Marriage

For the music record label, see Marriage Records.

Marriage is a personal union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is called a wedding and the status created is sometimes called wedlock.

Marriage is an institution in which interpersonal relationships (usually intimate and sexual) are sanctioned with governmental, social, or religious recognition. It is often created by a contract or through civil processes. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution, in accordance with marriage laws of the land. If recognized by the State, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong and/or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal status of the individuals in the eyes of those authorities that recognize it.

People marry for many reasons, but usually one or more of the following: legal, social, and economic stability; the formation of a family unit; procreation and the education and nurturing of children; legitimizing sexual relations; public declaration of love; or to obtain citizenship.

Marriage may take many forms: for example, a union between one man and one woman as husband and wife is a monogamous heterosexual marriage; polygamy — in which a person takes more than one spouse — is common in many societies; and, in some jurisdictions and denominations, a same-sex marriage unites people of the same sex.

A marriage is often declared by a wedding ceremony, which may be performed either by a religious officiant, by a secular government-sanctioned officiator, or (in weddings that have no church or state affiliation) by a trusted friend of the wedding participants. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved and, in many societies, their extended families.

Finding a partner

A marriage partner may be found by the person wishing to be married through the process of courtship. Alternatively, marriages may be arranged by an outside party. This is known as an arranged marriage.

Typically an arranged marriage will be finalized only if the candidates approve of the union. Parents sometimes enforce arranged marriages on their children because of cultural tradition or for some other special reason (e.g., dowry). Sometimes a person seeking marriage is comfortable with having his or her marriage arranged and, even disregarding parental preference, would freely choose an arranged marriage. Forced marriage is common in only a few communities and often attracts harsh criticism even from people who are generally in favor of arranged marriage.

Arranged marriage

Main article: arranged marriage

An arranged marriage between Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain

A pragmatic (or 'arranged') marriage is made easier by formal procedures of family or group politics. A responsible authority sets up or encourages the marriage; they may, indeed, engage a professional matchmaker to find a suitable spouse for an unmarried person. The authority figure could be parents, family, a religious official, or a group consensus.

In some cases, the authority figure may choose a match for purposes other than marital harmony. Some of the most popular uses of arranged marriage are for dowry or immigration.

Though now a rarity in Western countries, arranged marriages in countries such as India are still prevalent today. In rural villages, the marriage of a child often has much to do with family property. Parents adopt the practice of child marriage and arrange the wedding, sometimes even before the child is born (though this practice was made illegal by the Child Marriage Restraint Act of the Indian Government). In urban India, people use thriving institutions known as Marriage Bureaus or Matrimonials Sites, where candidates register themselves for small fees. A related form of pragmatic marriage, sometimes called a marriage of convenience, involves immigration laws. According to one publisher of information about "green card" marriages, "Every year over 450,000 United States citizens marry foreign-born individuals and petition for them to obtain a permanent residency (Green Card) in the United States." While this is likely an over-estimate, in 2003 alone 184,741 immigrants were admitted to the U.S. as spouses of U.S. citizens.

Marriage in Europe

A woodcut of a medieval wedding ceremony from Germany.

Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends or religious beliefs concerning the origins of marriage.

No specific civil ceremony was required for the creation of a marriage among the Greeks and Romans; only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard each other as husband and wife accordingly. In Ancient Greece, men usually married when they were in their 30's. They expected their wives to be in their early teens. This age-structured relationship was also prevalent in same-sex relationships among the Ancient Greeks. Married Greek women had few rights in ancient Greek society and were expected to take care of the house and children. There was not as much emphasis on age disparity among the Romans in marriage. The husband was often older than the bride; he might be only two years older but sometimes could be as much as three times her age. Unlike Greek brides, Roman brides had many more rights, especially during the Roman Empire. There were two types of marriages in Roman society. The traditional form was called conventio in manum. In this type of marriage, a woman lost her family rights of inheritance of her old family and gained them with her new one. She now was subject to the authority of her husband.

Alternatively there was the free marriage known as sine manu . In this arrangement the wife remained a member of her original family. She stayed under the authority of her father and kept her family rights of inheritance with her old family, though didn't gain any with the new family. This marriage could simply be annulled by the separation of the couple.

The first recorded use of the word "marriage" for same-sex couples also occurs during the Roman Empire. A number of marriages are recorded to have taken place during this period. In the year 342, the Christian emperors Constantius and Constans declared that same-sex marriage to be illegal. In the year 390, the Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodoisus and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.

