“Spouse” redirects here. For more information on the role, see
Husband or
Wife.
Marriage or wedlock is an interpersonal relationship (usually intimate and sexual) with governmental, social, or religious recognition. It is often created by a contract or through civil processes. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution.
The most common form of marriage unites one man and one woman as husband and wife.[ Dictionaries Take Lead in Redefining Modern Marriage. Washington Times. Retrieved on 2007-02-03.][Merriam-Webster definition.]
Other forms of marriage also exist: for example, polygamy—in which a person takes more than one spouse (marriage partner)—is common in many societies.[
Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7. See also: Kaingang.
] In some jurisdictions civil marriage has been expanded to include same-sex marriage.[Arce, Rose. Massachusetts court upholds same-sex marriage. Feb. 6, 2004. CNN. Retrieved Feb. 17, 2007.]
People marry for many reasons, but usually one or more of the following: legal, social and economic stability; the formation of a family unit; procreation and the education and nurturing of children; legitimizing sexual relations; public declaration of love; or to obtain citizenship.[
Krier, James E.; Gregory S. Alexander, Michael H. Schill, Jesse Dukeminier (2006). Property. Aspen Publishers. ISBN 0735557926.
Excerpt - page 335: \'... at the wedding; hence the importance of including in the marriage ceremony the words, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow." ...\'
][GALLAGHER, MAGGIE (2002). What is Marriage For? The Public Purposes of Marriage Law. LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW. Retrieved on 2007-01-08.]
A marriage is often declared by a wedding ceremony,[
Eleanor, Schick (1999). Navajo Wedding Day: A Dine Marriage Ceremony. Cavendish Children\'s Books. ISBN 0761450319.
] which may be performed either by a religious officiant, by a secular government-sanctioned officiator, or (in weddings that have no church or state affiliation) by a trusted friend of the wedding participants. The act of marriage usually creates obligations between the individuals involved, and in many societies, their extended families.
Finding a partner
In order to get married, it is necessary to find a suitable partner. A partner may be found by the person wishing to be married through the process of courtship. Alternatively, two marriage candidates may be matched by a third party, typically with the match finalized only if both candidates approve of the union. This is known as an arranged marriage.
The choice between courtship and arranged marriage is made by the person seeking marriage or by his or her parents. In some cases, the parents will be ready to enforce an arranged marriage because of cultural tradition or for some other special reason (e.g., dowry). It is worth noting however, that in many cases the person seeking marriage is comfortable with having his or her marriage arranged and, even disregarding parental preference, would freely choose an arranged marriage. Actual forced marriage is common in only a few communities and often attracts harsh criticism even from people who are generally in favor of arranged marriage.[citation needed]
Arranged marriage
A pragmatic (or \'arranged\') marriage is made easier by formal procedures of family or group politics. A responsible authority sets up or encourages the marriage; they may, indeed, engage a professional matchmaker to find a suitable spouse for an unmarried person. The authority figure could be parents, family, a religious official, or a group consensus.
In some cases, the authority figure may choose a match for purposes other than marital harmony. Some of the most popular uses of arranged marriage are for dowry or immigration.
Though now a rarity in Western countries, arranged marriages in countries such as India are still prevalent today.[citation needed] In rural villages, the marriage of a child often has much to do with family property. Parents adopt the practice of child marriage and arrange the wedding, sometimes even before the child is born (though this practice was made illegal by the Child Marriage Restraint Act of the Indian Government). In urban India, people use thriving institutions known as Marriage Bureaus or Matrimonials Sites, where candidates register themselves for small fees.[citation needed]
A related form of pragmatic marriage, sometimes called a marriage of convenience, involves immigration laws. According to one publisher of information about "green card" marriages, "Every year over 450,000 United States citizens marry foreign-born individuals and petition for them to obtain a permanent residency (Green Card) in the United States."[Green Card Marriage | Immigration] While this is likely an over-estimate, in 2003 alone 184,741 immigrants were admitted to the U.S. as spouses of U.S. citizens.[ Immigration to the United States: Fiscal years 1820-2003PDF(2.03MiB)]
Marriage in Europe
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Among Western cultures, the nuclear family emerged during the late medieval period.[Greif, Avner (2003). "Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth: The Origin and Implications of Western Corporatism"PDF(30.6KiB)]
Marriage is the sole mechanism for the creation of affinal ties (in-laws).[citation needed]
Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends or religious beliefs concerning the origins of marriage.[
Westermarck, Edward Alexander (1903). The History of Human Marriage. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London. ISBN 1402185480 (reprint).
