Why Do I Need A Piece Of Paper

In North America, people will argue that love needs to happen before marriage but, historically, this is actually a very new notion. Mr. Smolinsky was in shock when his daughters wanted to marry for love. He asked his wife if they even looked at each other before the engagement and she replied, “’Maybe if I had the sense of my daughters in America, I would have given you a good look over before the wedding’” (76). This implies that if she had the choice, she would have married for love or perhaps a different man at least.

It is believed that trial marriages reduces numbers of divorces, but looking at the recent researches we can find, that a couple who cohabit before marriage is twice as likely to divorce, than those who do not cohabit. There are also people who do not believe in marriage and think that it is an old fashioned in a modern world. Those who think like that, see no reason ever to get married, and rather just live together. There is also a financial side. Today to have a nice, traditional wedding is very expensive and not every couple can afford it, so to live without being married is much easier way. In the other cultures, like in Asia or Middle East, cohabitation is still a taboo and it still means shame and social disapproval and in some places it is illegal to live together before marriage. In this case differences between developed countries and less developed countries are also very clear, but there is one side which should make all cultures believe in same things, it is religion. There is no religion, which allows us to have sexual intercourse before marriage, and Eastern cultures strongly comply with these beliefs. But then it looks like Western cultures, where cohabitation cases are much higher, are no longer religious.

Marriage is described as two people as partners in a personal relationship. There are two typical ideas of marriage that we know today. The first one that comes to mind is the one we all know, based on love, but there is another one that some may not even know of and its arranged marriages. Arranged marriage is not typically in our culture we know but in different cultures arranged marriages are their normal marriage. Throughout this essay, I will discuss the importance of realizing cultural diversity and how we apply the perspectives we gain from cross-cultural comparison to our own experience using central concepts about marriage to compare and contrast marriage in several cultures.

Many legal and financial advantages can be attained through marriage. Instead of getting married after high school, people tend to go to college, get their life together, and then marry. The average groom is now thirty-seven and bride thirty-four (Discuss). According to Associated Press Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, “41 percent of spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional.” Couples these days aren’t communicating the proper way. Instead they get mad at each other and ignore one another. One or both people in the relationship have “checked out”, but they don’t want to divorce for the sake of the children. Or they still love each other, valuing each other as a support system and as close friends, but don’t feel that intimacy toward one another. As said in a marriage article from faqs.org, “The study, by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, found that the marriage rate among Americans is at its lowest point ever. Over the last forty years, the rate has fallen forty-three percent. In addition, fewer people are reporting themselves as being “very happy” in their marriages.” Today, most wedding ceremonies involve a religious service, which contains many traditional features that are significant to their cultures. Christian’s services contain wording that has been unchanged since the

     In years past, the American Dream for most young girls’ is to grow up and be married to Prince Charming and to “Live Happily Ever After!” Although this may be expected - it is rarely fulfilled. Marriage is the legal and binding union between a man and woman. Yet when couples marry, they vow to stay by their partner’s side ‘till death do us part.’ Currently that vow seems to have little or no value in today’s society. The current statistics for survival of marriage are quite grim. The divorce rate in the United States is somewhere between 50 percent and a startling 67 percent. (KSL News) One contributing factor the growing epidemic of divorce is the parting of different family

“Marriage and Love”, a short essay by Emma Goldman, gives a wonderful argument regarding love and marriage, in fact, she nails it. Marriage does not equal love or has anything nothing to do with it. Not only that, but the marriage could also easily kill whatever relationship was there prior to the declaration. Marriage is simply a social construct, one that imposes control by religion, tradition, and social opinion (Goldman 304). However, if marriage is such the ball and chain that we all joke about, then why do people get married?

About two centuries ago a new standard to the way marriage should be viewed came about. This set higher expectations for marriage. This change made more strict divorce laws, in turn made it harder to end a good marriage, it gave individuals more freedom to refuse a spouse. “The husband became the family’s economic motor, and the wife its sentimental core.” (p. 385) By the late eighteenth century marriage became a private contract between a husband and wife and was not regulated by church or state. However many working-class families did not adopt the new norms until the twentieth century. Different culture and countries still argued their views, many changed their description of an ideal mate.

Growing up children are surrounded with a fairy tale life, the ‘happily ever after.’ As girls we are supposed to wait for our prince charming and he will love us forever; and for boys it is finding and rescuing a beautiful princess who can cook, clean, and is loved by all creatures. That is what marriage is based off of as a child, but that perspective changes once we get a small grasp of the concept of love and we really see what marriage is. Marriage is not something anyone goes into lightly and maybe our expectations of the fairy tale life are why divorce is so commonly sought.

In “For better, for worse: Marriage means something different now,” Stephanie Coontz reveals the worldwide changes in people’s attitudes and behaviors towards marriage. According to Coontz, education and the social norms are the reasons why marriage has become nonessential. Being single and going through a divorce are more acceptable now. The motivations of marriage have turned from economic dependence into personal willingness. In fact, Coontz’s words make me wonder the true meaning of marriage. Even though the meaning has changed over times, I believed that I still hope to get married.

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.

Marriage has often been described as one of the most beautiful and powerful unions one human can form with another. It is the sacred commitment and devotion that two people share in a relationship that makes marriage so appealing since ancient times, up until today. To have and to hold, until death do us part, are the guarantees that two individuals make to one another as they pledge to become one in marriage. It is easy to assume that the guarantee of marriage directly places individuals in an everlasting state of love, affection, and support. However, over the years, marriage has lost its fairy

Marriage has been a heated controversy for the past few years because people often marry for the wrong reasons. Anyone who thinks of an ideal marriage would think of two people loving each other and sharing a personal bond or goals together. Marriage is regularly defined as the legally or formally recognized union of two lovers as partners in a personal relationship. This definition remarks there is an actual connection between two people in marriage, but do people actually consider this when committing to “love” and “support” their partners forever? As research and studies have shown, people ultimately get married for many reasons, except love. This philosophy can be easily applied to the short poem, “Marriage” by Gregory Corso. In this emotional poem, the author argues marriage is more effectively understood or known for culture and convenience rather than through the abstract considerations of love. Here, we can identify people generally decide to marry for the incorrect reasons, for instance the story of the author himself. Corso finds himself confused multiple times, wondering if he should marry to not be lonely, for tradition and for his physical and mental health. He disregards love, a relationship or a connection with his future wife. General ways of convenience like loneliness, health and economic status between cultural stereotypes and religion are usually the true reasons of why people chose to have the commitment of marriage with another person.

A quote from a famous American author, Mark Twain says “Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” The definition of marriage varies with cultures and views. The most popular and idealistic notion is that it’s a result from the unconditional love of two people wanting to share it for the rest of their life, in a committed and long bonding way. For some, however, marriage is more of an economical arrangement, a pact for two people to help and catch each other when the other one fall. And for others, it is just a paper that one can throw away if not needed, or by simple saying, marriage is not important.

In the article “For Better, For Worse: Marriage Means Something Different Now,” Author Stephanie Coontz talks about “marriage is no longer the main way in which societies regulate sexuality and parenting or organize the division of labor between men and women”. Likewise, people have no longer traditional value, and Now they need love, mutual understanding and faithful person to live with. So, if a couple is not able to get all these requirements then a couple don’t stay in a relationship. Additionally, if a couple is married, but they don’t love each other threat they take divorce. Apparently, marriage is not all about love between a couple, but it is about connecting loved once and children both. However, there are different situations such

Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, “half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.” (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, “until death do us part,” uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by