Talk:Marriage

This is a locked article, please improve

By including a see also section, which links to other wikipedia articles, like: Marriage_in_the_United_States
~ender 2012-03-17 20:33:PM MST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.165.52.42 (talk)

Indeed, the first instances of love and commitment are hardly mentioned at all.--96.244.241.243 (talk) 01:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hanlon and White Change

The line in the article, "In almost all societies, access to women is institutionalized in some way so as to moderate the intensity of this competition."[18] with a reference to Hanlon and White p. 116 is actually a quote from Duran Bell, "Defining Marriage and Legitimacy," Current Anthropology 1, no. 2 (April 1997): 239. I'm not sure about the other two references by Hanlon and White, but that particular attribution is wrong. Please fix it.

Supersj (talk) 22:40, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Please, why don't you fix it? Lova Falk talk 11:23, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I've updated the citation, as well as the other "Hanlon & White" citations, which are all from that Bell article.--Trystan (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Note 77

Note 77 is insubstatial, the author to whom refered offers opinion, and no verifiable facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.139.120.61 (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Attentive request for the source

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the article begins with a characteristic sentence that can be equated as a definition of the term "marriage", which is described later in this article.(reference)Talk:Marriage#Doesn't make sense, quote: (...) Marriage: being re-defined on Wikipedia instead of just defining it for what it has always been.(endref) And since we are at Wikipedia we must follow the recommendations requiring direct quotation, particularly in the field of definition, if verifiability of material has been challenged or likely to be challenged (see WP:V). Therefore I kindly request Wikipedians involved in creating and development of this article to point the source (or sources) that directly supports the following phrase: "marriage is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that creates kinship". This phrase as being highly representative in the relevant context without stating its source might be regarded as original research.(ref)Talk:Marriage/Archive 9#Kinship, quote: (...) It is an "invented here" Wikipedia definition with no reference or source.(endref) (see also WP:OR). I do not want yet insert a template because I prefer to explain the raised issues on the talk page in a quiet friendly atmosphere. --Robsuper (talk) 12:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

After six-week waiting for a response I placed now in the article two templates: 'Refimprove' & 'Citation needed span' with the reason defined as "This claim requires an explicit reference to the source of its origin". Please do not interpret my actions in this case as an attempt to challenge the good will of editors involved in the creation of the article. I still believe that my doubts about the correctness of the sources used for the definition can be explained on the talk page. --Robsuper (talk) 11:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The lead has the difficult task of describing something for which there does not exist a widely-accepted definition (as the second sentence says explicitly and the Definitions section amply demonstrates). The various components of the lead sentence description seem rather uncontentious, so I doubt it will be too hard to find supporting sources.--Trystan (talk) 14:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Kindly thank you for your response to my entry into the discussion. At the beginning I would like to justify my shortcomings in scope of the English language and ask your pardon and attention when I make mistakes. Before I answer I would at first place think about it thoroughly and only then make the translation into English. --Robsuper (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Thus this article begins with a lead sentence that is not a definition, but only a certain generalization of the concept. Am I right? If you agree with me at this point would you be so kind to point me other articles in Wikipedia in where the lack of widely-accepted definition has been resolved in the same, or similar way? --Robsuper (talk) 13:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, one article I have experience with that also lacks a clear definition is Role-playing game. Like marriage, there are many theories as to what a role-playing game is exactly, and they don't agree with each other. The lead therefore describes in general terms what an RPG is, but the lead sentence is not sufficient as a definition.--Trystan (talk) 14:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Article which you point out contains at the very beginning an elegant definition of "role-playing game". Moreover, what you wrote, "there are many theories as to what a role-playing game is exactly" is, in my humble opinion, rather academic rhetoric, with all my respect. That what you call a leading sentence is an excellent and strictly encyclopedic definition of that concept - while certain continued description (sometimes extensive) is other issue. Encyclopedia which is based on sources - like Wikipedia - should be created according to the scheme: "We should first place the term defined, then acquire its sourced definition and finally give an extended description, if necessary." --Robsuper (talk) 19:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

