Marriage: legal, cultural, and social perspectives

A marriage between two, and in some cultures between several, people fundamentally changes their previous relationship to each other; it takes on an official, institutionalised and binding form, with new rights and obligations for the partners. New kinship relationships (in-laws or step-relationships - exceptions: Cousin and relative marriages such as the Bintʿamm marriage in the Arab world). Marriage bases these rights and obligations on a kind of contract, whereby the content of this declaration of intent and the manner in which it comes about depend on the respective culture and society. In most cases, a marriage has the task of material provision, for example through claims to maintenance, compensation under property law or, in the Islamic legal sphere, through the morning gift - the joint raising of children is not necessarily a task of marriages (see below on marriage and children).

In ethnology and sociology, marriage relationships are understood as a fundamental element of the social organization of ethnic groups and societies; marriages fulfill social and also political functions that are defined quite differently in different societies, but usually with the following objectives:

• Marriages entitle to a sexual relationship with each other
• Marriages legitimize the offspring, especially in the succession
• Marriages continue lines of descent and, if necessary, keep them unmixed ("pure")
• Marriages make a claim on the sexuality and reproductive capacity of the woman
• Marriages preserve and increase property and social standing of the spouses and their families
• Marriages link social groups such as descent groups or clans with each other, up to comprehensive alliances (see also wife swapping as a permanent alliance)

Forms

• In the Roman Empire, marriage was seen as a non-legal social fact through realized cohabitation between a man and a woman.
• According to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, marriage between a man and a woman is considered a natural law institution from the 11th century onwards. For the first time, from 1139 onwards, marriage between baptised persons is also regarded as a holy sacrament which the spouses administer to each other and which lasts a whole lifetime (prohibition of divorce).
• The civil marriage of modern times regards marriage as a kind of civil contract, often requiring certification by a notary public in a special procedure (for example, by a registrar); divorces are similarly civil.

In addition, there are various symbolic or mystical forms of marriage, such as marrying spirit beings (see ghost marriage among the Nuer in South Sudan), or animals or plants (animate nature), integrated into rituals and ceremonies. A well-known example of this is the religiously based betrothal to their God on the part of Christian nuns: as part of their religious vows they wear a ring to express their "spousal bond with Christ". More clearly, the "consecrated virgins" recognized by the Catholic Church understand themselves as Sponsa Christi: "Bride of Christ" (see Mystical Wedding of Consecrated Virgins).

See below: Types and forms of marriage

Marriage Rules

In order to fulfil the different tasks of marriage, almost all social communities have their own marriage rules, which recommend or prescribe between which groups of people marriage is permitted or required (commandments), and between which it is not (prohibitions). These rules may be inward-looking (endogamous) or outward-looking (exogamous): for example, the spouse is to be sought within the same local, linguistic, religious or ethnic community - but outside one's lineage or tribal group. Marriage rules mainly affect young unmarried persons - not affected by them are remarriages after the death of the first partner, these are subject to fewer restrictions, as are sexual partnerships of unmarried persons.

Marriage and children

In some of the 1,300 ethnic groups and indigenous peoples recorded worldwide, marriage does not primarily serve the purpose of raising children together - their provision is often ensured in their extended families even without the parents marrying. In contrast, in about half of the societies the marriage of offspring is regarded as a basic prerequisite for their recognition (legitimacy). These are primarily peoples who regulate their descent via the patrilineal line (patrilineal: 46% of all ethnic groups): here illegitimate children are excluded from belonging to the patrilineal family and succession. In many patrilineal societies, the absence of (male) offspring is considered grounds for divorce, and in some cases also entitlement to an official second wife (cf. also concubine).

postnuptial residence

Comparative cultural social research distinguishes in different societies where the married couple moves after their marriage, for which there are also commandments and prohibitions (residential order: residence rules). Thus, of the almost 600 ethnic groups that regulate their descent purely according to the paternal line, 96 % of married couples live patri-locally with the husband, usually together with his father, family or descent group (lineage, clan). For the wife, this means a forced departure from her parental home and her family group, and has far-reaching significance for the way the sexes understand their roles in relation to each other. In many of the more than 160 ethnic groups that are organised according to their matrilineal lines (matrilineal), the wife stays with her mother and the husband moves in with her extended family, although there are also forms in which the husband only visits his wife overnight (visitation). In matrilineal societies, the husband never loses his affiliation to his mother's extended family, where his grandmother also has a facilitating effect (compare Matrilineal Grandmother as Evolutionary Advantage).

