Marriage
The word marriage appeared around 1300, borrowed from Old French and ultimately tracing to the Latin term for married. Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of this union in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures. Edvard Westermarck defined it in 1891 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. Kathleen Gough modified this definition later to include a woman acting as a husband in certain circumstances among the Nuer people of Sudan. Duran Bell criticized legitimacy-based definitions by arguing that some societies do not require marriage for legitimacy at all. Edmund Leach offered a list of ten rights associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children. These rights differ significantly across cultures, proving no single definition applies universally.
Monogamy is a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse during their lifetime or at any one time. Jack Goody's comparative study found a strong correlation between intensive plough agriculture, dowry, and monogamy in Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland. In contrast, Sub-Saharan African societies practicing extensive hoe agriculture show a correlation between bride price and polygamy. Polygamy includes more than two spouses, with polygyny involving multiple wives and polyandry involving multiple husbands. A molecular genetic study argued that sexual polygyny was typical until the shift to sedentary farming communities approximately 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. The Ethnographic Atlas recorded 453 societies with occasional polygyny and 588 with frequent polygyny out of 1,231 noted societies. Group marriage involves more than two persons forming a family unit where all members share parental responsibility.
In an 1828 Wife Wanted advertisement, an Englishman claiming a great taste for building pledged to apply a prospective wife's dowry-like £1000+ to build property settled on her for life. The United Nations World Fertility Report of 2003 reported that 89% of all people get married before age forty-nine. Societies have often placed restrictions on marriage to relatives, though one estimate suggests 80% of all marriages in history were between second cousins or closer. Pierre Bourdieu notes that very few marriages ever follow prescriptive rules regarding kinship, doing so instead for practical reasons like preserving family property. In rural areas of India, child marriage is practiced with parents arranging weddings sometimes even before the child is born. This practice was made illegal under the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929. Forced marriages continue to be practiced in parts of South Asia and Africa, where social norms dictate one should never oppose the desire of their parents.
Dowries and bride wealth continue to be required today in countries such as Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Nepal, and China. In India, thousands of dowry-related deaths take place on a yearly basis according to BBC News reports from July 2003. Bridewealth is paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter. In some cases, bridewealth is a means by which the groom's family's ties to the children of the union are recognized. The ketubah in Jewish tradition provided an amount to be paid by the husband in the event of divorce or his estate in the event of his death. In Iran, the mahr can amount to more than a man can ever hope to earn, sometimes up to US$1,000,000. Taxation laws vary globally, with some countries allowing spouses to average combined incomes while others impose a marriage penalty on dual-income couples.
Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that rights and obligations exist for married parties and sometimes relatives as well. Laws banning race-mixing were enforced in certain North American jurisdictions from 1691 until 1967, and in Nazi Germany from 1935 until 1945. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. Civil marriages recognize and create rights intrinsic to matrimony in the eyes of the state without religious content. Denmark established civil unions under one name or another beginning in 1989 to provide same-sex couples rights similar to opposite-sex civil marriage. In Australia, income tax laws define spouse to include individuals living together on a genuine domestic basis even if not legally registered.
Historically, in most cultures, married women had very few rights of their own, being considered along with children the property of the husband. Since the late 19th century, Western countries have undergone gradual legal changes aimed at improving the rights of the wife. These changes included giving wives legal identities of their own and abolishing the right of husbands to physically discipline them. Feminist theory approaches opposite-sex marriage as an institution traditionally rooted in patriarchy that promotes male superiority over women. Countries where married women are required by law to obey their husbands existed as of 2023 according to available data. Research has found that unhappily married couples are at 3, 25 times the risk of developing clinical depression compared to happy ones.
Same-sex marriage is legally performed and recognized in countries such as Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay. Israel recognizes same-sex marriages entered into abroad as full marriages. Child marriages remain common in parts of the world with the ten highest rates found in Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Guinea, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, and Malawi. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races in South Africa until the end of apartheid. In the late-19th century, citizens of Utah were forced by the federal government to abandon polygamy through vigorous enforcement of several Acts of Congress.
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Common questions
When did the word marriage first appear in English?
The word marriage appeared around 1300, borrowed from Old French and ultimately tracing to the Latin term for married.
What is Edvard Westermarck's definition of marriage from 1891?
Edvard Westermarck defined it in 1891 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.
Which societies show a correlation between intensive plough agriculture and monogamy?
Jack Goody's comparative study found a strong correlation between intensive plough agriculture, dowry, and monogamy in Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland.
How many societies recorded frequent polygyny in the Ethnographic Atlas?
The Ethnographic Atlas recorded 588 societies with frequent polygyny out of 1,231 noted societies.
When was child marriage made illegal under the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929?
This practice was made illegal under the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 in rural areas of India where parents arrange weddings sometimes even before the child is born.
Until what year were laws banning race-mixing enforced in Nazi Germany?
Laws banning race-mixing were enforced in Nazi Germany from 1935 until 1945.