You may consider the lead sentence of Role-playing game to be a satisfactory definition, but our reliable sources do not. They explicitly state that there is no simple definition, but rather a collection of attributes which roughly delineate the concept. It is the same with this article. It would make things much simpler for us if the sources agreed upon a clear definition, but it simply isn't the case.--Trystan (talk) 23:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that you have used the term "no simple definition." So I can believe that the main problem here is the complexity, or the shape of definition or in other words: way of defining the concept for the purposes of encyclopedia. And Wikipedia, which itself is a compendium of the third order, is based on knowledge acquired from higher level sources. And therefore if someone proves me that we cannot formulate a definition which - let's call it - satisfying everyone or is commonly-accepted, because sources do not provide any such, and some of them announce it's difficult to provide it, then I answer that this is rhetoric in terms of academic eg philosophy - in practice the definition is always available from reliable sources. And now referring directly to your posts makes me to suppose that statement "The variety of role playing games makes it inherently challenging to provide a common definition." originating from a cited source, you treat as an outset for the actual impossibility to create definition to which you would like assign the (nomen-omen) attribute widely-accepted. Besides this, seems to me also that on the assumption of lack of unanimity of sources and still going forward to this end we make fraud of rules of Wikipedia, namely the attempt to replace the existing and workable definition with certain different formulation, say lead sentence. If you agree with me on this point, please also note that leading sentence can easily drift into the direction of a generalized, or universal definition. In Wikipedia, based strictly on reliable sources, this is unfavorable effect because it reduces the value of its merits, and in the long term can make Wikipedia unreliable partner. Not missed my attention to important words that were used:

- Like marriage, there are many theories as to ...

- It is the same with this article...

They show that in the case of articles "marriage" and "role-playing game" you see relevant similarities as to the method of defining these concepts in Wikipedia. But I think that had our talk concerned the concepts belonging to the same field of knowledge then we could make such assumption, and our discussion would look different. --Robsuper (talk) 13:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the only thing that will convince me that it is possible to write a definition that agrees with our reliable sources is for someone do so, and then establish consensus around it. I've read and reread the sources on this particular point, and no simple solution has occurred to me; they are simply too much in disagreement to simply reconcile. My point in entering this conversation was only to establish that I don't view the lead sentence as a definition, and I am fine with that.--Trystan (talk) 14:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I have some question: Is it really, looking at the available and reliable sources, these achivements of anthropology actually provide a starting point for consideration on the phenomenon named marriage? If the answer is yes then this article, in my opinion, can be considered to be compatible with reliable sources, and correct "as a whole" - we received a compendium of knowledge about marriage seen primarily from the perspective of cultural anthropology and sociology.

However, it could be risky assumption that anthropology represents the major interpretation describing marriage for the purposes of encyclopedias, and thus also for Wikipedia. We can assume that anthropology is probably an appropriate tool to study the effects of the presence, actions and shape of marriage in human societies - perceived and understood as a social institution. For the purpose of such research is necessary "clean up the marriage" of influences of cultures, customs, religion - we get the "extract of marriage," or anthropological definition. Such a definition is a certain point of view on marriage, of course. We must now ask the question: what is the position of such an anthropological point of view on marriage in the ranking of reliable sources? We must always remember that on Wikipedia we are obliged to faithfully balance reliable, published sources. --Robsuper (talk) 13:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sources for lead sentence

In the interest of addressing the citation needed tag on the lead sentence, I've been looking for reliable sources to cite. My suggestion is that we change the lead sentence to:

Marriage is a is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that may establish rights and obligations between the spouses, between the spouses and their children, and between a spouse and their spouse's family.

This wording expands upon and clarifies the "kinship" wording, accords generally (as closely as I think is possible) with the various definitions discussed in the article, and flows well into the second sentence, "The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures..." Alternatively, if anyone can suggest a good source for the current "kinship" wording, we could stay with that.--Trystan (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The use of "spouse's family" is at best awkward, because in at least the cultures that come to mind, a spouse's family is your family. Marriage as a family-building institution seems key to its core. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that you could suggest to support the kinship wording? It's not well-supported by the sources I have been able to find, which generally describe marriage as establishing rights and responsibilities, rather than establishing kinship.--Trystan (talk) 16:47, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Parkin, Robert (1997). Kinship: An Introduction to the Basic Concepts. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631203583. (sdsds - talk) 04:54, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't have access to that work; how does it describe or define marriage?--Trystan (talk) 05:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Essentially as Haviland does. Anthropologists take the proper tack by asking not "What is marriage?" but rather, "How do we know when people are married?" The key insight is that we know people are married by the (affinal) kinship bonds between them and their in-laws. The indicators of kinship are in visible behaviors, so even when we don't know their language we can (almost universally in human societies) know they are married. Consider changing your wording to, "...between them and the consanguineal kin of their spouse." (sdsds - talk) 06:22, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I think "consanguineal kin" may be a bit imposing for the lead sentence, and I'm not sure we should be specifically excluding second degree affines. Perhaps sticking with "in-laws" from the source is the best way to go?

