Marriage

• Marriage is a universal social institution established to control and regulate the sex life of individuals.
• It is closely connected with the institution of family, and both are complementary to each other.
• According to Gillin and Gillin, marriage is a socially approved way of establishing a family of procreation.
• Westermarck suggests that marriage is rooted in the family, rather than the family being rooted in marriage.
• Marriage has different implications, purposes, functions, and forms in various cultures.
• Despite differences, marriage is present as an institution in every society.

Definitions of marriage

• Edward Westermarck defines marriage as a durable connection between male and female lasting beyond propagation and continuing until after the birth of offspring.
• Malinowski describes marriage as a contract for the production and maintenance of children.
• Robert H. Lowie defines marriage as a relatively permanent bond between permissible mates.
• Duncan Mitchell broadly defines marriage as a socially sanctioned sex relationship between two or more people of the opposite sex, expected to endure beyond gestation and the birth of children.
• Alfred McClung Lee states that marriage is the public joining of a man and woman as husband and wife under socially specified regulations.

Characteristics of Marriage

• Universality: Marriage is a universal institution, found in both pre-literate and literate societies. It is enforced as a social rule in many societies. Examples:

  • In Japan, celibacy is condemned.
  • In Korea, unmarried individuals are seen as “half persons”.
  • In Hinduism, marriage is regarded as a sacrament and is almost obligatory.
  • Todas of Nilagiri perform funeral rites only after marriage ceremonies for a deceased girl.
  • Confucius views lifelong celibacy as a grave crime.
  • Levi-Strauss notes that unmarried primitives in Central Brazil live miserable lives.
• Relationship Between Man and Woman: Marriage involves a union of man and woman, with social rules about who marries whom and how many.
• Marriage Bond is Enduring: Marriage indicates a long-lasting bond beyond just sexual relations. It excludes casual or prostitution-related relationships. For example, in Hinduism, marriage is seen as a sacred bond that even death cannot break.
• Marriage Requires Social Approval: A union becomes marital only when society gives approval, transforming it into a legal contract.
• Marriage is Associated with a Civil or Religious Ceremony: Marriage gains social recognition through a ceremony, which may involve rites, rituals, and customs. In Hinduism, marriage is a sacrament involving rituals like Homa, Saptapadi, Panigrahana, and Mangalya-Dharana.
• Marriage Creates Mutual Obligations: Marriage imposes rights and duties on both husband and wife, who are required to support each other and their children.

Functions and Importance of Marriage

• The importance of marriage lies in the functions it performs in society.

Regulation of Sex Life:

• Marriage is a powerful instrument for regulating sexual impulses.
• It controls sexual relations to avoid chaos and confusion in society.
• Marriage acts as a licence for sex life.
• It prohibits incestuous relationships (e.g., father-daughter, mother-son, brother-sister), known as the incest taboo.
• It also imposes restrictions on premarital and extra-marital sex relations.

Marriage Leads to the Establishment of the Family:

• Marriage results in self-perpetuation by promoting the establishment of a family of procreation.
• It is in marriage that children are born and raised.
• Marriage determines the descent of individuals, which governs inheritance and succession.

Provides for Economic Cooperation:

• Marriage enables a division of labor based on sex.
• Partners in marriage divide work between themselves, both within the home and in the outside workforce.
• In some primitive tribes, there is a clear division of labor between husband and wife.
• In modern industrial societies, both husband and wife may work outside the home to improve economic status.

Marriage Contributes to Emotional and Intellectual Cooperation:

• Marriage fosters love and affection between partners.
• It strengthens companionship and deepens emotional connections.
• It promotes intellectual cooperation between the partners.

Marriage Aims at Social Solidarity:

• Marriage brings together not only individuals but also their respective families, groups, and kindreds.
• It reinforces friendship between different social groups.
• By encouraging marriage across castes, races, classes, religions, and communities, marriage helps minimise social distance and strengthen social solidarity.

Forms of Marriage

• Polygyny is a form of marriage where one man marries more than one woman at a time.
• More common than polyandry, but not as universal as monogamy.
• Practiced in most ancient civilizations, including among the Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Indians.
• Currently practiced in primitive tribes and often restricted to wealthier classes.
• Found among groups such as Eskimo tribes, Crow Indians, Hidatsa, Nagras, Gonds, and Baigas in India.
• Muslim communities also permit polygyny.

Types of Polygyny

• Sororal Polygyny: Wives are sisters, often referred to as sororate.
• Usually practiced in tribes with high bride prices.
• A wife’s death or childlessness may be compensated by marrying her younger sister.
• Non-Sororal Polygyny: Wives are unrelated sisters.

Causes of Polygyny

• More women, fewer men: Polygyny is common when there is an excess of women over men. If the sex ratio is imbalanced, polygyny (or polyandry) helps maintain a legitimate sex life.
• Economic advantage: In some African tribes (e.g., Longos and Thongas), polygyny is practiced for economic reasons. Women contribute to the family income, and the first wife may encourage polygyny to ease her workload.
• Social status: A man’s social status is often measured by the number of wives he has. Greater the number of wives, the higher his prestige.
• Childlessness of the first wife: If the first wife is barren, she may encourage her husband to marry another woman to have children.
• Constant sex urge in men: Men have year-round sex urges, unlike women, so polygyny allows men to satisfy their sexual desires.
• Other factors:
  • Taste for variety: Men may marry multiple women to enjoy a variety of relationships.
  • Enforced celibacy: During periods such as menstruation, pregnancy, or lactation, sexual relations are taboo, making polygyny more practical.
  • Earlier aging of women: Some cultures believe women age faster than men, prompting them to marry younger women.
  • Desire for more children: Some men desire more children and may marry more women to achieve this.
  • Captured women: Women taken during wars or fights are often made wives by the victorious men.
  • Establish masculinity: Some men marry more women to assert their masculinity.