]
In Catholicism, the Council of Trent made the validity of marriage dependent upon its being performed before an ordained member of the clergy and two witnesses. The Council also authorized a Catechism, issued in 1566, which defined marriage as, "The conjugal union of man and woman, contracted between two qualified persons, which obliges them to live together throughout life."[
Witte Jr., John (1997). From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press, pp 39-40. ISBN 0664255434.
]
Marriage has changed throughout the history of Europe, in the 1200\'s in England it was unlawful for a woman younger than 24 years to marry, but this changed, beginning in the 1500\'s, to 20 years of age.[
Spitz, Lewis (1987). (The Rise of modern Europe) The protestant Reformation 1517-1559.. Harper Torchbooks, pp 9. ISBN 0061320692.
]
In the Middle Ages the Church only allowed annulment for consanguinity and adultery but during the reformation, Luther and others made marriage a civil institution instead of a sacramental one. This made way for the rights of women to divorce their husbands for faults such as impotency.[
Spitz, Lewis (1987). (The Rise of modern Europe) The protestant Reformation 1517-1559.. Harper Torchbooks, pp 354. ISBN 0061320692.
]
In the United Kingdom, the Deceased Wife\'s Sister\'s Marriage Act 1907 was a statute passed by Parliament that removed the prohibition forbidding a man to marry the sister of his deceased wife.
European monogamy
European culture and the cultures of the Americas, so far as they descend from it, have for the most part defined themselves as monogamous cultures. This partially stemmed from Christianity, Germanic cultural traditions[verification needed] and the mandate of Roman Law. However, Roman Law permitted prostitution, concubinage, and sexual access to slaves. The Christian West formally banned these practices with laws against adultery, fornication, and other relationships outside a monogamous, lifelong covenant.
Recognition
The participants in a marriage usually seek social recognition for their relationship, and many societies require official approval of a religious or civil body.
In the early modern era, John Calvin (1509 – 1564) and his Protestant colleagues reformulated Christian marriage through enactment of The Marriage Ordinance of Geneva,which imposes "The dual requirements of state registration and church consecration to constitute marriage."[
Witte Jr., John (1997). From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press, page 91. ISBN 0664255434.
]
In England and Wales, it was Lord Hardwicke\'s Marriage Act 1753 that first required formal ceremony of marriage, thereby curtailing the practice of Fleet Marriage.
In many jurisdictions, the civil marriage ceremony may take place during the religious marriage ceremony, although they are theoretically distinct. In most American states, the marriage may be officiated by a priest, minister, rabbi or other religious authority, and in such a case the religious authority acts simultaneously as an agent of the state. In some countries, such as France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Argentina, Japan and Russia, it is necessary to be married by the state separate from (usually before) any religious ceremony, with the state ceremony being the legally binding one. Some states allow civil marriages in circumstances which are not allowed by many religions, such as same-sex marriages or civil unions.
Marriage may also be created by the operation of the law alone, as in common-law marriage, sometimes called "marriage by habit and repute." This is a judicial recognition that two people who have been living as domestic partners are entitled to the effects of marriage. However, in the UK at least, common-law marriage has been abolished and there are no rights available unless a couple marries or enters into a civil partnership. Conversely, there are examples of people who have a religious ceremony that is not recognized by the civil authorities. Examples include widows who stand to lose a pension if they remarry legally, same-sex couples (where same-sex marriage is not legally recognized), some sects which recognize polygamy, retired couples who would lose pension benefits if legally married, Muslim men who wish to engage in polygamy that is condoned in some situations under Islam, and immigrants who do not wish to alert the immigration authorities that they are married either to a spouse they are leaving behind or because the complexity of immigration laws may make it difficult for spouses to visit on a tourist visa.
In Europe, it has traditionally been the churches\' office to make marriages official by registering them. Hence, it was a significant step towards a clear separation of church and state and also an intended and sufficient weakening of the Christian churches\' role in Germany, when Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the Zivilehe (civil marriage) in 1875. This law made the declaration of the marriage before an official clerk of the civil administration (both spouses affirming their will to marry) the procedure to make a marriage legally valid and effective, and reduced the clerical marriage to an optional private ceremony.