Alternatively, we could leave out in-laws altogether. Haviland et al. seem relatively unique in their inclusion of it as part of their definition of marriage, and even they seem to suggest that it is a more or less optional part, as they speak immediately afterward about "the relative unimportance of marriage as the defining institution for establishing a family" in some cultures, including ones where it is "little more than a sexual relationship," though they do clarify it seems to always establish some form of rights and obligations between the spouses.

It's not my reading of Parkin that he is suggesting cross-cultural universality of in-law relationships; on the contrary, he states "While marriage in some societies is little more than an institutionalized or, at any rate, recognized relationship between two individuals, in others it is the axis of an alliance between families, descent groups or other social groupings...", which suggests that his immediately following discussion of affinity applies only to some cultures. That seems to agree closely with Haviland.--Trystan (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"social union"

I think the wording "social union" should be removed. Because marriage is the legal concept (same as divorce), and the laws define the marriage as a contract forming a corporation with two parties with many financial implications attached. And nowhere in the laws in says that it is a "social union". And none of the books mentioned above can stand in court redefining marriage to any extent during the divorce procedures. Yurivict (talk) 23:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

In the sources we have that define marriage cross-culturally, I have not seen any that specify that it is always a legal contract. It is described as a union that is culturally recognized or sanctioned, but not as a necessarily legal institution. I don't think I have seen any definitions that describe it as a corporation. --Trystan (talk) 00:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It is common sense that one can't come to court during divorce and say "Your honor, our marriage is a culturally recognized union and is all about love, not money, therefore you shouldn't rule that I have to pay half of what I own to the other party!". This is common sense that without the prenap contract divorce is all about financial obligations, and therefore marriage is also all about financial obligations, which means it is a contract. That's how legal system and government sees it. And there is a lot of talk, misconceptions, delusions, etc, partially reflected in these books. On the other note, googling "marriage is a union" returns 4.2 mil results and googling "marriage is a corporation" returns 7.4 mil results. Yurivict (talk) 00:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It's nice that you took part in the discussion – in Wikipedia, as in life, matters every word spoken. Please note that we are here to specify the lead phrase of the Wikipedia article entitled "marriage." Template shown at the beginning of the article and the shaded opening sentence is my initiative. This way I'd like to inform the community about the problem which I've noticed: I believe that the opening sentence does not have actual reliable sources for its presence in this place or in such a form. While your observations and comments are mainly issues related to the problem of divorce. On the basis of common sense, you're moving on the idea that the legal issue, particularly divorce in the presence of court, is the basis for most appropriate interpretation of the concept of "marriage" (or at least I picked it, but I could be wrong as to your inner intention). Furthermore, you're suggesting that the word "corporation" would be more appropriate than the term "social union", and in support of such suggestion give number of so-called "results" of searches conducted by internet search engine Google. All this is okay, of course. However this discussion is related rather to the requirement to comply with the rules of Wikipedia in order to reach consensus, duly justified by reliable sources, due to the weight and compliance with a neutral point of view. To achieve this stakeholders need to discuss. --Robsuper (talk) 14:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that there is the consensus in society about the marriage as a concept. I tried to bring in the legal definition as a basis, because all countries have laws about marriage and they all (correct me if I am wrong) about the financial obligations between spouses. This is the definition of marriage legally, and IMO reasonable way to see it. Besides this there isn't much consensus because today people marry for any combination of reasons: love, religion, following traditions, calculation, fear of loneliness, peer pressure, demands by other parties, being persuaded by other parties, expectation of sex, because it is cheaper to live together, etc, etc. You can find tons of references for each of the above, but there will be no consensus of opinion in most societies. I am not sure what happens according to Wikipedia policies when there is no consensus even about the leading line of the article. Maybe that is what it should say: "Marriage is an institution that traditionally was a religious union between a woman and a man, but is currently in the state of morphing and can't be precisely defined." At least this is what it appears to be. Yurivict (talk) 02:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Anthropologists are "pretty sure" that people formed "couples" even before they knew where babies came from. So hundreds of thousands of years ago.