In both cases of filiation, the point is to be able to clearly assign the children of a married couple to a family where they will be cared for. In matrilineal societies, this often involves the wife's brother assuming social paternity for her children, and he too is respectfully and affectionately called father (see Avunkulat: the social paternity of the mother's uncle for his sister's children, as well as kin selection: strengthening overall fitness by fostering sister's children). In such social conditions marriage is not a necessary condition for the recognition of children, and the problems of single parenthood and the illegitimacy or even neglect of children are correspondingly low among such peoples (example: the Khasi in northeast India).

Beginning of the marriage

In Christianity, marriage has begun since the early Middle Ages with the consensual agreement, the betrothal, of the bride and groom to live together in permanent community. Making this agreement public in the wedding ceremony is the prerequisite for the social and legal recognition of this marriage. In the course of the marriage ceremony, a certificate is issued by the commissioned institution. In most Western countries, registry offices are responsible for the certification of civil marriages; the churches or religious communities are responsible for the "church wedding". Obtaining the necessary documents and proof (in Germany, certificate of descent for the registry office, baptismal certificate for the parish office) usually takes only a few weeks. In cases where different legal systems are involved, however, it can take considerably longer (for example, in the case of intercultural marriages).

termination of marriage

Marriage ends regularly with the death of one of the spouses. Depending on the legal, cultural and religious sphere, the further possibilities of dissociation from a concluded marriage differ. Often marriages can be ended by judicial divorce or annulment. In the Islamic legal sphere, "repudiation" (Talāq) is a prerequisite for the termination of marriage. Not only, but mainly in Roman Catholic canon law, which does not allow divorce, annulment exists. The consequence of such a declaration is that the cohabitation is treated retroactively as if there had never been a marriage from the beginning; it is dissolved retroactively to the time of its beginning. The provisional summary divorce rate in Germany specific to the duration of marriage was 328.6 per 1000 marriages in 2017.

Many societies know the procedure of divorce for the termination of marriage. The recognition of divorce is regulated differently in different worldviews. An important difference is whether the requirements for divorce are linked to specific marital offences for which one spouse is responsible (as in (West) Germany and the USA before the 1970s) or whether the objective failure of the marriage is sufficient (principle of breakdown). As a rule, such a breakdown is only found if the marital partnership has ceased to exist over a certain period of time and can no longer be expected to be restored. In Germany or Canada, the period is set at one year. However, it can also be a multiple of this (Switzerland: two years). Since the Catholic view of marriage does not recognize divorce, there is only the possibility of a declaration of nullity. The consequence of such a declaration is that the cohabitation is treated retroactively as if a marriage had never existed from the beginning.

Obligations of the partners beyond the duration of the marriage are regulated quite differently by national laws (the People's Republic of China, for example, has no obligations; in Germany, lifelong maintenance obligations may arise in favour of the economically weaker partner). Obligations for joint children from the marriage exist almost everywhere. Although there are inter-state agreements on the dissolution of marriage, the often incompatible national marriage dissolution procedures pose considerable difficulties for the increasing number of binational marriages.

Incest taboo

All known civilizations have, to varying degrees, always tabooed marriage with blood relatives, especially between parents and their children. Almost all peoples forbid marriage between brother and sister. Many peoples have imposed further restrictions, such as marriage to persons of the same surname or to persons with the same totem animal (see also Marriage Rules).

An exception was ancient Egypt, where marriage between brother and sister was permitted in the pharaoh's family; this privilege was denied to the people and may have served to concentrate power and vitality in one family.

The consequence of the incest taboo is the demand for exogamous marriage, marriage related to another group. Ethnologists emphasize that the incest taboo thus serves to promote social cohesion (see sisterhood).

Endogamy

In ethnosociology, endogamy (Greek endo "inside", gamos "wedding": internal marriage) refers to a marriage rule that favours or prescribes marriages within one's own social group, community or category; the partner should, for example, belong to the same lineage, ethnic group, religious community or social class. At times, this also applied to Christian denominations, where so-called mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics were not socially tolerated. Other examples of endogamy are laws and regulations that prohibit or consider undesirable marriage unions of different ethnicities. The opposite is exogamy, where people marry or are supposed to marry outside their own community, for example not within the same descent group.

Arranged marriage

Arranged marriage or intermarriage is when the spouses and the timing of the marriage are determined by the parents or relatives. This formerly common procedure, which sees marriage primarily as an economic community and, via legitimized procreation, as a dynastic instrument of family common good, was only displaced in Europe in the course of the Enlightenment and Romanticism by the concept of love marriages and the freedom to choose one's partner, and has only gained limited acceptance worldwide. It is only in the contradiction of these two concepts that the concept of forced marriage, i.e. marriage against one's will, emerges. The concept of matchmaking changed from the initiation of marriage in the social environment to a service for the person wishing to marry.