In Catholicism, the Council of Trent made the validity of marriage dependent upon its being performed before an ordained member of the clergy and two witnesses. The Council also authorized a Catechism, issued in 1566, which defined marriage as, "The conjugal union of man and woman, contracted between two qualified persons, which obliges them to live together throughout life."

Marriage has changed throughout the history of Europe, in the 1200s in England it was unlawful for a woman younger than 24 years to marry, but this changed, beginning in the 1500s, to 20 years of age.

In the Middle Ages the Church only allowed annulment for consanguinity and adultery but during the reformation, Luther and others made marriage a civil institution instead of a sacramental one. This made way for the rights of women to divorce their husbands for faults such as impotency.

In the United Kingdom, the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 was a statute passed by Parliament that removed the prohibition forbidding a man to marry the sister of his deceased wife.

European monogamy

European culture and the cultures of the Americas, so far as they descend from it, have for the most part defined themselves as monogamous cultures. This stems from Christianity, which has defined the modern religious concept of marriage in Europe since the Middle Ages. However, Roman Law permitted same-sex marriages, prostitution, concubinage, and sexual access to slaves. The Christian West formally banned these practices with laws against same-sex marriage, adultery, fornication, and other relationships outside a monogamous, lifelong covenant.

Recognition

The marriage partners usually seek State, religious and social recognition for their relationship, and many societies require official approval of a religious or civil body. If recognized by the State, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong and/or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal status of the individuals in the eyes of those authorities that recognize it.

Prior to 1545 all Christian marriages in Europe were by consent, with one of the functions of churches being to register marriages, thereby making them official. There was no State involvement in marriage and personal status. It was only after the Council of Trent in 1545 that Roman Catholic marriages required the presence of a priest and two witnesses. This change did not extend to the regions affected by the Protestant Reformation, where marriage by consent continued to be the norm.

In the early modern period, John Calvin and his Protestant colleagues reformulated Christian marriage by enacting the Marriage Ordinance of Geneva, which imposed "The dual requirements of state registration and church consecration to constitute marriage." That was the first State involvement in marriage.

In England and Wales, Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 required a formal ceremony of marriage, thereby curtailing the practice of Fleet Marriage.These were clandestine or irregular marriages performed at Fleet Prison, and at hundreds of other places. From the 1690s until the Marriage Act of 1753 as many as 300,000 clandestine marriages were performed at Fleet Prison alone. The Act required a wedding ceremony to be officiated by an Anglican priest in the Anglican Church and registration.

In Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck created a civil marriage (Zivilehe) in 1875. This law permitted a declaration of the marriage before an official clerk of the civil administration, when both spouses affirm their will to marry, to constitute a legally recognised valid and effective marriage, and reduced the clerical marriage to an optional private ceremony.

In many jurisdictions, a civil marriage may take place as part of the religious marriage ceremony, although they are theoretically distinct. In most American states, a wedding may be officiated by a priest, minister, rabbi or other religious authority, and in such a case the religious authority also acts as an agent of the state. In some countries, such as France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Argentina, Japan and Russia, it is necessary to be married by the State separately from (usually before) any religious ceremony, with the state ceremony being the legally binding one. Some states allow civil marriages in circumstances which are not allowed by particular religions, such as same-sex marriages or civil unions.

Marriage relationships may also be created by the operation of the law alone, as in common-law marriage, sometimes called "marriage by habit and repute." This is a judicial recognition that two people who have been living as domestic partners are subject to the rights and obligations of a legal marriage, even without formally marrying. However, in the UK at least, common-law marriage has been abolished and there are no rights available unless a couple marries or enters into a civil partnership.

Lack of recognition

Normally a marriage entered into in one country will be recognised in other countries. Sometimes, however, a religious ceremony or a marriage entered into in another country is not recognized by the State. (See Marriage (conflict).)

In some cases couples living together do not wish to be recognised as married, such as when pension rights are adversely affected, or because of taxation consideration, or because of immigration issues, and many other reasons.

Rights and obligations

A Ketubah in Aramaic, a Jewish marriage-contract outlining the duties of each partner.