They only found out where babies came from when they started domesticating farm animals some 10,000 years ago or so. Then it became "religious" and "contractual." Women generally came with a dowry, returned to them at the end of the marriage (contractual). For that, they needed some judicial (civil) protection that would outlast the dowry bestower (parent). That would have been what we would call a court nowdays. I have no idea how to word an "institution" that really predates our own species and predates our knowledge of how pregnancy came about! Pretty basic, right? See Cultural universal which has a great circular reference to this article!  :)

I realize that we live in an age where we think we can jettison everything and replace it, but these "universals" (no one agreed-upon list, alas, but marriage on most, if not all lists) have existed for millenia and sometimes eons. Student7 (talk) 16:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Magic words

People called friends, people called siblings, people called spouses. Gentlemen, after all it is twisted, deceptive rhetoric. In Wikipedia literary language should be used, not "magic" words. In this article, the first sentence should write "between spouses" and not "between people called spouses". Or simply stick to the source, and use "culturally sanctioned union between two or more people" in place of "social union or legal contract between people called spouses". --Robsuper (talk) 13:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I am in favour of getting rid of spouse in the lead sentence and saying marriage is between persons. The way it is currently written, it suggests that the label spouse has some inherent cross-cultural significance, rather than simply introducing some related English terminology. It would make more sense to simply say, later in the lead, "Parties to a marriage are called spouses." We should explain spouse in relation to marriage, rather than the other way around.

However, if we do keep the current wording, or in whatever we change it to, I would object to simply saying "between spouses...". Saying "between people called spouses" makes it clear that we are introducing a label for the persons involved, rather than conveying more meaningful information about marriage itself.--Trystan (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal of text of the opening

Referring to the current form of the opening text (ie from the beginning to the first empty row) I would like to present a few comments and corrections:

1. currently existing leading sentence is superfluous and should be removed
2. a threatening euphemism "(...) jurisdictions limit marriage to two persons of opposite sex or gender in the gender binary(...)", should be replaced by a statement that reflects reliable sources: "(...) jurisdictions specify marriage as legal contract between two persons of opposite sex — a man and a woman, or opposite gender in the gender binary model(...)"
3. added in proper place - you can see above - the mandatory words: a man and a woman
4. issue of occurrence of polygyny and polyandry placed in a separate phrase
5. minor stylistic corrections, moved to the last position the sentence: "Since 2000, several countries and some other jurisdictions have legalized same-sex marriage."
6. minor stylistic corrections, shifted to an earlier position the sentence: "In some cultures, marriage is recommended or compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity."

Taking into account the above comments I would like to propose the following version of the text of the opening:

The concept of marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, depends upon culture, religion, society, state and legal system and is usually an institution in which interpersonal intimate and sexual relationships are accepted and have been endorsed. Such institution is usually formalized by the wedding ceremony. In terms of legal recognition, most sovereign states and other jurisdictions specify marriage as legal contract between two persons of opposite sex — a man and a woman, or opposite gender in the gender binary model. A small number of states allow polygyny, and some ethnic groups allow polyandry. In some social groups marriage is recommended, or sometimes compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. Since 2000, in several countries and other jurisdictions have been legalized same-sex marriage.

