MARRIAGE

Controlling Idea: Marriage is a ritual in which to people are blessed by God, and it is
also a sign
of a lifetime relationship. When we say marriage, we accept to have a
lifetime commitment with our someone, it is very important because if
you are already married with your partner you have the right to him, it
is form of love to another, and we accept of what he is.
Definitions
People marry for many reasons, most often including one or more of the
following: legal,
social, emotional, economical, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged
marriages,
family obligations, the legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, the legal protection of
children and public declaration of love.
Types of Marriage
European Marriage
Marriage was more or less a business agreement between two families
who arranged the marriage of their children.
Ancient Marriage
Ancient Marriage no specific civil ceremony was required for the
creation of a marriage only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard
each other as husband and wife accordingly.

Roman Marriage
Roman Marriage have a several types of marriage in ancient Roman
society. The traditional (conventional) from called convention in manum required a
ceremony with witnesses and was also dissolved with a ceremony. 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; kept her family rights of
inheritance with her old family and did not gain any with the new family.
Common law Marriage by country
Common- law marriage sometimes called de facto marriage, infosrmal
marriage by habit and repute.
Australia
In Australia the term de facto relationship is often used for to refer
to relationship between any two person who are not married but are effectively living in
certain domestic circumstances.
Canada
In Canada, the legal definition and regulation of common- law
marriage fall under provincial jurisdiction. A couple must meet the requirements of their
provinces Marriage Act for their common-law marriage to be legally recognized. In many
cases common-law couples have the same rights as married couples under federal law.
Various federal laws include "common-law status," which automatically takes effect once
two people (of any gender) have lived together in a conjugal relationship for five full

years. Common-law partners may be eligible for various federal government spousal
benefits. As family law varies between provinces, there are differences between the
provinces regarding the recognition of common-law marriage.
According to the Canada Revenue Agency, as 2007, a common- law relationship is true if
at least one of the following applies:
1) The couple have been living in a conjugal relationship for at least 12 continuous
months;
2) The couple are parents of a child by birth or adoption; or
3) One of the couple has custody and control of the child(or had custody and control
Immediately before the child turned 19 years of age) and the child is wholly dependent
on that person for support.
Ontario
In Ontario, the specially recognizes common-law spouse in section 29,
dealing with spousal support issues; the requirements are living together for no less than
three years or having a child in common and having cohabitated in a relationship of
some permanence:
Marriage restrictions
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.Legal, social, and
religious restrictions apply in all countries on the gender of the couple. In response to

changing social and political attitudes, some jurisdictions and religious denominations
now recognize marriages between people of the same sex. In some jurisdictions these are
sometimes called civil unions or domestic partnerships, while some others explicitly
prohibit same-sex marriages.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 first cousins is preferred, while at the other extreme, the medieval Catholic
Church prohibited marriage even between distant cousins.Many societies, even with a
cultural tradition of polygamy, recognize monogamy as the only valid from of marriage.
For example, Peoples Republic of China shifted from allowing polygamy to supporting
only monogamy in the Marriage Act of 1953 after the Communist revolution.
Polygamy
Polygamy which a person is married to more than one spouse at
one time, is illegal in many countries but accepted by other societies, though it is for less
common than monogamy.
Marriage and Religion
4) Christianity
Christians believe that marriage is a gift from God, one that should not be
taken for granted. They variously regard it as a sacrament, a contract, a sacred
institution, or a covenant.

Liturgical Christianity
Anglicans, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox consider marriage termed holy
matrimony to be an expression of divine grace, termed a sacrament or mystery. The
Roman Catholic tradition of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries defined marriage as a
sacrament. Marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.
Protestantism
Protestant denominations see the primary purpose of marriage to
be to glorify God by demonstrating his love to the world.
Historically, five competing models of marriage in Christianity have shaped Western
marriage
and legal tradition:

The Protestant Reformationists replaced the Roman Catholic sacramental model.

Martin Luther saw it as a social "estate of the earthly kingdomsubject to the

prince, not the Pope."

John Calvin taught that marriage was a covenant of grace that required the
coercive power of the state to preserve its integrity

Anglicans regarded marriage as a domestic commonwealth within England and

the church. By the seventeenth century, Anglican theologians had begun to
develop a theology of marriage to replace the sacramental model of marriage.
These "regarded the interlocking commonwealths of state, church, and family as
something of an earthly form of heavenly government."

The secularism of the Enlightenment emphasized marriage as a contract "to be

formed maintained, and dissolved as the couple sees fit."