See also: rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States

A marriage, by definition, bestows rights and obligations on the married parties, and sometimes on relatives as well, being the sole mechanism for the creation of affinal ties (in-laws). These may include:

• giving a husband/wife or his/her family control over a spouse’s sexual services, labor, and/or property.
• giving a husband/wife responsibility for a spouse’s debts.
• giving a husband/wife visitation rights when his/her spouse is incarcerated or hospitalized.
• giving a husband/wife control over his/her spouse’s affairs when the spouse is incapacitated.
• establishing the second legal guardian of a parent’s child.
• establishing a joint fund of property for the benefit of children.
• establishing a relationship between the families of the spouses.

These rights and obligations vary considerably between societies, and between groups within society..

Cohabitation

See also: cohabitation

Marriage is an institution which can join together people's lives in a variety of emotional and economic ways.

In many Western cultures, marriage usually leads to the formation of a new household comprising the married couple, with the married couple living together in the same home, often sharing the same bed, but in some other cultures this is not the tradition.

Among the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, residency after marriage is matrilocal, with the husband moving into the household of his wife's mother. Residency after marriage can also be patrilocal or avunculocal.

Also, in southwestern China, walking marriages, in which the husband and wife do not live together, have been a traditional part of the Mosuo culture. Walking marriages have also been increasingly common in modern Beijing. Guo Jianmei, director of the center for women's studies at Beijing University, told a Newsday correspondent, "Walking marriages reflect sweeping changes in Chinese society." A similar arrangement in Saudi Arabia, called misyar marriage, also involves the husband and wife living separately but meeting regularly.

Conversely, marriage is not a prerequisite for cohabitation. In one study, Jay Teachman, a researcher at Western Washington University, studied premarital cohabitation of women who are in a monogamous relationship. Teachman’s study showed "women who are committed to one relationship, who have both premarital sex and cohabit only with the man they eventually marry, have no higher incidence of divorce than women who abstain from premarital sex and cohabitation. For women in this category, premarital sex and cohabitation with their eventual husband are just two more steps in developing a committed, long-term relationship." However, many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably higher chance of eventually breaking up. One reason is that people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more likely to call it quits when problems arise. But in addition, the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent study, for example, suggest "there may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills." (One important exception: cohabiting couples who are already planning to marry each other in the near future have just as good a chance at staying together as couples who don’t live together before marriage).

Sex and procreation

Marriage typically requires consummation by sexual intercourse, and non-consummation (that is, failure or refusal to engage in sex) may be grounds for an annulment.

There are some married couples who remain childless either by choice or due to infertility or other factors preventing conception or bearing of children. In some cultures, marriage imposes an obligation on women to bear children. In northern Ghana, for example, payment of bridewealth signifies a woman's requirement to bear children, and women using birth control face substantial threats of physical abuse and reprisals.

On the other hand, marriage is not a prerequisite for having children, and having children outside of marriage is today not as uncommon as it used to be. In the United States, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that in 1992, 30.1 percent of births were to unmarried women. In 2006, that number had risen to 38.5 percent. Until recently, children born outside of marriage were termed illegitimate and suffered legal disadvantages and social stigma. In recent years the legal relevance of illegitimacy has declined and social acceptance increased, especially in western countries.

Many of the world's major religions look with disfavor on sexual relations outside of marriage. Some teach that sexual relations without marriage is fornication, which is sometimes also socially discouraged or even criminal. Sex with a married person other than one's spouse is called adultery, and is also frequently disapproved by the major world religions, and has often been - in some jurisdictions continues to be - a crime and grounds for divorce. (See adultery.)

Polygamy

Main article: polygamy

See also: forms of nonmonogamy

Polygamous marriage, in which a person is married to more than one spouse at one time, is accepted by many societies, though it is far less common than monogamy. Africa has the highest rate of polygamy in the world. In Senegal, for example, nearly 47 percent of marriages are multiple. Polygamy is normally not permitted in most western countries (see bigamy), though some recognise bona fides polygamous marriages entered into in countries that routinely perform such marriages, such as in a Muslim country.

Polygyny is the typical form of multiple-marriage polygamy, while polyandry is rare. Anthropologists distinguish between multiple-marriage polygamy and group marriage, in which multiple spouses all become married to one another. Group marriage is rare. In the United States, the historic Oneida Colony provides a prominent 19th-century example of a group marriage, though it was not recognised by any civil or seperate religious authority.