--Robsuper (talk) 13:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

1. Marriage as formation of family hardly seems superfluous.
2. Do most jurisdictions specify marriage in such a way? Is this achieved by specific wording, or is it simply that marriage in the jurisdiction is assumed to be mixed-sex? Have you a source?
3. No, they aren't "mandatory words", and they aren't even appropriate, as some jurisdictions that want gender-binarism do not require adulthood. (Having said that, we should try to rid ourselves of the "gender binary" terminology in the lead; it's not commonly in-use terminology for laymen, and the opening should be understandable.)
4. No comment, but I have to keep the numbering.
5. Last sentence is problematic, as it suggests that same-sex marriage only exists since 2000, which doesn't atch various sources at same-sex marriage. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response and smart observations and comments. May want to suggest your version of the opening text? Of course only if you believe that the current version should be improved. --Robsuper (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a specific proposal; I feel that the existing wording is better than what you propose. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I see, it's okay. Am preparing a more extensive text for purposes of this discussion. However right now I would like to note that amazes me the term "aren't even appropriate" directed to the words "man and woman" in the context of marriage law. In Wikipedia we have to stick to the principle of NPOV and need to balance the overall message from reliable sources. I agree that issue "gender binary" is actually "phase of experiment," so may be muted in the generic description. The issue of relationship "marriage – family" is important and therefore the word "family" should be openly visible, instead of "kinship", but not right away in the initial phrase of the article. --Robsuper (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I think legal definition should be taken as a leading line: "Marriage is a legal contract between people called spouses that creates a special form of corporation." Since the marriage can mean many things to different people/in different cultures, another section can be added describing possible meanings that people attach to marriage. Like "Religious definition of marriage", "Romantic definition of marriage", "Social definition of marriage". But none of these meanings can ever stand in court during divorce and change the legal definition of marriage, at least not in any developed country. So the legal one should be taken as a main one. Yurivict (talk) 23:54, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that marriage is primarily a contract and not a "union". As stated above, marriage can mean different things to the spouses in it (and please note that the concept of romantic love as the basis of marriage is a relatively new one, historically marriages were arranged between families for economic, social, political etc considerations; and this continues to be the case in many countries today- in much of Asia, Africa). In fact, strictly speaking, marriage is a contract sanctioned and defined by the state; the terms of this contract vary between different jurisdictions and have varied historically.2A02:2F01:1059:F001:0:0:BC19:9E03 (talk) 01:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Marriage as a status predates the state involvement in it; while from the point of view of the law, marriage may be a contract, the law should not be the primary concern of the article. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying; but marriage has always been a form of 'contract', even if the meaning of a 'contract' was not what it is today, and even if the state was not involved - it was a 'contract' between the families involved, it was sanctioned by the community, clan etc. What I'm trying to say is that there were always strict rules about it, and deviations from the 'terms' of it were punished.2A02:2F01:1059:F001:0:0:BC19:9E03 (talk) 03:30, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Greek marriage is poorly described and may be wrong

The plays of Menander generally refer to a wedding ceremony and this site (http://www.richeast.org/htwm/greeks/marriage/marriage.html) says that a marriage took place over three days. This flies in the face of the statement on the page that there was not a formal wedding ceremony. The works of Robert Flaceliere further argue that marriage was a ceremonial activity in Ancient Greece (I can only get to some pages in the google version of the book, so I can't reliably cite the information as I see it without context). It seems that this section needs some significant improvement. I am not comfortable with my ability to word it well, however.

Bfishburne (talk) 15:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Dawkins remark about disposition towards polygamy

In the Seal's Tale (q.v. The Ancestor's Tale), Dawkins came up with criteria to determine how polygamous/polyandrous a species is. For example, the male elephant seal grows to enormous size, compared to females. They fight for harems, killing females who accidentally get in the way, merely by falling on them, squashing them, during their fights. These seals are extremely polygamous. There are a number of other criteria, as well. The material is not footnoted in the Ancestor Tale article.

The material was placed here to indicate that there is a slight predisposition in humans towards polygamy. For example, the human male is slightly (5") taller than the female. He is more muscular.

Among other things, this suggests (without stating it) that the Tibetan practice of polyandry (for example) may have been forced on their society by circumstances but is counter-instinctive. Some societies have condoned harems at various times. This can be expected and is instinctive.

I don't know how to "clarify" this without wandering into OR. I don't have a copy of Dawkins' book handy, which might help. Nor am I sure what sort of clarification is desired. Student7 (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the current wording is somewhat ambiguous. I wasn't sure if it was saying that a slight majority of cultures practice polygamy (it's much more), that a slight majority of marriages are polygamous (it's much less), or something else. From what you have written above, it sounds like Dawkins is saying that humans have a slight biological tendency towards polygamy?--Trystan (talk) 23:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

That is accurate. Student7 (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The current version is much clearer, thanks.--Trystan (talk) 04:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Relationship Between Marriage and Happiness

