Marriage

What is Marriage? It is one of the universal.....a social contract for....dividing line between the family...

Marriage is one of the universal social institutions which represent all the behaviors, norms, roles,    expectations, and values that are associated with the legal union of a man and woman. It is established by the human society to control and regulate the sex life of man. Kinship, marriage and family are inextricably interwoven with each other, where no family comes into existence without marriage. In almost all societies, marriage is an institutionalized social relationship of crucial significance. It is generally associated with a number of other important social relationships. As Gillin and Gillin have said, “Marriage is a socially approved way of establishing a family of procreation”. Marriage is an institution of society which can have very different implications in different cultures. It purposes, functions and forms may differ from society to society, but it is present everywhere as an institution.

 Marriage is a social contract for the satisfaction of physical, biological, psychological and spiritual needs of male and female leading to the formation of a family to bring up children and live together. Marriage is more than simply a legalized sexual union between a man and woman; it is socially acknowledged and approved relationship. Thus, marriage is a socially sanctioned sex relationship involving two or more people of the opposite sex, whose relationship is expected to endure beyond the time required for gestation and the birth of children, hence making sexual relationship and procreation, undoubtedly the primary aims of marriage. 

Marriage creates new social relationships and reciprocal rights between the spouses, between each and the kin of the other, and establishes what will be the rights and status of the children when they are born. In India, people generally believe that marriage is not between two individuals, but it is between two families in terms of bonds that it creates between them. It is also a sacrament, certainly marriage provides recognition or legitimacy to children; it confers acknowledged social status on the offsprings, and this is important in terms of inheritance and succession.

Different Religious Marriages

Besides the satisfaction of sexual desires and bringing up of children marriage also aims at economic cooperation with each other. Marriage is a more or less permanent association of one or more male with one or more female for the purpose of giving social sanction to progeny, satisfaction of biological and social needs and fulfillment of dharma. Thus, Majumdar D.N. and T.N. Madan says about marriage as “it involves the social sanction generally in the form of civil and/or religious ceremony authorizing two persons of opposite sexes to engage in sexual and other consequent and correlated socio-economic relations with one another”, which emphasizes upon its civil or religious ceremony, as a means of contact of persons of opposite sex and the right of mutual relationship in economic, social and biological spheres.

According to Koos, marriage is a dividing line between the family of orientation and family of procreation in terms of the nature of roles one performs in the two families. The roles in the family of orientation vary in infancy, childhood and adolescence and carry no responsibilities and obligations, but the roles one performs in the family of procreation after the marriage as a husband/wife, a father/mother, a wage-earner/home-maker, a grandfather/mother, etc. have different expectations and obligations from a man and a woman.

Hence, marriage can be conceptualized in three ways:

1. As an institution (a set of patterned, repeated, expected behaviors and relationships that are organized and endure over time);
2. As a rite or ritual (whereby the married status is achieved); and
3. As a process (a phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead to ultimate dissolution through separation, divorce or death).

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To know more you can visit these significant topics:
The Development of Literacy and Schooling, Commensality, Indian State, State, Indian Society, Religion, kinship System, Social Institution, Types of Marriage, Family, Community, Indology, Social Movement, Bride Wealth (Price), Nation State

Reference:

• Edgar F. Borgatta, and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery, Encyclopedia of Sociology;
• Ram Nath Sharma & Rajendra K Sharma, Anthropology;
• C. N. Shankar Rao, Sociology;
• Various  

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