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Marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding, while a private marriage is sometimes called an elopement.
Around the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights for women and ending discrimination and harassment against couples who are interethnic, interracial, interfaith, interdenominational, interclass, intercommunity, transnational, and same-sex as well as immigrant couples, couples with an immigrant spouse, and other minority couples. Debates persist regarding the legal status of married women, leniency towards violence within marriage, customs such as dowry and bride price, marriageable age, and criminalization of premarital and extramarital sex. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, cultural, economic, political, religious, sexual, and romantic purposes. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, forced marriage, polygyny marriage, polyandry marriage, group marriage, coverture marriage, child marriage, cousin marriage, sibling marriage, teenage marriage, avunculate marriage, incestuous marriage, and bestiality marriage are practiced and legally permissible, while others areas outlaw them to protect human rights.[improper synthesis?] Female age at marriage has proven to be a strong indicator for female autonomy and is continuously used by economic history research.
Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers. It is often viewed as a legal contract. A religious marriage ceremony is performed by a religious institution to recognize and create the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony in that religion. Religious marriage is known variously as sacramental marriage in Christianity (especially Catholicism), nikah in Islam, nissuin in Judaism, and various other names in other faith traditions, each with their own constraints as to what constitutes, and who can enter into, a valid religious marriage.
The word marriage appeared around 1300 and is borrowed from Old French mariage (12th century), ultimately tracing to the Latin maritātus 'married', past participle of maritāre 'to marry'. The adjective marītus, -a, -um 'matrimonial, nuptial' could also be used, through nominalization, in the masculine form as a noun for 'husband' and in the feminine form for 'wife'. The related word matrimony is borrowed from the Old French word matremoine, which appears around 1300 CE and is in turn ultimately a learned borrowing from Latin mātrimōnium, which is derived from māter 'mother' with the suffix -mōnium for an action, state, or condition.
Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures. Even within Western culture, "definitions of marriage have careened from one extreme to another and everywhere in between" (as Evan Gerstmann has put it).
In The History of Human Marriage (1891), Edvard Westermarck defined marriage as "a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring." In The Future of Marriage in Western Civilization (1936), he rejected his earlier definition, instead provisionally defining marriage as "a relation of one or more men to one or more women that is recognized by custom or law".
The anthropological handbook Notes and Queries (1951) defined marriage as "a union between a man and a woman such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners." In recognition of a practice by the Nuer people of Sudan allowing women to act as a husband in certain circumstances (the ghost marriage), Kathleen Gough suggested modifying this to "a woman and one or more other persons."
In an analysis of marriage among the Nayar, a polyandrous society in India, Gough found that the group lacked a husband role in the conventional sense. The husband role, unitary in the west, was instead divided between a non-resident "social father" of the woman's children, and her lovers, who were the actual procreators. None of these men had legal rights to the woman's child. This forced Gough to disregard sexual access as a key element of marriage and to define it in terms of legitimacy of offspring alone.
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Marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding, while a private marriage is sometimes called an elopement.
Around the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights for women and ending discrimination and harassment against couples who are interethnic, interracial, interfaith, interdenominational, interclass, intercommunity, transnational, and same-sex as well as immigrant couples, couples with an immigrant spouse, and other minority couples. Debates persist regarding the legal status of married women, leniency towards violence within marriage, customs such as dowry and bride price, marriageable age, and criminalization of premarital and extramarital sex. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, cultural, economic, political, religious, sexual, and romantic purposes. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, forced marriage, polygyny marriage, polyandry marriage, group marriage, coverture marriage, child marriage, cousin marriage, sibling marriage, teenage marriage, avunculate marriage, incestuous marriage, and bestiality marriage are practiced and legally permissible, while others areas outlaw them to protect human rights.[improper synthesis?] Female age at marriage has proven to be a strong indicator for female autonomy and is continuously used by economic history research.
Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers. It is often viewed as a legal contract. A religious marriage ceremony is performed by a religious institution to recognize and create the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony in that religion. Religious marriage is known variously as sacramental marriage in Christianity (especially Catholicism), nikah in Islam, nissuin in Judaism, and various other names in other faith traditions, each with their own constraints as to what constitutes, and who can enter into, a valid religious marriage.
The word marriage appeared around 1300 and is borrowed from Old French mariage (12th century), ultimately tracing to the Latin maritātus 'married', past participle of maritāre 'to marry'. The adjective marītus, -a, -um 'matrimonial, nuptial' could also be used, through nominalization, in the masculine form as a noun for 'husband' and in the feminine form for 'wife'. The related word matrimony is borrowed from the Old French word matremoine, which appears around 1300 CE and is in turn ultimately a learned borrowing from Latin mātrimōnium, which is derived from māter 'mother' with the suffix -mōnium for an action, state, or condition.
Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures. Even within Western culture, "definitions of marriage have careened from one extreme to another and everywhere in between" (as Evan Gerstmann has put it).
In The History of Human Marriage (1891), Edvard Westermarck defined marriage as "a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring." In The Future of Marriage in Western Civilization (1936), he rejected his earlier definition, instead provisionally defining marriage as "a relation of one or more men to one or more women that is recognized by custom or law".
The anthropological handbook Notes and Queries (1951) defined marriage as "a union between a man and a woman such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners." In recognition of a practice by the Nuer people of Sudan allowing women to act as a husband in certain circumstances (the ghost marriage), Kathleen Gough suggested modifying this to "a woman and one or more other persons."
In an analysis of marriage among the Nayar, a polyandrous society in India, Gough found that the group lacked a husband role in the conventional sense. The husband role, unitary in the west, was instead divided between a non-resident "social father" of the woman's children, and her lovers, who were the actual procreators. None of these men had legal rights to the woman's child. This forced Gough to disregard sexual access as a key element of marriage and to define it in terms of legitimacy of offspring alone.
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