Marriage

History

Marriage of some kind exists in nearly every society. Except in societies where post-
marital residence is traditionally matrilocal, patrilocal, or avunculocal, married people
typically form a household, which is most often a subsequently extended biologically,
through children. Among Western cultures, the nuclear family emerged during the late
medieval period. Most non-Western societies have a broader definition of family that
includes an extended family network. One universal and unique attribute of marriage
is the creation of affinal ties (in-laws).

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

In Europe

Marriage remains relevant as the union that socially sanctions a sexual relationship. In
the law of England and Wales, children whose parents were not married to each other
at the time of the birth were known as bastards. They were considered illegitimate,
meaning they usually could not inherit wealth or title. This has also applied to children
who were born inside a marriage which was then annulled; the two daughters of Henry
VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I, were declared illegitimate after their father annulled the
marriages that they had been born into.

In Catholicism, the Council of Trent made the validity of marriage dependent upon its
being performed before a priest 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 1200's in England it
was unlawful for a woman younger than 24 years to marry but this changed in the
beginning of the 1500's to 20 years of age.

In the middle ages the Church only allowed divorce 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 right of women to divorce their husbands for
his faults such as impotence.

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 partially stemmed
from Christianity, Germanic cultural traditions and the mandate of Roman Law.
However, Roman Law permitted prostitution, concubinage, and sexual access to
slaves. The Christian West formally banned these practices with laws against adultery,
fornication, and other relationships outside a monogamous, lifelong covenant.

Recognition

The participants in a marriage usually seek social recognition for their relationship,
and many societies require official approval of a religious or civil body.
In the early modern era, John Calvin (1509 – 1564) and his Protestant colleagues
reformulated Christian marriage through enactment of The Marriage Ordinance of
Geneva, imposing, "The dual requirements of state registration and church
consecration to constitute marriage."

In England and Wales, it was Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act that first required formal
ceremony of marriage, thereby curtailing the practice of Fleet Marriage.

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

Marriage 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 entitled to
the effects of marriage. However, in the UK at least, common-law marriage has been
abolished and there are no rights available unless a couple marry or enter a civil
partnership. Conversely, there are examples of people who have a religious ceremony
that is not recognized by the civil authorities. Examples include widows who stand to
lose a pension if they remarry legally, same-sex couples (where same-sex marriage is
not legally recognized), some sects which recognize polygamy, retired couples who
would lose pension benefits if legally married, Muslim men who wish to engage in
polygamy that is condoned in some situations under Islam, and immigrants who do not
wish to alert the immigration authorities that they are married either to a spouse they
are leaving behind or because the complexity of immigration laws may make it
difficult for spouses to visit on a tourist visa.

In Europe, it has traditionally been the churches' office to make marriages official by
registering them. Hence, it was a significant step towards a clear separation of church
and state and also an intended and sufficient weakening of the Christian churches' role
in Germany, when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the Zivilehe (civil
marriage) in 1875. This law made the declaration of the marriage before an official
clerk of the civil administration (both spouses affirming their will to marry) the
procedure to make a marriage legally valid and effective, and reduced the clerical
marriage to an optional private ceremony.

Rights and obligations

Marriage sometimes establishes the legal father of a woman's child; establishes the
legal mother of a man's child; gives the husband or his family control over the wife's
sexual services, labor, and/or property; gives the wife or her family control over the
husband's sexual services, labor, and/or property; establishes a joint fund of property
for the benefit of children; or establishes a relationship between the families of the
husband and wife. No society ascribes all of these rights to marriage, and none are
universal (see Edmund Leach's article in "Marriage, Family, and Residence," edited by
Paul Bohannan and John Middleton).

Marriage is not a prerequisite for having children. In the U.S., the National Center for
Health Statistics reported that in 1992, 30.1 percent of births were to unmarried
women. Some married couples remain childless by choice or due to infertility, age, or
other factors preventing reproduction. In some cultures, marriage imposes upon
women the obligation 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.

Most of the world's major religions tell couples they should marry before having
sexual intercourse. They teach that unmarried people should not have sex, which they
refer to as fornication. Fornication is sometimes socially discouraged or even
criminalized. Sex with a married person other than one's spouse, called adultery, is
universally condemned by all major world religions, and has often been criminalized.
It is also against the governing law of the U.S. military. Nevertheless, three recent
studies in the U.S. using nationally representative samples have found that about 10-
15% of women and 20-25% of men engage in extramarital sex.

