The Institution Of Marriage

At this time, marriage was still somewhat based on the economic standing of one’s partner. Marriage was viewed by some as “a means of increasing one’s credit and one’s fortune and of insuring one’s success in this world” (Zeldin 288). However, marrying for love became much more important. Prior to the 1800s, couples were typically much farther apart in age, with the husband being much older than the wife. However, after the increase in marriages of love, couples were nearly the same age. Love and attraction eventually became the primary

Marriage has changed dramatically over time in the many years it has been around. What do think Marriage was like 100 years ago? The article, “American Marriage in Transition”, describes how many different types of marriage there are and how people have changed their view on it. Andrew Cherlin (the sociologist of the article) does a great job going in depth explaining American marriage. He arranges the different marriages in three different categories; Institutionalized which was the earliest type of marriage, then Companionship around World War II, and currently we are considered Individualized.

Stephanie Coontz is a sociologist who is interested in marriage and the change in its structure over the time-span as love became a main proponent of the relationship involved in marriages. In her article, “What 's Love Got to Do With It,” Coontz argues that the more love becomes a part of the equation the less stable the institution of marriage becomes. Marriage at one point was a social contract that bound two families together to increase their property and wealth as well as ally connections. Each party entered into the contract knowing their roles and if one partner failed to meet the expectations, they were still contractually obligated to one another and were not allowed to divorce. As love became part of the equation, each partner was less sure of their obligations and often chose to end their marriages if at all possible.

Love exists in the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro and in the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. in Munro’s short story the plot is that of a mentally ill wife, Fiona, who falls in love with another patient while her husband still tries to hang on to their old love. Her husband eventually wants to have an affair with the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with. Their love changed because of their circumstances due to ill health. Carver’s story discusses the different definitions of love due to the type and quality of relationships; everyone has a different definition. Love also exists all over the world within different environments and cultures. The concept of love depends upon the environment in which it inhabits. Love is dependent on the life of the people in love and it also depends on their current environment. Nature and nurture are also huge factors into the development and process of love. What nature and nurture mean is whether it is due to how the person lives and acts along with their personality compared to whether it’s all in their genetics beforehand. Love is more on the nurture side instead of the nature side of human experience.

Back in the eighteenth century, marriage was seen as a business contract without considering love as the main reason for any relationship. According to Ingrid H. Tague, an assistant

In the essay For Better, For worse: Marriage Means Something Different Now Stephanie Coontz tells us about the history of marriage and how it has changed. It all started with a woman only marrying because they wanted to work in the house and have kids. Through the years the woman had started to become more attached and people cannot handle it. It started with them marrying for economic purposes and then it moved to more of an affection towards the male. She explains all this with some story and background and then she goes into detail about all of it.

In some cultures, people didn’t marry for love and those who did were looked down upon; whereas in modern times, it’s the opposite in many parts of the world. Coontz tells of a culture where,“A Taita man normally marries a love wife only after he has accumulated a few more practical wives” (255). This shows the different perceptions of marriage between the Taita peoples, who let men remarry several times in loveless marriages, and those of certain religions that forbade divorce, as well as today’s society where people often marry for love the first time around. The perceptions differed in that some societies believed in remarrying and marrying without love, while others didn’t. Coontz explains some very different marriage traditions than what Bennett says is normal and right-A man and a woman who fit traditional gender roles- as shown in his essay, “Complementary nature of men and women-and how they refine, support, encourage, and complete one another” (272).

In my article that I have chosen, the CBS News hosted Dr. Strohschein Lisa, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta in Canada for a talk show. She talked about modern marriage saying that it never is what it used to be. According to Dr. Strohschein, the concept of love is a complex thing to study, since the term is that there are no real metrics to quantify it (Williamson, 2013). Strohschein says that based on her numerous research studies on why individuals get married, and how the dynamics of love in marriages work, one can conclude that marriage has evolved.

Allison Glazebrook and Kelly Olson’s chapter, “Greek and Roman Marriage" the authors discuss marriage practices in Ancient Greece and Rome and highlight the importance of wives in a family structure and society. They do so by looking at what was required for a legitimate marriage over the course of these civilizations’ history. In both cultures, Glazebrook and Olson especially look at how women and girls’ bodies were policed and defined. From an early age, girls were taught that their role in life would be remain sexually available to their husbands and produce heirs. From a modern perspective, girls in ancient civilizations married extremely young. However, this chapter address the “scientific” justification society gave to promote this practice

Established with Adam and Eve, still surviving, marriage is the oldest institution known. Often the climax of most romantic movies and stories, whether it may be ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Dil Wale Dulhaniya Ley Jaein Gey’, marriage has a universal appeal. It continues to be the most intimate social network, providing the strongest and most frequent opportunity for social and emotional support. Though, over the years, marriage appears to be tarnished with high divorce rates, discontentment and infidelity, it is still a principal source of happiness in the lives of respective partners. Although marriage is perceived as a deeply flawed institution serving more the needs of the society than those of the individuals, nevertheless, marriage is

I found the term 'love-relationship' slightly strange, and it left me wondering whether the author was referring to some type of serious long-term relationship, or whether they had in mind the ability to sexualize, or make sexual advances to, any or all of their patients. For me, clarifying this is important, as I am sure the latter would receive stronger reactions than the former.

Through this conflict, the world has and will continue to evolve into the modern community that we already have begun to live in today. This information is prevalent within the short story “Marriage is a Private Affair.” Although marriage has evolved a great amount in the past into what we know it as today, there are still civilizations that have stuck to their traditional beliefs and are looking to begin their own crusade as to what marriage beliefs should consist

In the late 1800’s through early 1900’s women and men were did not “tie the knot” like the women and men do in today’s day. In today’s world, women and men get married because they have many things in common, they are in love with each other, and they choose to get married to one another. In many stories written back then, readers can expect to read about how marriages were arranged and how many people were not having the wedded bliss marriage proclaims today.

Marriage is a union that has been around for as long as humans have walked the earth. The human race depends upon the union of its members, and as such, the subject of marriage has been an issue that receives more intense scrutiny and attention than many would likely believe. In today's day and age, with humanity continuing to move in a modern direction, many argue that marriage is a union that should be entered into freely and should be based exclusively on the love between two people. However, I argue that arranged marriage, which has taken place throughout the ages and throughout the world, is a union that offers its observers a marriage based in support, longevity and love, and is an institution that should not be frowned upon.

Today, the idea of marriage conjures images of bashful brides beautifully draped in all white, of grandiose flower arrangements climbing towards the ceiling, of romance personified. As an institution in this modern world, marriage represents the apex of romantic love, with an entire industry of magazines, movies, and television shows devoted to perpetuating marriage as an idealized symbol of the ultimate love between two people. Contrarily, as a sociological institution, marriage comes from much more clinical and impersonal origins, contrasting with the passion surrounding modern understandings of the institution. Notably, french anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss theorizes that the institution of marriage emerged from a need to form alliances between groups, with women functioning as the property exchanged so that such alliances could be solidified (Levi-Strauss).