct. In most American states, the marriage may be officiated by a priest, minister, or religious authority, and in such a case the religious authority acts simultaneously as an agent of the state. In some countries such as France, Germany and Russia, it is necessary to be married by the state before having a religious ceremony. Some states allow civil marriages in circumstances which are not allowed by many religions, such as same-sex marriages or civil unions, and marriage may also be created by the operation of the law alone as in common-law marriage, which is a judicial recognition that two people living as domestic partners are entitled to the effects of marriage. Conversely, there are examples of people who have a religious ceremony that is not recognized by the civil authorities. Examples include widows who stand to lose a pension if they remarry and so undergo a marriage in the eyes of God, homosexual couples, some sects of Mormonism which recognize polygamy, retired couples who would lose pension benefits if legally married, Muslim men who wish to engage in polygamy that is condoned in some situations under Islam, and immigrants who do not wish to alert the immigration authorities that they are married either to a spouse they are leaving behind or because the complexity of immigration laws may make it difficult for spouses to visit on a tourist visa.
In Europe it has traditionally been the churches' office to make marriages official by registering them. Hence, it was a significant step towards a clear separation of church and state and also an intended and effective weakening of the Christian churches' role in Germany, when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the Zivilehe (civil marriage) in 1875. This law made the declaration of the marriage before an official clerk of the civil administration (both spouses affirming their will to marry) the procedure to make a marriage legally valid and effective, and it reduced the clerical marriage to a mere private ceremony.
Weddings
The ceremony in which a marriage is enacted and announced to the community is called a wedding. A wedding in which a couple marry in the "eyes of the law" is called a civil marriage. Religions also facilitate weddings, in the "eyes of God." In many European and some Latin American countries, where someone chooses a religious ceremony, they must also hold that ceremony separate from the civil ceremony. Certain countries, like Belgium and the Netherlands even legally demand that the civil marriage has to take place before any religious marriage. In some countries, notably the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Spain both ceremonies can be held together; the officiant at the religious and community ceremony also serves as an agent of the state to enact the civil marriage. That does not mean that the state is "recognizing" religious marriages; the "civil" ceremony just takes place at the same time as the religious ceremony. Often this involves simply signing a register during the religious ceremony. If that civil element of the full ceremony is left out for any reason, in the eyes of the law no marriage took place, irrespective of the holding of the religious ceremony.
Some countries, such as Australia, permit marriages to be held in private and at any location, others, including England, require that the civil ceremony be conducted in a place specially sanctioned by law (ie. a church or registry office), and be open to the public. An exception can be made in the case of marriage by special emergency licence, which is normally granted only when one of the parties is terminally ill. Rules about where and when persons can marry vary from place to place. Some regulations require that one of the parties reside in the locality of the registry office.
The way in which a marriage is enacted has changed over time, as has the institution of marriage itself. In Europe during the Middle Ages, marriage was enacted by the couple promising verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or other witnesses was not required if circumstances prevented it. This promise was known as the "verbum". As part of the Reformation, the role of recording marriages and setting the rules for marriage passed to the state. By the 1600s many of the Protestant European countries had heavy state involvement in marriage.
Termination
Many societies provide for the termination of marriage through divorce. Marriages can also be annulled or cancelled, which is a legal proceeding that establishes that a marriage was invalid from its beginning.
Rights and obligations relating to marriage
Typically, marriage is the institution through which people join together their lives in emotional and economic ways through forming a household. It often confers rights and obligations with respect to raising children, holding property, sexual behavior, kinship ties, tribal membership, relationship to society, inheritance, emotional intimacy, and love.
Marriage sometimes: establishes the legal father of a woman's child; establishes the legal mother of a man's child; gives the husband or his family control over the wife's sexual services, labor, and/or property; gives the wife or her family control over the husband's sexual services, labor, and/or property; establishes a joint fund of property for the benefit of children; establishes a relationship between the families of the husband and wife. No society does all of these; no one of these is universal (see Edmund Leach's article in "Marriage, Family, and Residence," edited by Paul Bohannan and John Middleton).
Marriage has traditionally been a prerequisite for starting a family, which usually serves as the building block of a community and society. Thus, marriage not only serves the interests of the two individuals, but also the interests of their children and the society of which they are a part.