Latter- day Saints
Members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints (LDS) believe
that marriage between a man and woman is ordained of God and that the family is
central to the Creators plan for the eternal destiny of His children. The LDS belief is
that marriage between a man and a woman can last beyond death and into eternity.
Judaism
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.
Islam
Islam also commends marriage, with the age of marriage being whenever
the
individuals feel ready, financially and emotionally.In Islam, polygamy is allowed for
men, with
the specific limitation that they can only have up to four wives at any one time, given the
religious requirement that they are able to and willing to partition their time and wealth
equally
among the respective wives.
For a Muslim wedding to take place, the bride and her guardian must both

agree
on the marriage. Should either the guardian or the girl disagree on the marriage, it may
not
legally take place. In essence, while the guardian/father of the girl has no right to force
her to
marry, he has the right to stop a marriage from taking place, given that his reasons are
valid. The
professed purpose of this practice is to ensure that a woman finds a suitable partner
whom she
has chosen not out of sheer emotion.
Financial consideration
Dowry
A dowry was not an unconditional gift, but was usually a part a wider
marriage
settlement. For example, if the groom had other children, they could not inherit the
dowry, which had to go the brides children. In some cultures, dowries continue to be
required
today (for example, in Sudan), while some countries impose restrictions on the payment
of
dowry. In India, nearly 7,000 women are killed annually in disputes over dowries, and
activists
believe that figures represent only a third of the actual number of such murders. Dowry
(also
known as trousseau or tocher or, in Latin, dos) is the money, goods, or estate that a
woman
brings to her husband in marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the
bride's
parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time
of
marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both dowry and bride price.
Dowry is
an ancient custom, and its existence may well predate records of it.
Bride price and dower
Bride price, also known as bride wealth, is an amount of money
property
or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of
their
daughter to the groom. (Compare dowry, which is paid to the groom, or used by the bride

to help
establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by
the
groom at the time of marriage.) In the anthropological literature, bride price has often
been
explained in market terms, as payment made in exchange for the bride's family's loss of
her labor
and fertility within her kin group. The agreed bride price is generally intended to reflect
the
perceived value of the girl or young woman. The same culture may simultaneously
practice both
dowry and bride price.
Dower
Dower is the gift given by the groom to the bride, customarily on
the
morning after the wedding (hence morning gift, though all dowerings from the man to his
fiance, either during the betrothal period, or wedding, or afterwards, even as late as in
the t
testamentary dowering, are understood as dowers if specifically intended for the
maintenance of
the widow).
Dower has been a property arrangement for marriage used
apparently first
in early medieval German cultures (such as Langobards and Goths), and the church drove
its
adoption into other countries, in order to improve the wife's security by this additional
benefit. The practice of dower was prevalent in the Germanic-descending and
Scandinavicdescending parts of Europe, such as Sweden, Germany, Normandy and successor states
of the
Langobardian kingdom.The husband was legally prevented from using the wife's dower
as
contrasted with her dowry, which was brought to the marriage by the bride and used by
both
spouses. This often meant that the woman's legal representative, usually a male relative,
became
guardian or executor of the dower, to ensure that it was not squandered.Usually, the wife
was

free from kin limitations to use (and bequeath) her dower to whatever and whomever she
pleased. It may have become the property of her next marriage, been given to an
ecclesiastical
institution, or been inherited by her children from other relationships than that from
which she
received it.
Contemporary view on marriage
Anti- miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws
that
banned interracial marriage and sometimes sex between members of two different races.
In the
United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have since 1863 been termed
"miscegenation." Contemporary usage of the term "miscegenation" is less frequent. In
North
America, laws against interracial marriage and interracial sex existed and were enforced
in the
Thirteen Colonies from the late seventeenth century onwards, and subsequently in several
US states and US territories until 1967. Similar laws were also enforced in Nazi
Germany, from
1935 until 1945, and in South Africa during the Apartheid era, from 1948 until
1984. Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of
differing racial groups marry,
often creating multiracial children. This is a form of exogamy (marrying outside of one's
racial group) and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation (mixing of different
racial
groups in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations).
Criticisms
Over time, many thinkers have proposed arguments against marriage for
varied
reasons, including financial risk when measured against the divorce rate, and questioning
of the
necessity to have their relationship sanctioned by government or religious authorities.
References
Krier, James E.; Gregory S. Alexander, Michael H. Schill, Jesse Dukeminier
(2006).
Property. Aspen Publishers. ISBN 0735557926. Excerpt - page 335: 'at the wedding;
hence the importance of including in the marriage ceremony the words, "With all my

worldly goods I thee endow."'

Bell, Duran (1997). "Defining Marriage and Legitimacy". Current Anthropology
38 (2):
237254. Bell describes marriage as "a relationship between one or more men (male or
female) in severalty to one or more women that provides those men with a demand-right
of sexual access within a domestic group and identifies women who bear the obligation
of yielding to the demands of those specific men."
Gough, E. Kathleen (1959), "The Nayars and the Definition of Marriage", Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Nuer female-female marriage is
done to keep property within a family that has no sons. It is not a form of lesbianism.
1983 CODE c.1056 (Latin-English edition of the Code of Canon Law and
English-language translation of the 5th Spanish-language edition of the commentary
prepared under the responsibility of the Instituto Martin de Azpilcueta, 1993)