Same-sex marriage

Main articles: same-sex marriage and same-sex union

In response to changing social and political climate, some jurisdictions and/or religious denominations now recognize marriages between people of the same sex, some may instead provide civil unions or domestic partnerships, while some explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages. Same-sex marriages have also been recorded in the history of pre-modern Europe.

Denmark was the first country in the modern era (in 1989) to extend the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples under the name of registered partnership. Since 2001, five countries have recognised same-sex marriages for civil purposes, namely the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and South Africa. To avoid the use of the term "marriage", some governments provide civil unions, which are open to couples of the same sex, and in some jurisdictions also to those of opposite sexes who do not want to marry, to confer all or a portion of the benefits of married status. Civil unions (and registered/domestic partnerships) are currently recognized and accepted in approximately 30 out of 193 countries worldwide and in some U.S. states. However, in countries where it has been adopted, applications for marriage licenses have far exceeded governmental estimates of demand. Some jurisdictions, such as the nations of Israel, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles, as well as the U.S. States of New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island, recognize same-sex marriages lawfully entered into in other countries, while not (yet) permitting them to be performed locally.

In addition to civil authorities, some religious denominations ceremonially perform civil unions and same-sex marriages, and recognize them as essentially equivalent to other marriages. For example, Lutheran churches in Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and some Lutheran churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany allow blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples, as do Unitarian Universalist churches.

In the United States, Massachusetts is the only state to recognize same-sex marriage under the name marriage. (In Iowa, a district court that struck down the state's Defense of Marriage Act issued a stay on the ruling the next day, only one same sex couple has been married under Iowa law, and the ruling is currently under consideration by the highest court in Iowa.) The California state supreme court’s decision to overturn a gay marriage ban in May 2008 and subsequent refusal to stay its ruling is expected to make California the second state to permit gay marriage when the ruling takes effect in June. In other states, civil unions or domestic partnerships are available to couples of the same sex, often carrying the same entailments as marriage, under a different name. However, these apply only to benefits under state law, and are not recognized by the U.S. federal government or other states (with a few exceptions).

In Australia, de facto relationships are legally recognized in many, but not all, ways, with some states having registers of de facto relationships, although the federal government has amended existing legislation to specify that only marriages between a man and a woman will be recognized as 'marriages'. . As a result, the Australian Capital Territory's 2006 Bill to give civil unions identical status and processes as registered marriages, was repealed by the federal government before it came into effect.

These developments have created a political and religious reaction in some countries, including in England, where the Church of England, after long debate, officially banned blessings of gay couples by Church of England clergy, and in the United States. In contrast to the three above-mentioned U.S. states where the state constitutions have been found by courts to require equivalent marriage for same-sex couples, several states have specifically defined marriage as between a man and a woman, often after popular referenda, including the state of Mississippi which passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with 86% of the vote supporting that proposition.Template:PDFlink Federally, the U.S. congress has considered, but failed to pass, a Federal Marriage Amendment. In addition, while Lutheran churches in some countries allow blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples, as stated previously, in other countries, (such as Finland) such ceremonies are discouraged and rarely performed by the church.

Marriage restrictions

See also: marriage law

Marriageable age

Main article: marriageable age

The minimum age at which a person is able to lawfully marry, and if parental or other consents are required, vary from country to country.

As early as 1798, Thomas Malthus proposed delaying the age of marriage to alleviate overpopulation.

Gender restrictions

Main articles: same-sex marriage and same-sex unions

Main article: dowry

Some government, social, or religious restrictions exist in some countries on the payment of dowry and on the gender of the couple (see same-sex marriage).

Kinship restrictions

Societies have often placed restrictions on marriage to relatives, though the degree of prohibited relationship varies widely. In most societies, marriage between brothers and sisters has been forbidden, with Ancient Egyptian, Hawaiian, and Inca royalty being prominent exceptions. 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.

Social restrictions

In 2004, the American Anthropological Association released this statement:

The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.

Many societies, even some with a cultural tradition of polygamy, recognize monogamy as the only valid form of marriage. For example, People's Republic of China shifted from allowing polygamy to supporting only monogamy in the Marriage Act of 1953 after the Communist revolution. Polygamy is practiced illegally by some groups in the United States and Canada, primarily by certain Mormon fundamentalist sects that separated from the mainstream Latter Day Saints movement after the practice was renounced in 1890. Many African and Islamic societies still allow polygamy.

