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Marriage Essay

Decent Essays

Kaitlyn Decker

Mrs. DeMarchi

English 4, Period 7

November 4, 2010

Marriage Essay

Marriage, like the United States Constitution, is a living, breathing object. The history of marriage for the American society was founded by different cultures such as Hebrew, Germanic, Roman and many more. Later it was shaped by the Christian church along with other factors displaying themselves in the country such as the Industrial Revolution and the Protestant Reformation. Marriage in the twenty-first century is also being changed with the society and world around it, not just socially but legally. Looking back into marriage during the nineteenth century many stereotypes from the twenty-first century can be seen, supported by facts. This …show more content…

Men would most commonly have the advantage where they could simply dismiss their wives, but that does not discount the fact that women had the right to sue for a divorce. Though divorce was not high, as it was still looked down upon by society, reasons of its occurrence can be understood from the pressure that is instilled on single individuals to get married, to those they have no romantic inclination towards. This pressure seemed to be partially lifted under the influence of Christianity when the religion itself found virtue in celibacy. Many may think that marital experimentation was concocted by same sex marriage, but truly America was no stranger to marital changes and experiments back in the nineteenth century as well. The Oneida Community Founded is a perfect example; created by John Noyes (1948) where they cultivated the form “complex marriage”. This included a marriage that, theoretically every woman was married to every man. The community of Oneida in upstate New York also practiced "scientific breeding". This was more of a scientific outlook on marriage in which potential parents were matched for physical and mental health by a committee. Another largely debated form of marriage back in the nineteenth century included polygamy. The members of the Mormon Church, who were the individuals who practiced polygamy in the United States of America, were relentlessly

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