In most of the world's major religions, marriage is traditionally a prerequisite for sexual intercourse: unmarried people are not supposed to have sex, which is then called fornication and is socially discouraged or even criminalized. Sex with a married person other than one's spouse, called adultery, is even less acceptable and has also often been criminalized, especially in the case of a person who is a representative of the government (e.g. president, prime minister, political representative, public-school teacher, military officer).
Marriage and religion
- Main article: Religious aspects of marriage
Many religions have extensive teachings regarding marriage. Most Christian churches give some form of blessing to a marriage; the wedding ceremony typically includes some sort of pledge by the community to support the couple's relationship. In the Roman Catholic Church "Holy Matrimony" is considered to be one of the seven sacraments and has been snce the 12th century. This is true of other Orthodoxies as well, where marriage is defined as a relationship between a man and a woman. The Protestant Reformation reformulated marriage as a life-long covenant. In Catholic marriages, the sacrament is one that the spouses bestow upon each other in front of a priest and members of the community as witnesses during a "Nuptial Mass". In the Eastern Orthodox church, it is one of the Mysteries, and is seen as an ordination and a martyrdom. In marriage, Christians see a picture of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. In Judaism, marriage is viewed as a coming together of two families, therefore prolonging the religion and cultural heritage of the Jewish people. Islam also recommends marriage highly; among other things, it helps in the pursuit of spiritual perfection. The Bahá'í Faith sees marriage as a foundation of the structure of society, and considers it both a physical and spiritual bond that endures into the afterlife. Hinduism sees marriage as a sacred duty that entails both religious and social obligations. By contrast, Buddhism does not encourage or discourage marriage, although it does teach how one might live a happily married life.
Protestants believe that marriage is a lifetime commitment and should not be entered into lightly. God created the institution of marriage when He gave the first woman to the first man. Marriage can only be the union of one man and one woman. The Bible states in Genesis 2:24 (ESV), “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Marriage is to be a union of mutual love and support. Though the wife is commanded to submit to her husband, the husband is commanded to love his wife even to the point of giving up his life for her. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5:22-31 (ESV), “ Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
It's also worth noting that different religions have different beliefs as regards the breakup of marriage. For example, the Roman Catholic Church does not permit divorce, because in its eyes, a marriage is forged by God. The Church states that what God joins together, humans cannot sunder. As a result, people who get a civil divorce are still considered married in the eyes of the Catholic Church, which does not allow them to remarry, even if they are allowed a civil marriage. In some special cases, however, Catholics can be permitted an annulment. With a nullity, religions and the state often apply different rules, meaning that a couple, for example, could receive a divorce from the state and not have their marriage annulled by the Catholic Church because the state disagrees with the church over whether an annulment could be granted in a particular case. This produces the phenomenon of Catholics getting Church annulments simultaneously with state divorces, allowing the ex-partners to marry other people in the eyes of both the Church and the State.
Islam does allow divorce; however, there is a verse stated in the Qur'an describing divorce as the least desirable act allowed between people. The general rule is for a man to allow his wife to stay until the end of her menstrual period or for 3 months if she so wishes after the divorce. During this period they would be divorced in that they would simply be living under the same roof but not functioning as man and wife. The Qur'an scholars suggest that the main point is to prevent any decisions by the woman from being affected by hormonal fluctuations as well as to allow any heated arguments or differences to be resolved in a civil manner before the marriage is completely terminated. However, there is no obligation on the woman to stay, if she so wishes she may leave. The man is also obligated to give his wife a gift or monetary sum equivalent to at least half her mahr (gift or monetary sum which is given to the wife at the commencement of the marriage). Specific conditions as to how a divorce is conducted also apply if a woman is pregnant, or has given birth just prior to the divorce.
refer Qur'an 2:228-232, 236, 237, 241 and 65:1-7. See also 4:35.
Marriages are typically entered into with a vow that explicit limits the duration of the marriage with the statement "till death do you part". However, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have a distinctive view of marriage called Celestial marriage, wherein they believe that individuals that are worthy can enter into a marriage relationship that can endure beyond death. This is documented in their Proclamation On The Family. The Unification Church also asserts that marriage is eternal.