Since the later decades of the 20th century, many ideas about the nature and purpose of marriage and family have been challenged in some countries, in particular by LGBT social movements, which argue that marriage should not be exclusively heterosexual. Some people also argue that marriage may be an unnecessary legal fiction. This follows from an overall shift in ideas and practices of family; since World War II, the West has seen a dramatic increase in divorce (6% to over 40% of first marriages), cohabitation without marriage, a growing unmarried population, children born outside of marriage (5% to over 33% of births), and an increase in adultery (8% to over 40%). Consequently, a de facto system of serial monogamy has emerged. On the other hand, demands for same-sex marriage have led to its legalization in six Western countries, and three states in the United States (though only one of these states currently licenses and performs same-sex marriages).

Today, the term marriage is generally reserved for a union that is formally recognized by the government (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 legal recognition of a marriage: common law marriage and obtaining a marriage license. The majority of US states do not recognize common law marriage. Other localities may support various types of domestic partnerships.

In the Indian Hindu community, especially in the Brahmin caste, marrying a person of the same gotra was prohibited, since persons belonging to the same gotra are said to have identical patrilineal descent. In ancient India, when gurukuls existed, the shishyas (pupils) were advised against marrying any of guru's children, as shishyas were also considered the guru's children and it would be considered marriage among siblings. However, there were exceptions, including Arjuna's son Abhimanyu's marriage to Uttra, the dance student of Arjuna in Mahabharata. The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 brought reforms in the area of same-gotra marriages, which were banned prior to the act's passage. Now the Indian constitution allows any consenting adult heterosexual couple (women 18 or older and men 21 or older) from any race, religion, caste, or creed to marry.

Many societies have also adopted other restrictions on whom one can marry, such as prohibitions of marrying persons with the same surname, or persons with the same sacred animal. Anthropologists refer to these sorts of restrictions as exogamy. One example is South Korea's general taboo against a man marrying a woman with the same family name. The most common surname in South Korea is Kim (almost 20%); however, there are several branches (or clans) in the Kim surname. (Korean family names are divided into one or more clans.) Only intra-clan marriages are prohibited, as they are considered one type of exogamy. Thus, many "Kim-Kim" couples can be found.

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 United States in the nineteenth and the first half of the 20th century—which prohibited marriage between persons of different races could also be considered examples of endogamy. In the U.S., many laws banning interracial marriage, which were state laws, were gradually repealed between 1948 and 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court declared all such laws unconstitutional in the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967.

Weddings

Main article: wedding

Couple married in a Shinto ceremony in Takayama, Gifu prefecture.

A marriage may be celebrated with a wedding ceremony, which can be performed by a religious officiator or through a similar government-sanctioned secular process. Despite the ceremony being led by someone else, most religious traditions maintain that the marriage itself is mediated between the two individuals through vows, with the gathered audience witnessing, affirming, and legitimizing the marriage. Marriages are perpetual agreements with legal consequences, terminated only by the death of one party or by formal dissolution processes such as divorce and annulment.

The ceremony in which a marriage is enacted and announced to the community is called a wedding. A wedding in which the participants 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, a religious ceremony must be held separate from the civil ceremony. Certain countries, like Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Turkey, demand that the civil marriage take place before any religious marriage. In some countries — notably the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Norway 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 the civil element of the religious ceremony is omitted, no marriage took place in the eyes of the law.

While 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 (i.e., a church or registry office), and be open to the public. An exception can be made in the case of marriage by special emergency license, 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. This promise was known as the "verbum". If made in the present tense (e.g. "I marry you"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense ("I will marry you"), it would constitute a betrothal, but if the couple proceeded to have sexual relations, the union was a marriage. 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. As part of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church added a requirement of witnesses to the promise, which under normal circumstances had to include the priest.

Marriage and religion

Main article: religious aspects of marriage

Many religions have broad teachings regarding marriage. Most religions have some sort of wedding ceremony recognizing of the beginning of a marriage. Some regard marriage as simply a contract, some regard it as a sacred institution.

Christian wedding in Kyoto, Japan.