Rights and obligations
A
Ketubah in Aramaic, a Jewish marriage-contract outlining the duties of each partner.
Marriage sometimes:
- establishes the legal father of a woman\'s child;
- establishes the legal mother of a man\'s child;
- gives the husband or his family control over the wife\'s sexual services, labor, and/or property;
- gives the wife or her family control over the husband\'s sexual services, labor, and/or property;
- establishes a joint fund of property for the benefit of children;
- or establishes a relationship between the families of the husband and wife.
No society ascribes all of these rights to marriage, and none are universal[
Leach, Edmund (1968). in Paul Bonannan and John Middleton: Marriage, Family, and Residence. The Natural History Press. ISBN 1121644708.
].
Marriage is not a prerequisite for having children. In the U.S., the National Center for Health Statistics reported that in 1992, 30.1 percent of births were to unmarried women.[
Jones, Richard E.; Kristin H. Lopez (2006). Human Reproductive Biology, Third Edition. Academic Press. ISBN 0120884658.
][
Ventura, SJ. (1995). Births to unmarried mothers: United States, 1980–92.. National Center for Health Statistics. ISBN 0-8406-0507-2.
] In 2006, that number had risen to 38.5 percent. [Teenage Birth Rate Rises for First Time Since ’91". New York Times (2007-12-06).]
Some married couples remain childless by choice or due to infertility, age, or other factors preventing reproduction. In some cultures, marriage imposes upon women the obligation to bear children. In northern Ghana, for example, payment of bridewealth signifies a woman\'s requirement to bear children, and women using birth control face substantial threats of physical abuse and reprisals.[
Bawah, AA.; Akweongo P, Simmons R, Phillips JF. (1999). "Women\'s fears and men\'s anxieties: the impact of family planning on gender relations in northern Ghana.". Studies in Family Planning 30 (1): 54–66. Population Council. ISSN: 0039-3665.
]
Most of the world\'s major religions proscribe marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse.[Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (2006-12-31). HUMAN SEXUALITY AND GENDER TOPICS: Subjects of major concern to many faith groups. Religioustolerance.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.]
They teach that unmarried people should not have sex, which they refer to as fornication.
Fornication is sometimes socially discouraged or even criminalized. Sex with a married person other than one\'s spouse, called adultery, is universally condemned by all major world religions, and has often been criminalized. It is also against the governing law of the U.S. military. Nevertheless, three recent studies in the U.S. using nationally representative samples have found that about 10-15% of women and 20-25% of men engage in extramarital sex.[
Clements, M. (1994, August 7). Sex in America today: A new national survey reveals how
our attitudes are changing. Parade Magazine, 4-6.][Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T, & Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.][Wiederman, M. W. (1997). Extramarital sex: Prevalence and correlates in a national survey.
Journal of Sex Research, 34, 167-174.]
Conversely, a marriage is commonly held to require a sexual relationship, and non-consummation (that is, failure to engage in sex) may be held grounds for an annulment (e.g., John Ruskin\'s abortive marriage).[citation needed]
- See also: Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States
Polygamy
-
- See also: Forms of nonmonogamy
Polygamous marriage, in which a person takes more than one spouse, is accepted in a majority of global social traditions, though it is far less common than monogamy.[
Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7. See also: Kaingang.
]
Africa has the highest rate of polygamy in the world.[
Social and Cultural Issues PDF(116KiB)] In Senegal, for example, nearly 47 percent of marriages are multiple.[
Diouf, Nafi. "Polygamy hangs on in Africa", The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 2, 2004.
]
Polygyny is the typical form of polygamy, while polyandry is rare.[Schwimmer, Brian (2003). Polygamy. Kinship and Social Organization.] Anthropologists distinguish between these forms of multiple marriage, where one person separately marries more than one spouse, and group marriage, in which multiple spouses all become married to one another. The group marriage form of polygamy is rare.[
Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7. See also: Kaingang.
]
In the U.S., the historic Oneida Colony provides a prominent 19th-century example of a polygamous group marriage.
Marriage restrictions
In 2004, the American Anthropological Association released this statement:[Statement on Marriage and the Family from the American Anthropological Association]
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.