Marriage and economics
The economics of marriage have changed over time. Historically, in many cultures the family of the bride had to provide a dowry to pay a man for marrying their daughter. In other cultures, the family of the groom had to pay a bride price to the bride's family for the right to marry the daughter. In some cultures, dowries and bride prices are still demanded today. In both cases, the financial transaction takes place between the groom (or his family) and the bride's family; the bride has no part in the transaction and often no choice in whether or not to participate in the marriage.
In many modern legal systems, two people who marry have the choice between keeping their property separate or combining their property. In the latter case, called community property, when the marriage ends by divorce each owns half; if one partner dies the surviving partner owns half and for the other half inheritance rules apply.
In some legal systems, the partners in a marriage are "jointly liable" for the debts of the marriage. This has a basis in a traditional legal notion called the "Doctrine of Necessaties" whereby a husband was responsible to provide necessary things for his wife. Where this is the case, one partner may be sued to collect a debt for which they did not expressly contract. Critics of this practice note that debt collection agencies can abuse this claiming an unreasonably wide range of debts to be expenses of the marriage. The cost of defense and the burden of proof is then placed on the non-contracting party to prove that the expense is not a debt of the family.
The respective maintenance obligations, during and eventually after a marriage, are regulated in most jurisdictions; see alimony.
Whom One May Marry—Exogamy and Endogamy
Societies have always placed restrictions on marriage to close relatives, though the degree of prohibited relationship varies widely. In almost all societies, marriage between brothers and sisters is forbidden, with Ancient Egyptian, Hawaiian, and Inca royalty being the rare exception. In many societies, marriage between some first cousins is preferred, while at the other extreme, the medieval Catholic church prohibited marriage even between distant cousins. The present day Catholic Church still maintains a standard of required distance (in both consanguinity and affinity) for marriage. Genetically, these practices have proven to be healthy for society.
In Indian Hindu community, especially in the Brahmin caste, marrying a person of the same Gothra is prohibited, since persons belonging to the same Gothra are said to have identical patrilineal descension. In ancient India when Gurukul was in existence, the shishyas (the pupils) were advised against marrying any of Guru's children as shishyas were considered Guru's children and it would be considered marriage among siblings (though there were exceptions like Arjuna's son Abhimanyu marrying Uttra, the dance student of Arjuna in Mahabharatha).
Many societies have also adopted other restrictions on whom one can marry, such as prohibitions on marrying persons with the same surname, or persons with the same sacred animal. In Uganda, people are exhorted to marry outside of their own clan. In South Koreait is generally considered taboo for a man to marry a woman if they both have the same last name. A large percentage of the total South Korean population have the surname "Kim" (an estimated 20%; rendering 20% of the Korean population ineligible for marriage).
Anthropologists refer to these sort of restrictions as exogamy. One exception to this pattern is in ancient Egypt, where marriage between brothers and sisters was permitted in the royal family; this privilege was denied commoners and may have served to concentrate wealth and power in one family (See also incest). The consequence of the incest taboo is exogamy, the requirement to marry someone from another group. Anthropologists have thus pointed out that the incest taboo may serve to promote social solidarity.
Societies have also at times required marriage from within a certain group. Anthropologists refer to these restrictions as endogamy. An example of such restrictions would be a requirement to marry someone from the same tribe. Racist laws adopted by some societies in the past, such as Nazi-era Germany, apartheid-era South Africa and most of the southern United States and Utah prior to 1967, which prohibited marriage between persons of different races (miscegenation) could also be considered examples of endogamy.
Love and Marriage
Most cultures agree that love in marriage is desirable and important. The question of when and how love enters a marriage is less agreed upon. In the Western romantic tradition, a couple meet, fall in love, and marry on the basis of their love. In many Eastern cultures, the marriage between a man and a woman is arranged by parents, elders, religious leaders, or by consensus. It is expected that if both parties live up to their obligations and practice their religion faithfully enough throughout the marriage, love will grow up between them.
Arranged marriages have been practised in many parts of the world and continue to be practiced among Hindus and Orthodox Jews. In the Americas and Europe, in the 21st century, the prevailing view toward marriage today and for many centuries has been that it should be based on emotional attachment between the partners and entered into voluntarily.