Most Christian churches bless the couple being married; the wedding ceremony sometimes involves a pledge by the community to support the couple's relationship. Liturgical Christian communions - notably Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy - consider marriage (sometimes termed holy matrimony) to be an expression of divine grace, termed a sacrament or mystery. In Western ritual, the minstiers of the sacrament are the husband and wife themselves, with a bishop, priest, or deacon merely witnessing the union on behalf of the church, and adding a blessing. In Eastern ritual churches, the bishop or priest functions as the actual minister of the Sacred Mystery (Eastern Orthodox deacons may not perform marriages). Western Christians commonly refer to marriage a vocation, while Eastern Christians consider it an ordination and a martyrdom, though the theological emphases indicated by the various names are not excluded by the teachings of either tradition. Marriage is commonly celebrated in the context of a Eucharistic service (a nuptial Mass or Divine Liturgy). The sacrament of marriage is indicative of the relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:29–32), yet most Reformed Christians would deny the elevation of marriage to the status of a sacrament. Nevertheless it is considered a covenant between spouses before God.

A Jewish wedding, painting by Jozef Israëls, 1903.

In Judaism, marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved. Though procreation is not the sole purpose, a Jewish marriage is also expected to fulfill the commandment to have children. The main focus centers around the relationship between the husband and wife. Kabbalistically, marriage is understood to mean that the husband and wife are merging together into a single soul. This is why a man is considered "incomplete" if he is not married, as his soul is only one part of a larger whole that remains to be unified. See Jewish views of marriage.

A Muslim couple being wed alongside the Tungabhadra River at Hampi, India.

Islam also recommends marriage highly; among other things, it helps in the pursuit of spiritual perfection. Age of marriage is whenever the individuals feel ready, financially and emotionally, for marriage. It should also be noted that in Islam, marriage is not a religious concept as it is in many religions, but a civil contract between a man and a woman.

According to Shia Islam marriage doesn't need any witness or official statement or presence in a definite place and its sufficient that man and woman intend to marry with each other and say specific words to each other which led to a religious contract between them and a couple can live with each other as a family without official contract. Of course there are some criteria which should be observed for example woman should be single.

Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, recommended that people marry as an assistance to themselves in their well-being, but did not make it obligatory; he explained that it is both a physical and spiritual bond that endures into the afterlife. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the religion, stated that marriage is a foundation for the structure of human society. A Bahá'í marriage requires the consent of the couple, and then of all living parents, as to strengthen the ties between the families and avoid enmity.

Hindu marriage ceremony from a Rajput wedding.

Hinduism sees marriage as a sacred duty that entails both religious and social obligations. Old Hindu literature in Sanskrit gives many different types of marriages and their categorization ranging from "Gandharva Vivaha" (instant marriage by mutual consent of participants only, without any need for even a single third person as witness) to normal (present day) marriages, to "Rakshasa Vivaha" (marriage performed by abduction of one participant by the other participant, usually, but not always, with the help of other persons). There are elaborate laws in Manusmriti directing which castes and which varnas can marry which castes, and the penalties for breaking these nuptial laws.

For the most part, religious traditions in the world reserve marriage to heterosexual unions, but there are exceptions including Unitarian Universalist, Metropolitan Community Church and some Anglican dioceses and Quaker, United Church of Canada and Reform Jewish congregations.

Financial considerations

The financial aspects of marriage vary between cultures and have changed over time.

Dowry

In many cultures the family of the bride was historically expected to provide a dowry to the husband. A dowry was not an unconditional gift, but was usually a part of a wider marriage settlement. For example, if the groom had other children, they could not inherit the dowry, which had to go to the bride's children. In the event of her childlessness, the dowry had to be returned to her family, but sometimes not until the groom's death or remarriage. Often the bride was entitled to inherit at least as much as her dowry from her husband's estate.

In some cultures, dowries continue to be required today.

Bride price and dower

In other cultures, the groom or his family were expected to pay a bride price to the bride's family for the right to marry the daughter, or dower, which was payable to the bride.

In the Jewish tradition, the rabbis in ancient times insisted on the marriage couple entering into a marriage contact, called a ketubah. Besides other things, the ketubah provided for an amount to be paid by the husband in the event of a divorce or his estate in the event of his death. This amount was a replacement of the biblical dower or bride price, which was payable at the time of the marriage by the groom to the bride or her parents. This innovation was put in place because the biblical bride price created a major social problem: many young prospective husbands could not raise the bride price at the time when they would normally be expected to marry. So, to enable these young men to marry, the rabbis, in effect, delayed the time that the amount would be payable, when they would be more likely to have the sum. It may also be noted that both the dower and the ketubah amounts served the same purpose: the protection for the wife should her support (either by death or divorce) cease. The only difference between the two systems was the timing of the payment. It is the predecessor to the wife's present-day entitlement to maintenance in the event of the breakup of marriage, and family maintenance in the event of the husband not providing adequately for the wife in his will. Another function performed by the ketubah amount was to provide a disincentive for the husband contemplating divorcing his wife: he would need to have the amount to be able to pay to the wife.