Conversely, a marriage is commonly held to require a sexual relationship, and non-

consummation (that is, failure to engage in sex) may be held grounds for an annulment
(e.g., John Ruskin's abortive marriage).

Polygamy

Polygamous marriage, in which a person takes more than one spouse, is accepted in a
majority of global social traditions, 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. Polygyny is the typical form of polygamy, while
polyandry is rare. Anthropologists distinguish between these forms of multiple
marriage, where one person separately marries more than one spouse, and group
marriage, in which multiple spouses all become married to one another. The group
marriage form of polygamy is rare. In the U.S., the historic Oneida Colony provides a
prominent 19th-century example of a polygamous group marriage.

Marriage restrictions
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, 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 Mormon fundamentalist sects that separated
from the mainstream Latter Day Saints movement after the practice was renounced in
1890. Many African and Islamic societies do 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 some
Western countries.

Today, the term marriage is generally reserved for a union that is formally recognized
by the state (although some people disagree). The phrase legally married can be used
to emphasize this point. In the United States, there are two methods of receiving state
recognition of a marriage: 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.

Many countries regulate the age at which one can get married. As early as 1798,
Thomas Malthus proposed delaying the age of marriage to alleviate overpopulation.
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 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.

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 two consenting adults (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., 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.

Cultures that practice slavery might admit that slave marriages form, but grant them
no legal status. This was the practice under the Roman empire, so that in the Acts of
Perpetua and Felicitas, the freewoman Perpetua could be described as "a married
matron" but Felicitas as the "fellow-servant" of Revocatus — even though the
Christians regarded, religiously, such marriages as binding. Likewise, slave marriages
in the United States were not binding, so that many contrabands escaping slavery
during the American Civil War sought official status for their marriages. Among the
rights distinguishing serfdom from slavery was the right to enter a legally recognizable
marriage.
Weddings

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.

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, 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. Because of
Australia's very relaxed rules on marriage, some celebrities (such as Michael Jackson)
have opted to marry in Australia to have a private ceremony.

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

Many religions have extensive teachings regarding marriage. Most Christian churches
give some form of blessing to a marriage; the wedding ceremony typically includes
some sort of pledge by the community to support the couple's relationship. Religious
communities widely hold marriage as a relationship uniquely allegorical to God's
relationship with the people; the husband represents God and the bride represents the
whole of God's chosen people.

Liturgical Christian communions—notably Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy

—consider marriage (sometimes termed holy matrimony) to be an expression of grace,
termed a sacrament or mystery. In Western ritual, the sacrament is bestowed upon a
husband and wife by the spouses themselves, with a bishop, priest, or deacon normally
witnessing the union on behalf of the church. In Eastern ritual churches, the clergyman
functions as the minister. Western Christians commonly term marriage a vocation,
while Eastern Christians term it an ordination and a martyrdom, though the theological
emphases indicated by the various appellations are not excluded by the catechetical
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
iconic of the relationship between Christ and the Church. While most Reformed
Christians would deny the elevation of marriage to the status of a sacrament,
nonetheless it is considered a covenant between spouses before God.

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, 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 also recommends marriage highly; among other things, it helps in the pursuit of
spiritual perfection. The Bahá'í Faith sees marriage as a foundation of the structure of
society, and considers it both a physical and spiritual bond that endures into the
afterlife.

Hinduism sees marriage as a sacred duty that entails both religious and social
obligations. 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 and Metropolitan
Community Church.

Marriage and cohabitation

Marriage is an institution which can join together people's lives in emotional and
economic ways. Marriage can also lead to the formation of a new household, but
among some people (e.g. the Minangkabau of West Sumatra), residency after marriage
is matrilocal, with the husband moving into the pre-existing household of his wife's
mother.

In many Western cultures, married people usually live together in the same home,
often sharing the same bed, but in some other regions this is not the tradition. In
southwestern China, for example, 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."

Traditional Hindu wedding ceremonies can last for days and involve much ritual in
Sanskrit which may be understood only by the priest conducting the service. This
ceremony is considerably shorter and is intended to be understandable even to a non-
Indian audience, making it suitable for intercultural or mixed Hindu/non-Hindu
marriages. The couple for whom it was originally written based it on the Gujarati
Brahmin traditions of the bride's family with a few touches from Unitarian and secular
wedding services familiar to the groom's family. It includes three spots to insert
optional readings and musical performances of your choosing.

