Marriage

Marriage, also called matrimony and wedlock, is a legally binding and recognized union of two or more individuals who have pledged to spend their lives together. Marriage gives spouses and their children certain protections under the law. Marriage traditions and expectations vary by country, culture, and religion, and several types of marriages exist worldwide to meet certain social and economic needs. In addition, some countries only legally recognize certain types of marriages.

Background

Marriage has existed for millennia. It has evolved throughout the centuries to fit the needs of different societies. Societies have devised various rules and laws about who may marry whom, with whom married people live, how material resources are kept or transferred through marriage, and whether and how a marriage may end through a social process, such as divorce or annulment. The partners' degree of relatedness, sexes or genders, ages, races and ethnicities, religious affiliation, social standings, prior sexual knowledge and experience, prior marital status, obligations, and acceptable social and sexual behaviors tend to be regulated.

Officially recognized marriage also provides those involved with legal protections, as in the case of the death of a spouse. At the same time, throughout history, people have entered into marriage or marriage-like arrangements that have not been formally recognized for various reasons—from racial discrimination to lack of documentation to same-sex partnership in homophobic societies. Among heterosexual couples, such arrangements are sometimes termed “common-law marriages.” Numerous euphemistic phrases have been used to describe similar same-sex relationships; some of the more popular expressions were “female husbands,” “Boston marriages,” “bachelor marriages,” and “fictive marriages.”

Marriage is typically intended to be a long-term, or even lifelong, arrangement. Marriage of convenience, by contrast, are temporary unions intended to facilitate another goal, such as permanent immigration or sexual access. Since ancient times, marriage has been used for procreation and to protect property ownership. It preserved bloodlines, power, and land in royal and high-status families.

Overview

Several types of marriage were common in ancient times, and some of these are still practiced in the twenty-first century. Forced marriage is a form of marriage in which someone is forced to marry another against their will. Driving factors often include cultural, religious, and sexual norms, psychological or financial pressure, or abuse. Women and children are more likely to be forced into marriages than adult men are. By contrast, in a choice marriage, individuals choose their partners themselves, typically based on romantic and sexual love and attachment.

“Plural marriage” refers to marriage involving more than two people, which can be categorized as polygamy (either polygyny or polyandry) or group marriage. Polygyny, in which a man takes more than one woman as a wife, has been practiced to ensure a marriage bears many children. Polyandry, the practice of one woman taking multiple husbands, was common in cultures where the men outnumbered the women. Group marriage is a marital arrangement involving multiple men and multiple women. Levirate or sororate marriage, in which a widow or widower marries the surviving sibling of their deceased spouse, may be considered a form of plural marriage, depending on whether that sibling is married already. Plural marriages were accepted in ancient Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu societies, as well as among practitioners of folk religions. By 2019, these arrangements had become rare, however; a Pew Research Center study found just 2 percent of inhabitants in 130 countries were members of polygamous households. The United Nations Human Rights Committee considers polygamy a violation of women's human rights.

Arranged marriages, in which families choose spouses for their children, has been practiced mostly for economic reasons. The individuals in these arrangements may have no choice in the process. In these types of marriages, either the bride's family give a dowry (money or items) to the groom's family or the groom's family is expected to pay a “bride price” in exchange for the marriage.

Many cultures, such as the Anglo-Saxons in fifth-century Great Britain and Indigenous Australians prior to European contact, used marriage as a way to extend relationships. They sought spouses for themselves and their children that would further their diplomatic and trade ties. Once wealth was established, people looked to marry off their children to people who were just as wealthy as or more powerful than they were to build their wealth. Marriage arrangements were also made to procure political advantages.

Significant Developments

Consent has been a cornerstone of Islamic marriage dating back to the writing of the Qur'an in the seventh century CE. It became an important part of marriage in the Judeo-Christian Western world from 866 CE, when Pope Nicholas I of the Roman Catholic Church declared that a marriage should be considered void if both parties did not consent to it. In 1140, the Benedictine monk Gratian wrote about consent and marriage in his canon law textbook Decretum Gratiani. One of the laws required couples to give verbal consent before entering into a marriage contract. The law also mandated married couples to consummate a marriage by engaging in sexual intercourse. The Decretum Gratiani became the basis for subsequent religious policies on marriage.

In the Middle Ages, Jews and Christians alike rejected plural marriage, embracing monogamy. By 1215, the Roman Catholic Church considered marriage a holy union and was referred to as one of the church's seven sacraments. Sacraments are religious rites and observances and include baptism, confirmation, Eucharist (Holy Communion), reconciliation (penance or confession), anointing of the sick, and holy orders. The Council of Trent officially declared marriage a sacrament in 1563. At this time, the church also required marriages to be performed by priests and in the presence of witnesses in public places. Protestant denominations that later split off from the Roman Catholic Church also considered marriage to be a holy union between one man and one woman; however, some Latter-day Saints and other Christians living in countries where polygamy is commonplace have continued to practice plural marriage into the twenty-first century.

In addition to religious marriage ceremonies, civil ceremonies were performed and had their own requirements. Many countries began to regulate marriage and mandated licenses and fees.

Throughout history, the majority of marriages were binding economic arrangements. Choice marriage grew more prevalent in Western countries beginning around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during the Enlightenment period. The Industrial Revolution allowed many people to afford to marry whomever they wanted. However, wives, their premarital assets, and their children were considered their husbands' property. As the civil rights and women's rights movements spread in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and America, wives demanded to be treated as their husbands' equals. Western ideas of marriage have spread to other parts of the world through colonization and postwar recovery efforts.

Marriages tended to end through the death of a spouse, and the average marriage prior to the turn of the twentieth century was about fifteen years. Growing longevity, personal resources, gender equality, and liberalized divorce laws have contributed to more marriages ending through divorce, however. Increased access to effective contraception and assisted reproduction technologies have also altered individuals' and couples' views of and actions regarding procreation within and outside of marriage.

Marriage Today

While many wedding traditions and circumstances surrounding marriage are the same across numerous countries, cultures, and religions, marriage remains the subject of much study and debate.

Modern choice marriages are often viewed not only as a means of meeting basic needs but also as an avenue for self-fulfillment and couple enhancement. Social psychology studies have yielded the insight that choice marriages undergo various developmental stages with different changes and challenges, including the often-romantic honeymoon phase, the highly challenging early employment and/or child-rearing period, the empty nest stage (which may enable couples to reconnect), retirement, and widowhood. Social scientists continue to study what makes for a strong, lasting choice marriage—examining intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental factors, such as the role of support systems, communication, shared interests, and various points of similarity. Other areas of research include the impact of marriage on other aspects of life, including life satisfaction, socioeconomic outcomes, and health.

Debates continue over such issues as delayed marriage, increases in divorce, cohabitation, and single-parent families, and whether and how government policies should promote marriage, among others. One of the most hotly contested marriage-related debate of the twenty-first century is that of legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Despite its having been practiced in some form or another throughout the world for numerous centuries, not all cultures and religions recognize or accept this practice. In the late twentieth century, some LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning) people began to advocate for the right to legally marry. Many LGBTQ people wanted the same legal protections as heterosexual married couples, but many countries were divided on the issue. The first country to recognize same-sex marriages was the Netherlands in 2001. According to Our World in Data, by 2024, thirty-seven legally recognized same-sex marriages, another five recognized only same-sex marriages performed abroad, and twelve authorized civil unions or domestic partnerships that gave same-sex couples limited rights. However, seventy-nine countries had explicitly banned same sex-marriages. Certain major religious sects, such as Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, continue to view marriage as a contract between one man and one woman and therefore do not recognize same-sex marriages.

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