Morning gifts, which might also be arranged by the bride's father rather than the bride, are given to the bride herself; the name derives from the Germanic tribal custom of giving them the morning after the wedding night. She might have control of this morning gift during the lifetime of her husband, but is entitled to it when widowed. If the amount of her inheritance is settled by law rather than agreement, it may be called dower. Depending on legal systems and the exact arrangement, she may not be entitled to dispose of it after her death, and may lose the property if she remarries. Morning gifts were preserved for many centuries in morganatic marriage, a union where the wife's inferior social status was held to prohibit her children from inheriting a noble's titles or estates. In this case, the morning gift would support the wife and children. Another legal provision for widowhood was jointure, in which property, often land, would be held in joint tenancy, so that it would automatically go to the widow on her husband's death.

General

In some cultures, dowries and bride prices continue to be required today. In both cases, the financial arrangements are usually made between the groom (or his family) and the bride's family; with the bride in many cases not being involved in the arrangement, and often not having a choice in whether to participate in the marriage.

In Early Modern Britain, the social status of the couple was supposed to be equal. After the marriage, all the property (called "fortune") and expected inheritances of the wife belonged to the husband. The wife was often called "his property", but she was entitled to his protection, which a single woman was not.

Modern customs

In many countries today, each marriage partner has the choice of keeping his or her property separate or combining properties. 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 inheritance rules apply to the other half. In many legal jurisdictions, laws related to property and inheritance provide by default for property to pass upon the death of one party in a marriage to the spouse first and secondarily to the children. Wills and trusts can make alternative provisions for property succession.

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 Necessities" 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 by claiming an unreasonably wide range of debts to be expenses of the marriage. The cost of defence 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, both during and eventually after a marriage, are regulated in most jurisdictions; alimony is one such method.

Some have attempted to analyse the institution of marriage using economic theory; for example, anarcho-capitalist economist David Friedman has written a lengthy and controversial study of marriage as a market transaction (the market for husbands and wives).

Taxation

Most countries use progressive taxes, in which the tax rate is higher for a taxpayer with a higher income. In some of these countries, spouses are allowed to average their incomes; this is advantageous to a married couple with disparate incomes. To compensate for this somewhat, many countries provide a higher tax bracket for the averaged income of a married couple. While income averaging might still benefit a married couple with a stay-at-home spouse, such averaging would cause a married couple with roughly equal personal incomes to pay more total tax than they would as two single persons. This is commonly called the marriage penalty.

Moreover, when the rates applied by the tax code are not based on averaging the incomes, but rather on the sum of individuals' incomes, higher rates will definitely apply to each individual in a two-earner households in progressive tax systems. This is most often the case with high-income taxpayers and is another situation where some consider there to be a marriage penalty.

Conversely, when progressive tax is levied on the individual with no consideration for the partnership, dual-income couples fare much better than single-income couples with similar household incomes. The effect can be increased when the welfare system treats the same income as a shared income thereby denying welfare access to the non-earning spouse. Such systems apply in Australia and Canada, for example.

Termination

In most societies, the death of one of the partners terminates the marriage, and in monogamous societies this allows the other partner to remarry, though sometimes after a waiting or mourning period. In English speaking countries, the spouse who outlives the other is referred to as a widow (female) or widower (male).

Many societies also provide for the termination of marriage through divorce. Marriages can also be annulled in some societies, where an authority declares that a marriage never happened. In either event the people concerned a free to marry (or remarry).

Several cultures have practiced temporary and conditional marriages. Examples include the Celtic practice of handfasting and fixed-term marriages in the Muslim community. Pre-Islamic Arabs practiced a form of temporary marriage that carries on today in the practice of Nikah Mut'ah, a fixed-term marriage contract. Muslim controversies related to Nikah Mut'ah have resulted in the practice being confined mostly to Shi'ite communities.