The priest in this ceremony need not be formally trained as a Hindu priest. He or she
should be familiar with Hindu weddings and comfortable acting as a master of
ceremonies, guiding the participants through their parts and explaining the meaning of
the service to the audience. It's okay if the priest keeps the script in hand during the
ceremony.

Roles

Bride Groom Priest (who in this ceremony also serves as the MC) Bride's parents
Groom's parents Bride's maternal uncle (maamaa) Bride's brother (or cousin or male
friend) Best man Chorus: a few women who know how to sing traditional Indian
slokas Flower girls (optional)

Set Hindu weddings are supposed to take place outside, on the earth, under a canopy
known as a mandap. If that's not possible, you can build a mandap inside and pretend
you're outdoors. Seating under the mandap can be on the ground (carpets or mats
would be a good idea) or on chairs.

Front and center under the mandap is the sacred fire. The fire can be small and
confined to a brazier or dish for safety.

The groom's party is supposed to arrive at the wedding spot in a procession, so it's
good to have a convenient assembly location nearby.

Props

Coconut Garlands to be exchanged by bride and groom Rings to be exchanged by

bride and groom Wedding necklace (mangalsutra) Gift from groom to bride's brother
Gift from bride's mother to groom Sacred fire Sacred rope (varamala), tied in a loop
large enough to go easily around bride and groom Pots of water for washing hands and
feet Kumkum or red paste applied to forehead Rice Flowers

Wardrobe Traditionally, the bride wears a red or red and white sari. The sari should
be draped modestly over her hair. The groom wears a kafni (long shirt extending to the
knees) with pijamo (leggings) or dhoti (sort of an overgrown loincloth). The groom
might also wear a turban.

Of course, in an adapted ceremony like this one great liberties can be taken with
wardrobe. One rule which shouldn't be broken is that anyone who enters the mandap
or wedding canopy must have on sandals or slip-on shoes which can be easily
removed (no shoes in the mandap!). In addition, it's a good idea to avoid much black.

One feature of the bride's wardrobe which has become popular abroad is the use of
henna or mehndi to decorate her hands and feet. It's said that you can tell how well a
new bride is being treated by her in-laws from how long it takes for the mehndi to
wear off. Mehndi treatments are increasingly available in salons or you can get
mehndi mix at any Indian grocery store for a do-it-yourself job. (But be sure to
practice on paper first! Mehndi doesn't wash off.)

Script

Groom's party assembles a few minutes before scheduled ceremony time at a

convenient spot near ceremony location. (E.g., a neighbor's house or a parking lot
around the corner.) Older members of the party may go on to the ceremony location to
be seated. Groom is holding a coconut and bride's garland.

Groom's party walks in a procession to ceremony location. (For extra credit, groom
rides on a horse or better yet an elephant!) Groom is received by bride's mother who
applies kumkum to his forehead. Groom bows to bride's mother and gives her coconut.

Bride's parents escort groom and best man to the mandap. Groom's party is seated
nearby.

After groom is in position in the mandap, bride comes out carrying groom's garland,
escorted by maternal uncle, optionally preceded by flower girls.

Priest says: We have come together to wed (bride), daughter of (bride's parents), to
(groom), son of (groom's parents). Today they build together the foundation of their
marriage upon the earth, in the presence of the sacred fire and the radiant sun, among
their family and friends.

Bride and groom are seated facing one another under the mandap. Chorus sings the
slokas: Invocation to Lord Ganesha: Vignesh varaia varadaia sukhapriyaya...
Invocation to Saraswati: Yakundendutusharahara dhawala... Prayer for harmony: Om
sahana vavatu...

Bride garlands groom. Groom garlands bride.

Reading #1.

Bride's parents wash bride's and groom's hands and feet, apply kumkum and give
flowers. (Bride's mother does this to bride, bride's father to groom.)

Bride's parents address audience: I, (name), son/daughter of (grandparents' names),

approve the wedding of my daughter, (bride's name), to (groom's name).

Groom says: I, (groom's name), take you, (bride's name), into my heart as my wife.
Bride says: I, (bride's name), take you, (groom's name), into my heart as my husband.

Priest says: A circle is the symbol of the sun and the earth and the universe. It is a
symbol of holiness and of perfection and of peace. In these rings it is the symbol of
unity, in which your lives are now joined in one unbroken circle, in which, wherever
you go, you will always return to one another and to your togetherness. Bride and
groom exchange rings.