Many societies, even some with a cultural tradition of polygamy, recognize monogamy as the only valid form of marriage. For example, People\'s Republic of China shifted from allowing polygamy to supporting only monogamy in the Marriage Act of 1953 after the Communist revolution.[citation needed] Polygamy is practiced illegally by some groups in the United States and Canada, primarily by Mormon fundamentalist sects that separated from the mainstream Latter Day Saints movement after the practice was renounced in 1890.[citation needed] Many African and Islamic societies still allow polygamy.[citation needed]
Since the later decades of the 20th century, many ideas about the nature and purpose of marriage and family have been challenged in some countries, in particular by LGBT social movements, which argue that marriage should not be exclusively heterosexual. Some people also argue that marriage may be an unnecessary legal fiction.[citation needed] This follows from an overall shift in ideas and practices of family; since World War II, the West has seen a dramatic increase in divorce (6% to over 40% of first marriages),[Italian national statistical institute found a 74% increase in divorce between 1995 and 2005 [1]] cohabitation without marriage, a growing unmarried population, children born outside of marriage (5% to over 33% of births), and an increase in adultery (8% to over 40%)[citation needed]. Consequently, a de facto system of serial monogamy has emerged. On the other hand, demands for same-sex marriage have led to its legalization in some Western countries.[citation needed] Six countries, and one state in the
United States, have done so.
Today, the term marriage is generally reserved for a union that is formally recognized by the state (although some people disagree). The phrase legally married can be used to emphasize this point. In the United States, there are two methods of receiving state recognition of a marriage: common law marriage and obtaining a marriage license. The majority of US states do not recognize common law marriage.[citation needed] Other localities may support various types of domestic partnerships.
Many countries regulate the age at which one can get married. As early as 1798, Thomas Malthus proposed delaying the age of marriage to alleviate overpopulation. Societies have often placed restrictions on marriage to relatives, though the degree of prohibited relationship varies widely. In most societies, marriage between brothers and sisters has been forbidden, with Ancient Egyptian, Hawaiian, and Inca royalty being prominent exceptions. In many societies, marriage between some first cousins is preferred, while at the other extreme, the medieval Catholic church prohibited marriage even between distant cousins. The present day Catholic Church still maintains a standard of required distance (in both consanguinity and affinity) for marriage.
In the Indian Hindu community, especially in the Brahmin caste, marrying a person of the same gotra was prohibited, since persons belonging to the same gotra are said to have identical patrilineal descent. In ancient India, when gurukuls existed, the shishyas (pupils) were advised against marrying any of guru\'s children, as shishyas were also considered the guru\'s children and it would be considered marriage among siblings. However, there were exceptions, including Arjuna\'s son Abhimanyu\'s marriage to Uttra, the dance student of Arjuna in Mahabharata. The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 brought reforms in the area of same-gotra marriages, which were banned prior to the act\'s passage. Now the Indian constitution allows any consenting adult heterosexual couple (women 18 or older and men 21 or older) from any race, religion, caste, or creed to marry.
Many societies have also adopted other restrictions on whom one can marry, such as prohibitions of marrying persons with the same surname, or persons with the same sacred animal. Anthropologists refer to these sorts of restrictions as exogamy. One example is South Korea\'s general taboo against a man marrying a woman with the same family name. The most common surname in South Korea is Kim (almost 20%); however, there are several branches (or clans) in the Kim surname. (Korean family names are divided into one or more clans.) Only intra-clan marriages are prohibited, as they are considered one type of exogamy. Thus, many "Kim-Kim" couples can be found.[citation needed]
Societies have also at times required marriage from within a certain group. Anthropologists refer to these restrictions as endogamy. An example of such restrictions would be a requirement to marry someone from the same tribe. Racist laws adopted by some societies in the past—such as Nazi-era Germany, apartheid-era South Africa and most of the United States in the nineteenth and the first half of the 20th century—which prohibited marriage between persons of different races could also be considered examples of endogamy. In the U.S., laws banning interracial marriage, which were state laws, were gradually repealed between 1948 and 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court declared all such laws unconstitutional in the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967.[Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).]
Weddings
-
Couple married in a Shinto ceremony in Takayama, Gifu prefecture.