The idea of marriage being based upon emotional attachment, however, allows for divorce and remarriage to be easily undertaken when emotional attachment has changed or faded. It has led to a prevalence of what is called "serial monogamy." Serial monogamy involves entering into successive marriages over time. Serial monogamy is not looked upon with the same favor as lifelong marriage to one partner; however, it is considered morally preferable to sex outside of marriage, which is generally frowned upon, whether it is adulterous or premarital.
Cultures that aspire to create relationships after couples marry are those with institutionalized practices of arranged marriages. Cultures that think that marriages should only be tried once a short-term compatibility already exists adopt romantic marriages.
Those who believe in romantic marriage will often criticize arranged marriages, even expressing horror at the idea. They consider it oppressive, inhuman, or immoral. Defenders of arranged marriage disagree, often pointing to cultures where the success rate of arranged marriages is seen to be high, and holding that nearly all couples learn to love and care for each other deeply.
Those who uphold arranged marriage frequently state that it is traditional, that it upholds social morals, and that it is good for the families involved as there is widespread acceptance of the marriage and an understanding that the marriage is between two families, not only two individuals. They also have some traditional criticisms of romantic marriage, saying that it is short-term, overly based on sexual lust, or immoral. Questioned about such practices, young people participating in arranged marriages often express trust in their parents, who love them and want the best for them and who will choose a good partner for them. They also point to the high divorce rate in Western romantic marriages.
Defenders of romantic marriage would hold that it is preferable to achieve an emotional bond before entering into a lifelong commitment. They speak of the mysterious quality of love that cannot be defined, contained, forced or manufactured. Compatibility is emphasized, which may be where the idea of "trial marriages"—cohabitation undertaken to test out a couple's compatibility, including sexual compatibility—developed from.
A recent study found a strong correlation between altruistic love and marital love. The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conducted a comprehensive, nationwide, scientific study in their General Social Survey, entitled "Altruism and Empathy in America: Trends and Correlates." The author was the Director of the General Social Survey, Tom W. Smith. The findings of the study indicated that people who have strong altruistic feelings toward others in general enjoy "very happy" marriages. Those who cultivate an altruistic, even self-sacrificing, attitude toward their spouses also report "very happy" marriages. The study points out that marital love is both built upon and fosters altruistic love—an idea that the study pooints out is common in many religions. These findings would seem to affirm the idea in arranged marriages that if the partners practice and uphold the tenets of their religion—most of which emphasize altruistic love—they will grow together in love for one another as well.
Challenges to Traditional Assumptions about Marriage
Since the later decades of the 20th century many traditional assumptions about the nature, purpose, and definition of marriage and family have been challenged. These challenges ran parallel to dramatic increases in divorce (6% to over 40% of first marriages), cohabitation without marriage, a growing unmarried population, and children born outside of marriage (5% to over 33% of births), as well as an increase in adultery (8% to over 40%).
Some people have argued that marriage may be an unnecessary legal fiction—the proverbial "piece of paper"—and that living together is just as viable an option for men and women who wish to have a sexual relationship. Cohabitation is on the rise worldwide. Studies show, however, that marriage differs considerably from cohabitation. People who live together before they marry are much more likely to divorce later on than people who did not live together before their marriage. In some countries, like Sweden, the divorce rate for women who cohabited before marriage is 80% higher than for women who did not cohabit before marriage. (Neil G. Bennett, Ann Kilmas Blanc, and David E. Bloom, "Commitment and the Modern Union: Assessing the Link between Premarital Cohabition and Subsequent Marital Stability, American Sociological Review 53 (1988); 127-38)These findings have been repeated in other countries as well. What is more, cohabitation does not bring the same benefits to children's well-being as marriage does. In England, one study showed that children who lived with cohabiting rather than married parents are twenty times more likely to become victims of child abuse. (Robert Whelan, "Broken Homes and Battered Children" (London: Family Education Trust, 1993). Children of cohabiting couples also experience more poverty and disruption in their future relationships.