Priest puts varamala (sacred rope) around bride's and groom's necks. They're now
married!
The couple, who had been sitting facing one another, now sit down side by side.
Bride's father puts bride's hand in groom's.

Song or musical performance. (Traditionally this is the time to sing a mangalashtak, a

poem composed specially for the occasion.)

Bride cups her hands and places them in groom's cupped hands. Bride's brother puts
rice in bride's hands. Together bride and groom pour the mixture into the fire.

Bride and groom walk around the fire four times, alternating in who leads. Priest says:
Om Svaha! With the first turn, we pray for happiness in the union of the couple. Om
Svaha! With the second turn, we pray for the long life of the couple. Om Svaha! With
the third turn, we pray for the healthy life of the couple. Om Svaha! With the fourth
turn, we pray for the happiness and health of the couple.

The bride and groom sit down. (Here's a fun part: whoever sits down first will be the
boss in the marriage!) Groom presents a gift to the bride's brother.

Priest says: Now is the time to confirm the marriage with the seven final steps. Bride
and groom rise and prepare to take seven steps. Priest continues: I ask you, (bride) and
(groom), to concentrate upon these seven vows as you take the seven steps: May the
couple be blessed with an abundance of food. May the couple be strong and
complement one another. May the couple be blessed with prosperity. May the couple
be eternally happy. May the couple be blessed with children. Idea: one "blended
family" we know of changed this to "May the couple be blessed with obedient
children." :-) May the couple live in perfect harmony. May (bride) and (groom) always
be the best of friends.

Optional step to shock the traditional Hindus: bride and groom steal a kiss!
Bride and groom feed each other sweets four times. Bride's mother gives groom a gift.
Groom's mother comes to the mandap and puts the mangalsutra necklace around the
bride's neck.

Reading #2.

Chorus sings the sloka: Blessing for Everlasting Love: Advaitam... ...as bride and
groom bow to all their seniors in both parties in rough order according to age (eldest
first).

Adjourn to refreshments and photo ops. Mob scene ensues!

Marriage and economics

Historical traditions

The economics of marriage have changed over time. Historically, in many cultures the
family of the bride had to provide a dowry to pay a man for marrying their daughter.
In Early Modern Britain, the social status of the couple was supposed to be equal.
After the marriage, the entire property (called "fortune") and expected inheritances of
the wife belonged only to her husband (a frequent subject in Early Modern British
literature); she was often called "his property", which did then include the protection a
single woman did not have. In other cultures, the family of the groom had to pay a
bride price to the bride's family for the right to marry the daughter. In some cultures,
dowries and bride prices are still demanded today. In both cases, the financial
transaction takes place between the groom (or his family) and the bride's family; the
bride has no part in the transaction and often no choice in whether to participate in the
marriage.
In some cultures, dowries were not unconditional gifts. 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 return to her family, and 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.

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.

Modern conventions

In many modern legal systems, two people who marry have the choice between
keeping their property separate or combining their property. In the latter case, called
community property, when the marriage ends by divorce each owns half; if one
partner dies the surviving partner owns half and 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

In most countries, the tax-rate structure is progressive, that is, a higher income pays a
higher rate of tax. In such a context, income averaging is advantageous to the
taxpayer. Married couples normally combine their income which, when the spouses'
monetary incomes are disparate, affords them the advantage of this income averaging.
To compensate for this somewhat, many countries with progressive taxes enact higher
tax rates on that averaged income (married couples in such jurisdictions pay more than
twice the tax of a single person making half of the income). Couples with disparate
incomes (which is the case for a stay-at-home spouse married to a "breadwinner") will
gain a tax advantage from income averaging. However, married couples having
roughly equal personal incomes gain nothing from such income averaging yet remain
subject to the higher tax bracket (for married filing jointly) and thus pay more total tax
than they would as two single persons. This is commonly called the marriage penalty
in the tax laws.

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 for 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.

In some cultures, women are expected to marry a spouse who is more economically,
socially, or politically powerful. Known as hypergyny, this practice is common in
India. Although an expected social norm in America, hypergyny is slowly being
replaced by isogamy, marriage between equals, and the marrying 'down' of woman.
Many anthropologists ascribe this to increased gender equality between women and
men.