A marriage may be celebrated with a wedding ceremony,[
Eleanor, Schick (1999). Navajo Wedding Day: A Dine Marriage Ceremony. Cavendish Children\'s Books. ISBN 0761450319.
] which can be performed by a religious officiator or through a similar government-sanctioned secular process. Despite the ceremony being led by someone else, most religious traditions maintain that the marriage itself is mediated between the two individuals through vows, with the gathered audience witnessing, affirming, and legitimizing the marriage.
The ceremony in which a marriage is enacted and announced to the community is called a wedding. A wedding in which the participants marry in the "eyes of the law" is called a civil marriage. Religions also facilitate weddings, in the "eyes of God". In many European and some Latin American countries, a religious ceremony must be held separate from the civil ceremony. Certain countries, like Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Turkey,[Turkish Civil and Penal Code Reforms from a Gender Perspective: The Success of two Nationwide CampaignsPDF(6.21MiB) (p. 18)] demand that the civil marriage take place before any religious marriage. In some countries — notably the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Norway and Spain — both ceremonies can be held together; the officiant at the religious and community ceremony also serves as an agent of the state to enact the civil marriage. That does not mean that the state is "recognizing" religious marriages — the "civil" ceremony just takes place at the same time as the religious ceremony. Often this involves simply signing a register during the religious ceremony. If the civil element of the religious ceremony is omitted, no marriage took place in the eyes of the law.
While some countries, such as Australia, permit marriages to be held in private and at any location, others, including England, require that the civil ceremony be conducted in a place specially sanctioned by law (i.e., a church or registry office), and be open to the public. An exception can be made in the case of marriage by special emergency license, which is normally granted only when one of the parties is terminally ill. Rules about where and when persons can marry vary from place to place. Some regulations require that one of the parties reside in the locality of the registry office.
The way in which a marriage is enacted has changed over time, as has the institution of marriage itself. In Europe during the Middle Ages, marriage was enacted by the couple promising verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or other witnesses was not required. This promise was known as the "verbum". If made in the present tense (e.g. "I marry you"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense ("I will marry you"), it would constitute a betrothal, but if the couple proceeded to have sexual relations, the union was a marriage. As part of the Reformation, the role of recording marriages and setting the rules for marriage passed to the state; by the 1600s many of the Protestant European countries had heavy state involvement in marriage. As part of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church added a requirement of witnesses to the promise, which under normal circumstances had to include the priest.
Marriage and religion
-
Many religions have broad teachings regarding marriage. Most Christian churches blessing the couple being married; the wedding ceremony sometimes involves a pledge by the community to support the couple\'s relationship. Religious communities widely hold marriage as a relationship uniquely allegorical to God\'s relationship with the people; the husband represents God and the bride represents the whole of God\'s chosen people.[citation needed]
Liturgical Christian communions—notably Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy—consider marriage (sometimes termed holy matrimony) to be an expression of grace, termed a sacrament or mystery. In Western ritual, the sacrament is bestowed upon a husband and wife by the spouses themselves, with a bishop, priest, or deacon normally witnessing the union on behalf of the church. In Eastern ritual churches, the clergyman functions as the minister. Western Christians commonly term marriage a vocation, while Eastern Christians term it an ordination and a martyrdom, though the theological emphases indicated by the various names are not excluded by the teachings of either tradition. Marriage is commonly celebrated in the context of a Eucharistic service (a nuptial Mass or Divine Liturgy). The sacrament of marriage is indicative of the relationship between Christ and the Church, yet most Reformed Christians would deny the elevation of marriage to the status of a sacrament. Nevertheless it is considered a covenant between spouses before God.[citation needed]
In Judaism, marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved.[(%20&verse= 24:1&src=JP Deuteronomy 24:1)] Though procreation is not the sole purpose, a Jewish marriage is also expected to fulfill the commandment to have children.[(%20&verse= 1:28&src=JP Genesis 1:28)] The main focus centers around the relationship between the husband and wife. Kabbalistically, marriage is understood to mean that the husband and wife are merging together into a single soul. This is why a man is considered "incomplete" if he is not married, as his soul is only one part of a larger whole that remains to be unified.[Why Marry?. Chabad.org. Retrieved on 2007-12-19.]