Because humans have been getting married for millennia, it is intuitive to believe that marriage yields many benefits, but there are also concrete, observable benefits. Married people are on average happier than those who are not married.(ref)Glenn, N. D. (1975). The contribution of marriage to the psychological well-being of males and females. Journal Of Marriage And The Family, 37(3), 594-600. doi:10.2307/350523>(endref) In his 1975 study, Glenn was responding to the theory that marriage as an institution negatively affected women and positively affected men. In his study, which contained over 2000 participants, Glenn found that approximately 53.4% of men and 65.3% of women rated their marriage as “very happy.” Only 11.7% of men and 12.6% of women rated their marriage as “less than very happy.” On average, happier marriages are linked with happier lives. Furthermore, one may imagine that you could have a happy marriage but also have an unhappy life. While possible, it is unlikely; married people report higher levels of everyday happiness than those who are not married.(ref)Glenn, N. D. (1975). The contribution of marriage to the psychological well-being of males and females. Journal Of Marriage And The Family, 37(3), 594-600. doi:10.2307/350523(endref) Glenn’s study was not perfect; it had issues with diversity and causation. Further studies have been conducted to alleviate these problems.

Glenn’s study was not diverse and only applied to Caucasians. Diener et. al. (2000) used a much broader set of data in an attempt to determine whether or not this relationship was visible across cultures. Diener et. al. used a total of 59,169 participants from 42 nations across the world. The study looked at subjective well-being (SWB) to determine happiness. SWB is a composite score created using the participant’s life satisfaction and emotional well-being scores. Overall, the study found that married people are happier than non-married people almost unanimously across cultures.(ref)Diener, E., Gohm, C. L., Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Similarity of the relations between marital status and subjective well-being across cultures. Journal Of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31(4), 419-436. doi:10.1177/0022022100031004001>(endref)

Alois Stutzer and Bruno Frey (2006) attempted to determine causality in the relationship between marriage and happiness. They conducted a 17 year longitudinal study using information from over 15,000 participants compiled by the German Socio-Economic Panel. They found that marriage does have an effect on people’s happiness, but at the same time happy people are more likely to get married.(ref)Stutzer, A., & Frey, B. S. (2006). Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?. The Journal Of Socio-Economics, 35(2), 326-347. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2005.11.043>(endref) In other words, marriage may increase happiness, but naturally happier people tend to have a penchant for marriage.

Much speculation has occurred over why the relationship between marriage and happiness exists. One possible explanation is the abundance of quantifiable benefits to marriage. For instance, Argyle (2002) reports that marriage increases self-esteem between the couple, which could explain the link between happiness and marriage.(ref)Argyle, M. (2002). Causes and correlates of happiness. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, N. Schwarz(Eds.) Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 353-373). New York, NYUS: Russell Sage Foundation.(endref) Furthermore, married people tend to live healthier lives,(ref)Burman, B., & Margolin, G. (1992). Analysis of the association between marital relationships and health problems: An interactional perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 39-63. doi:10.1037/00332909.112.1.39(endref) and this also could account for the increased happiness among married couples.

Turpanpolax15 (talk) 22:52, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting how these studies reconcile with this one: "Researchers: Marriage doesn't make you happy".(ref)Researchers: Marriage doesn't make you happy(endref)

It seems to say, if it can be believed, (and coupled with studies reported in this article) that "happy people tend to get married."

It may also say that (unsurprisingly) that unhappy people get divorced! Student7 (talk) 19:19, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. No consensus that the article needs this. Try a post on this talk to ask for more editor's opinions. Vacation^nine 06:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Rights and obligations between the spouses and their in-laws (lede)

That is not necessary correct, the rights and obligations that marriage confers depend by culture, but in many places there are no rights and obligations re in-laws. Also you'll have to differentiate between the obligations from the marital contract and the 'social' obligations - expectations rather than imposed by the contract.2A02:2F01:1059:F001:0:0:50C:DDCC (talk) 01:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

While there may be no "laws" regarding it, there was an expectation that orphaned children (often small children without a mother, father still alive) would be "taken care of" by relatives or in-laws. Just ran across a case in my extended family where the mother died, the baby taken in and eventually kept by an aunt. The child adopted his new parents name, when his father died. I doubt there was anything formal. Student7 (talk) 20:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

more specific please

"... is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that establishes rights and obligations between the spouses,.." That can be said far more specific. Do not be squeamish. --41.151.241.47 (talk) 22:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)