Arranged marriage

A pragmatic (or 'arranged') marriage is facilitated 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. The former two often start the marriage process with informal pressure or
social pressure, whilst the latter two often start with a formal system or statement. In
both cases, the authority has a compelling veto over the marriage, and this system is
socially supported by the rest of community so denial is extreme and drastic. Once
declared, an engagement is implicit, which follows through with a formal marriage
ceremony.

Arranged and 'pragmatic' marriages are typical of dowry-based inheritance systems.

Women in these societies inherit male wealth at the time of marriage, causing parents
to have a particular interest in their daughters' marriages. These same societies demand
pre-marital chastity and keep a high degree of separation of the sexes until marriage.

Though now a rarity in Western countries, arranged marriages in countries such as

India are widely prevalent even today. In villages, marriage of a child 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 Child Marriage Restraint Act of the Indian Government). In urban India,
people use thriving institutions known as Marriage Bureaus, where candidates register
themselves with their profile at a set fee.

A diluted, more moderate version of arranged marriage is widely prevalent, especially

in urban areas. Parents suggest a possible candidate with the intention of marriage,
preceded by significant period of courtship. This practice creates less social pressure
from the stringent practices adopted in the villages.

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 thousand 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.

Popular culture often associates love with marriage, as in the song, Love and
Marriage. U.S. senator Sam Brownback has written that doing so harms the institution
of marriage, saying, "If marriage begins to be viewed as the way two adults make
known their love for each other, there is no reason to marry before children are born
rather than after. And if it is immaterial whether a couple should be married before the
birth of a child, then why should they marry at all?"

Same-sex marriage

Since 2001, five nations have made same-sex marriage legal, including the
Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and South Africa. Israel, Aruba, and the
Netherlands Antilles recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. In the
United States, Massachusetts is the only state to recognize same-sex marriage under
the name marriage. Civil unions are a separate form of legal union open to couples of
the same sex, often carrying the same entailments as opposite-sex marriage under a
different name. Denmark was the first country in the world (in 1989) to extend the
rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples under the name of
registered partnership. Civil unions (and registered partnerships) are currently
recognized in 24 out of 193 countries worldwide and in some U.S. states. Many U.S.
states have adopted referendums or laws that generally restrict marriage recognition to
oopposite-sex couples. Federally, the U.S. Senate has considered, and failed to pass, a
Federal Marriage Amendment.

Civil unions are recognized and accepted in approximately 30 countries. Same-sex

marriages have also been recorded in the history of pre-modern Europe. Same-sex
marriage remains statistically insignificant worldwide, as it is not legally recognized in
most countries. However, in countries where it has been adopted, applications for
marriage licenses have far exceeded governmental estimates of demand. As
homosexuality has become more accepted in Western cultures, more governments are
allowing and/or sanctioning marriage of same-sex couples.
These developments have created a political and religious reaction in some countries,
most notably in the United Kingdom, where the Church of England, after long debate,
officially banned blessings of gay couples by Church of England clergy, and in the
United States, where several states have specifically defined marriage as between a
man and a woman, often by popular referenda. The state of Mississippi passed a
constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman and
refusing to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. The measure passed with
86% of the vote, the highest percentage seen on a statewide level. Conversely, several
states, such as California and Massachusetts, have sanctioned some form of same-sex
unions. In addition, Lutheran churches in Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and
some Lutheran churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany allow blessing
ceremonies for same-sex couples. In other countries, (such as Finland) such
ceremonies are discouraged and rarely performed by the church.

Civil unions are a separate form of legal union open to couples of the same sex. Many
more countries have legalized civil unions than those which have legalized same-sex
marriage. Some religious denominations ceremonially perform civil unions, and
recognize them as essentially equivalent to marriage.

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, a process distinct from divorce in that it that declares a
marriage to have been invalid from its beginning.
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.

Criticisms of the institution of marriage

Criticisms of marriage appear as ancient as the institution itself. (Plato's Republic,

which recommends group marriage is a famous early critique.) Commentators have
often been critical of individual local practices and traditions, often leading to
evolution in the institution. (For instance, 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. In a contrasting vein, father's rights advocates claim that a continuing societal
bias towards women as custodial parents in the face of "no-fault" divorce laws is
unjust to men when marriages fail. Criticisms of marriage by same-sex rights
movements focus on the widespread exclusion of homosexual relationships from the
legal and social sanction it provides, often likening this to largely defunct legal
prohibitions and social taboos on cross-racial marriages.