Islam also recommends marriage highly; among other things, it helps in the pursuit of spiritual perfection. Age of marriage is whenever the individuals feel ready, financially and emotionally, for marriage. It should also be noted that in Islam, marriage is not a religious concept as it is in many religions, but a civil contract between a man and a woman.[citation needed]Bahá\'u\'lláh, the founder of the Bahá\'í Faith, recommended that people marry as an assistance to themselves in their well-being, but did not make it obligatory; he explained that it is both a physical and spiritual bond that endures into the afterlife.[Smith, Peter (2000). "Marriage". A concise encyclopedia of the Bahá\'í Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. p. 232-233. ISBN 1-85168-184-1.] Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the religion, stated that marriage is a foundation for the structure of human society.
Hinduism sees marriage as a sacred duty that entails both religious and social obligations. Old Hindu literature in Sanskrit gives many different types of marriages and their categorization ranging from "Gandharva Vivaha" (instant marriage by mutual consent of participants only, without any need for even a single third person as witness) to normal (present day) marriages, to "Rakshasa Vivaha" (marriage performed by abduction of one participant by the other participant, usually, but not always, with the help of other persons). There are elaborate laws in Manusmriti directing which castes and which varnas can marry which castes, and the penalties for breaking these nuptial laws.[citation needed]
For the most part, religious traditions in the world reserve marriage to heterosexual unions, but there are exceptions including Unitarian Universalist, Metropolitan Community Church and some Anglican dioceses and Quaker, United Church of Canada and Reform Jewish congregations.["World Religions and Same Sex Marriage", Marriage Law Project, Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, July 2002 revision [2]PDF(84.1KiB)][Affirming Congregations and Ministries of the United Church of Canada]
Marriage and cohabitation
Marriage is an institution which can join together people\'s lives in emotional and economic ways. Marriage can also lead to the formation of a new household, but among some people (e.g. the Minangkabau of West Sumatra), residency after marriage is matrilocal,
with the husband moving into the pre-existing household of his wife\'s mother.[
Sanday, Peggy Reeves (2002). Women at the center: life in a modern matriarchy. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8906-7.
] Residency after marriage can also be patrilocal or avunculocal.
In many Western cultures, married people usually live together in the same home, often sharing the same bed, but in some other regions this is not the tradition.[
Rosenblatt, Paul C. (2006). Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-6829-1.
]
In southwestern China, for example, walking marriages, in which the husband and wife do not live together, have been a traditional part of the Mosuo culture.[
Lu, Yuan; Sam Mitchell (Nov, 2000). "Land Of The Walking Marriage - Mosuo people of China". Natural History. American Museum of Natural History.
]
Walking marriages have also been increasingly common in modern Beijing. Guo Jianmei, director of the center for women\'s studies at Beijing University, told a Newsday correspondent, "Walking marriages reflect sweeping changes in Chinese society."[
Gargan, Edward A.. "China\'s New Brides Put Freedom First / All perks, no work in \'walking marriages\'", Newsday, 2001-03-19, pp.A.04.
]
A similar arrangement in Saudi Arabia, called misyar marriage, also involves the husband and wife living separately but meeting regularly.[
Karam, Souhail. "Misyar offers marriage-lite in strict Saudi society", Reuters, July 21, 2006.
]
Conversely, marriage is not a prerequisite for cohabitation. In one study, Jay Teachman, a researcher at Western Washington University, studied premarital cohabitation of women who are in a monogamous relationship.[
Jay Teachman (2003), Premarital Sex, Premarital Cohabitation, and the Risk of Subsequent Marital Dissolution Among Women, Journal of Marriage and Family 65 (2), 444–455.] Teachman’s study showed "women who are committed to one relationship, who have both premarital sex and cohabit only with the man they eventually marry, have no higher incidence of divorce than women who abstain from premarital sex and cohabitation. For women in this category, premarital sex and cohabitation with their eventual husband are just two more steps in developing a committed, long-term relationship."[
National Council on Family Relations (2003). "Premarital Sex, Cohabitation, and Divorce: the Broken Link". Press release.
]
Marriage and economics
Historical traditions
The economics of marriage have changed over time. Historically, in many cultures the family of the bride had to provide a dowry to pay a man for marrying their daughter. In Early Modern Britain, the social status of the couple was supposed to be equal. After the ma