Feminists have argued that marriage was part of patriarchy and designed to oppress and abuse women. Some social scientists agreed, seeing traditional marriages and the families formed under them as dysfunctional almost by definition. Divorce was seen as a step toward liberation. Yet in fact, modern women and their children are far more likely to be abused in a cohabitation situation or by members of a stepfamily they have become part of after a divorce. The data pouring in, even through some former advocates of "no-fault" divorce like Judith Wallerstein, strongly show that children's well-being depends heavily upon the long-term, committed involvement of their biological parents with one another and with them. There is a growing consensus among social scientists that society cannot exist without a substantial mass of intact marriages and families built on the traditional model—that is, mutually monogamous marriage between one man and one woman who then care for and raise their children together.
There is, no doubt, much truth to the criticism that marriage was part of the general oppression of women. In many areas of the world, when a woman was in her early teens her father arranged a marriage for her in return for a bride price, sometimes to a man twice her age who was a stranger to her. Her older husband then became her guardian and she could be cut off almost completely from her family. The woman had little or no say in the marriage negotiations, which might even have occurred without her knowledge.
Some traditions allowed a woman who failed to bear a son to be given back to her father. This reflected the importance of bearing children and extending the family to succeeding generations.
Often both parties have expected to be virgins before their marriage, but in many cultures women were more strictly held to this standard. One old tradition in Europe, which survived into the twentieth century in rural Greece, was for this to be proven by hanging the bloody bed sheet from the wedding night from the side of the house. Similarly, sexual fidelity is very often expected in marriage, but sometimes the expectations and penalties for women have been harsher than those for men.
In some traditions marriage could be a traumatic, unpleasant turn of events for a girl. "The Lot of Women" written in Athens in the mid 5th century B.C.E. laments this situation:
- Young women, in my opinion, have the sweetest existence known to mortals in their father's homes, for their innocence always keeps children safe and happy. But when we reach puberty and can understand, we are thrust out and sold away from our ancestral gods and from our parents. Some go to strange men's homes, others to foreigner's, some to joyless houses, some to hostile. And all this once the first night has yoked us to our husband we are forced to praise and say that all is well.
On the other hand, marriage has often served to assure the woman of her husband's continued support and enabled her to focus more attention on the raising of her children. This security has typically been greater when and where divorce has been more difficult to obtain.
Some people have chafed under the constraints of monogamy and advocated "open marriages" or "swinging" as an alternative to traditional marriage. They have agreements with their spouses that permit other intimate relationships or sexual partners without considering this the abrogation of the marriage. However, as psychologist Carl Rogers noted and James Q. Wilson also stressed, dealing with such arrangements without jealousy, emotional pain, and severe misunderstandings is highly problematic for most people.
Gay rights advocacy groups have disagreed with the notion that marriage should be exclusively between a man and a woman. Due to their lobbying efforts,same-sex marriageare now legal in some countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada (and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Same-sex unions have been recorded in the history of a number of cultures, but marriages or socially-accepted unions between same-sex partners were rare or nonexistent in other cultures. Same-sex marriage remains infrequent worldwide.
"Civil unions" are recognized in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Germany, France, Portugal, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. states of Vermont and Connecticut. Legal challenges to marriage restrictions may soon expand the recognition of same-sex marriages to Washington, New York, and other states.
A growing number of American states and various localities, such as Maine, recognize domestic partnerships, which offer parity of spousal rights, to different degrees, with marriage.
These developments have created a political backlash, most notably in Great Britain, where the Church of England has officially banned gay marriage, and in the United States, where several states have specifically outlawed gay marriage, often by popular referenda.
At the United States federal level, the Defense of Marriage Act has created a federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, as well as allowing one state not to recognize a same sex marriage recognized by another state. Arguments have been made that the DOMA conflicts with the United States Constitution, and could conceivably be overturned on this basis. To ensure this does not happen, some, including President George W. Bush, support amending the Federal Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. There is an increasing tendency among lawmakers, both liberal and conservative, to support the time-honored idea that marriage takes place solely between a man and a woman.
External links
- The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University
Sources
Linda J. Waite and Maggied Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New York: Doubleday, 2000)
James Q. WIlson, The Marriage Problem(New York: HarperCollins, 2002)
