Marriage

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Close relationships



Family law
 
Entering into marriage
Prenuptial agreement
Marriage
Common-law marriage
Same-sex marriage
Legal states similar
to marriage
Cohabitation · Civil union
Domestic partnership
Registered partnership
Putative marriage
Dissolution of marriage
Annulment · Divorce · Alimony
Issues affecting children
Paternity · Legitimacy · Adoption
Legal guardian · Foster care
Ward · Emancipation of minors
Grandparent visitation Parental responsibility
Contact (including visitation)
Residence in English law
Custody · Child support
Related areas
Spousal abuse · Child abuse
Child abduction · Child marriage
Adultery · Bigamy · Incest
Conflict of laws
Marriage · Nullity · Divorce

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found. Such a union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding.

People marry for many reasons, most often including one or more of the following: legal, social, emotional, economical, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged marriages, family obligations, the legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, the legal protection of children and public declaration of love.[1][2]

Marriage practices are very diverse across cultures, may take many forms, and are often formalized by a wedding.[3] The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved. In some societies these obligations also extend to certain family members of the married persons. Almost all cultures that recognize marriage also recognize adultery as a violation of the terms of marriage.[4]

External recognition can manifest in a variety of ways. Some examples include the state, a religious authority, or both. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution irrespective of religious affiliation, in accordance with marriage laws of the jurisdiction. If recognized by the state, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal and social status of the individuals who enter into it.

Definitions

“ Marriage is the union of two different surnames, in friendship and in love, in order to continue the posterity of the former sages, and to furnish those who shall preside at the sacrifices to heaven and earth, at those in the ancestral temple, and at those at the altars to the spirits of the land and grain. ”

—Confucius, [5]

Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage so as to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures.[6] In his book The History of Human Marriage (1921), Edvard Westermarck defined marriage 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."[7] In The Future of Marriage in Western Civilization (1936), he rejected his earlier definition, instead provisionally defining marriage as "a relation of one or more men to one or more women that is recognised by custom or law".[8]

The anthropological handbook Notes and Queries (1951) defined marriage as "a union between a man and a woman such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners."[9] In recognition of a practice by the Nuer of Sudan allowing women to act as a husband in certain circumstances, Kathleen Gough suggested modifying this to "a woman and one or more other persons."[10]

Edmund Leach criticized Gough's definition for being too restrictive in terms of recognized legitimate offspring and suggested that marriage be viewed in terms of the different types of rights it serves to establish. Leach expanded the definition and proposed that "Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum"[11] Leach argued that no one definition of marriage applied to all cultures. He offered a list of ten rights associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children, with specific rights differing across cultures.[12]

Duran Bell also criticized the legitimacy-based definition on the basis that some societies do not require marriage for legitimacy, arguing that in societies where illegitimacy means only that the mother is unmarried and has no other legal implications, a legitimacy-based definition of marriage is circular. He proposed defining marriage in terms of sexual access rights.[6]

Various definitions of marriage often include the concept of conjugal rights which may include mutual rights of companionship and support (consortium), co-habitation, joint property rights, and sexual relations. The concept of conjugal rights may be applied to "traditional" or non-traditional definitions of marriage. In June 2007, the California Department of Corrections announced it would allow same-sex conjugal visits. The policy was enacted to comply with a 2005 state law requiring state agencies to give the same rights to domestic partners that heterosexual couples receive.[13]

In the 21st century United States, it has become popular to describe marriages as either traditional or non-traditional. Traditional marriage has been conservatively described as being a life-long legal union between one man and one woman for the support of family and presumably offspring. Following the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the marriage vows of many Christian denominations included "Till death do us part" as part of the marriage liturgy. With the advent of No-fault divorce in 1970, and the widespread acceptance of Birth control, the definition of traditional marriage has become less narrowly defined as a legal bond "between a man and a woman". The Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, of 1996 uses this definition. Non-traditional marriage assumes a conjugal relationship other than that assumed in the traditional definition, and most commonly refers to Same-sex marriage.