Contemporary views on marriage

Criticisms

Main article: criticisms of the institution of marriage

Criticisms of marriage appear as ancient as the institution itself. A famous early critique of marriage can be found in Plato's Republic, which recommends of group marriage. Commentators have often been critical of individual local practices and traditions, often leading to changes. Examples include the early Catholic Church's efforts to eliminate concubinage and temporary marriage, the Protestant authorization of divorce, the abolition in the 18th, 19th and 20th century of laws against inter-faith and inter-race marriages in western countries, etc.

Many contemporary critiques have developed from a feminist viewpoint and suggest that modern marriage can be particularly disadvantageous to women economically and socially. Conversely, father's rights advocates claim that there is a continuing societal bias towards women as custodial parents in the face of "no-fault" divorce laws is unjust to men when marriages fail. Some groups, such as the Independent Women's Forum, acknowledge these critiques as valid, but emphasize that they should not be leveled against marriage itself, but dealt with independently.

Controversial views

Some views about marriage are controversial. Advocates of same-sex rights movements criticize the widespread exclusion of homosexual relationships from the legal and social sanction it provides. At the same time advocates of the traditional marriage movement oppose any attempt to define marriage to include anything other than the union of one man and one woman, claiming that to do so would "deprive the term of its fundamental and defining meaning."

See also

Types

Main article: types of marriages

• Arranged marriage - marital partners are chosen by others. Marriage has fulfilled a role of diplomacy between monarchies and other dynastic contexts, such as business families. As marriages may be arranged for the union of families or other interests, love is not a universal prerequisite for marriage.
• Boston marriage - marriage-like relationship between two women, not necessarily sexual.
• Celestial marriage - a marriage within an LDS temple, where it is taught it can last forever.
• Chinese marriage - arrangement between families.
• Common-law marriage - class of interpersonal status.
• Confarreatio and coemptio, two Roman forms of marriage
• Covenant marriage - in some U.S. states, a form of marriage where divorce is made more difficult.
• Digital marriage - two people who have no connection outside their gaming lives come together within a virtual community.
• Fleet Marriage - Clandestine marriage in 18th century England in the vicinity of Fleet Prison.
• Group marriage - Marriage between couples
• Levirate marriage
• Marriage of convenience
• Mut'ah (temporary marriage in Islam banned by Sunnis but still practiced by Shias)
• Morganatic marriage
• Open marriage
• Polygamy
• Proxy marriage - Ceremony in which the bride, the groom, or both are not physically present and use stand-ins
• Same-sex marriage
• Sexless marriage - Marriage without sexual intercourse
• Sororate marriage

Lists and statistics

File:Maritalstatus.jpg

Marital Status in the U.S.

• Age at first marriage
• List of people with longest marriages
• Age disparity in sexual relationships

Related concepts

• Adultery - consensual sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful spouse.
• Alimony - obligation of support.
• Annulment - legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void.
• Betrothal - formal state of engagement to be married.
• Brideservice
• Christian views of marriage - views of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and others
• Civil marriage - marriages which are constituted by a government official and not a religious congregation.
• Cohabitation
• Covenant marriage
• Divorce - ending of a marriage.
• Engagement
• Family therapy/Relationship counseling
• Free love - a social movement opposed to marriage
• "Head and Master" laws
• Husband/Wife
• Human sexuality
• Human sexual behavior
• Inheritance
• Separation - ending of a marriage.
• Marriage (conflict)
• Marriage gap
• Marriage in the United States
• Marriage law
• Marriage strike - Increasing ambivalence toward marriage in American men.
• Marriageable age
• Mail-order bride
• Monogamy/Polygamy
• Nikah urfi
• Surrendered wife
• Wedding
• Wedding ring
• Living apart together

Further reading

• Remarriage
• "RADICAL PRINCIPLES AND THE LEGAL INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE: DOMESTIC RELATIONS LAW AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN SWEDEN -- BRADLEY 4 (2): 154 -- International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family". Retrieved 2007-06-13.
• "Legal Regulation of Marital Relations: An Historical and Comparative Approach -- Gautier 19 (1): 47 -- International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family". Retrieved 2007-06-13.
• Gillis, John R. (1985). For Better, for Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019503614X.
• 'Forever and a Day' or 'Just One Night'? On Adaptive Functions of Long-Term and Short-Term Romantic Relationships
• The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University
• A review of John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe
• African Marriage Rituals
• "Marriage – its various forms and the role of the State" on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time featuring Janet Soskice, Frederik Pedersen and Christina Hardyment

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