Polyandry

• Polyandry is the marriage of one woman with several men, less common than polygyny.
• Practiced among the Tibetans, Marquesan Islanders of Polynesia, Bahama of Africa, tribals of Samoa, and others.
• In India, tribes like Tiyan, Toda, Kota, Khasa, and Ladakhi Bota practice polyandry. The Nairs of Kerala were polyandrous in the past.

Types of Polyandry

• Fraternal Polyandry: Several brothers share the same wife, known as alephic or fraternal polyandry. This practice involves being mates with one’s husband’s brothers, also referred to as levirate. This is common among the Todas.
• Non-Fraternal Polyandry: The husbands are not closely related. The wife spends time with each husband individually. Once with one husband, the others have no claim over her. This type is practiced by the Tibetans and was practiced by the Nairs.

• Differences: Polyandry differs from wife-sharing or wife-lending, which is a more temporary practice among primitives.

Causes of Polyandry

• No universal explanation, but factors like scarcity of women, desire to keep property intact, heavy bride price, poverty, and sterility of men contribute.
• In India’s Todas, female infanticide led to a surplus of males, encouraging polyandry.
• In Ladakh, polyandry persisted even when women outnumbered men.
• Poverty and heavy bride price: Poor young men unable to pay the bride price often marry a woman collectively. Wealthy people also practiced polyandry in some cases.
• Property considerations: Tibetans practiced polyandry to maintain joint property.

Social Implications of Polyandry

• Biological paternity becomes difficult to determine, so sociological fatherhood is used.
• In Todas, one husband undergoes a bow-and-arrow ceremony to become the legal father of the child. Other husbands undergo the same ceremony later.
• In Samoa, children can choose their permanent parent after a few years.
• Polyandry helps keep the birth rate low while still providing sexual satisfaction, contributing to low population growth.
• Requires understanding between the wife and husbands and among the husbands themselves.
• May lead to extra-marital and pre-marital relations.
• Polyandrous Khasa wives follow marriage norms, but their unmarried daughters have more freedom to interact with visitors.

• Trends: Despite its presence in some communities, polyandry is not common, and monogamy is becoming more popular. Polyandry is slowly disappearing.

Monogamy

• Monogamy is a form of marriage where one man marries one woman, the most widespread form of marriage.
• It is practiced among various tribes such as Kadars, Santals, Khasis, Canella, Hopi, Iroquois, Andaman Islanders, Veddas of Ceylon, Sevangas of Malaya, and others.
• Monogamy has a long history and is believed to be as old as humanity, with philosophers like Aristotle and ancient civilizations such as Romans, Spartans, Jews, Christians, and Indians emphasizing its importance.
• Ancient Hindus considered monogamy the most ideal form of marriage.
• Advantages of Monogamy:
  • Universally practicable: Monogamy provides marital opportunities and satisfaction for all individuals, as the one-to-one ratio fits almost all societies. Other forms, like polygyny and polyandry, do not equally satisfy everyone.
  • Economically better suited: Monogamy is more feasible for ordinary-income individuals, as it does not require the resources needed to support multiple wives and children, unlike polygyny. Even though Koran permits up to four wives, ordinary Muslims cannot afford this.
  • Promotes better understanding between husband and wife: Monogamy fosters love, affection, and family peace. It contributes to family solidarity and happiness, as highlighted by Vatsayana in the Kama Sutra, stating that a man can only please one woman at a time.
  • Contributes to stable family and sex life: Monogamous families are more stable and longer-lasting, free from conflicts, sexual jealousy, and extra-marital relationships. Herbert Spencer noted that monogamy strengthens the family bond.
  • Helps better socialisation: Monogamous families provide greater attention to children’s socialisation. Both parents can focus on their children, unlike in polygyny, where the husband is spread too thin among multiple wives and children.
  • Aged parents are not neglected: Monogamy ensures that old parents are cared for. In polygyny, older wives are often discarded in favor of younger ones.
  • Provides better status for women: Women in monogamous marriages enjoy higher social status compared to polygyny, where they often have limited rights and can be easily divorced. In modern societies, women in monogamous marriages enjoy almost equal status with men.

Group Marriage

• Group marriage involves the marriage of two or more women with two or more men, but this arrangement is rare.
• In group marriage, the husbands are common husbands and the wives are common wives. Children are considered the children of the entire group.
• Children refer to all the men as their fathers and all the women as their mothers.
• Some tribes in Australia, India, Tibet, and Ceylon are believed to have practiced group marriage.
• Some writers argue that group marriage does not exist. When it does occur, it is often linked to polyandry. For example, Toda brothers marrying common wives.
• Monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous marriages, along with practices like concubinage, sexual hospitality, or socially tolerated adultery, are sometimes mistaken for group marriage.
• Studies show that group marriage is almost on the verge of extinction.
• Marital choice is not absolutely free in any society. Even in societies that allow free marital choice, it is still relativeand governed by rules.
• The primary rules that influence marital choice are endogamy (marrying within the group) and exogamy (marrying outside the group).

Endogamy

• Endogamy is a rule of marriage where life-partners are selected within the group, such as caste, class, tribe, race, village, or religious group.
• Forms of endogamy include caste endogamy, class endogamy, subcaste endogamy, race endogamy, and tribal endogamy.
• Example: In caste endogamy, a Brahmin must marry another Brahmin. In subcaste endogamy, a Shivalli Brahminmust marry within the Shivalli subcaste, and a Gangadiagar Vokkaliga must marry within their sub-caste.
• Endogamy prohibits marriage outside the group, and intercaste marriages are generally discouraged.
• Factors causing endogamy include:
  • Policy of separation
  • Geographic separation of people
  • Desire to keep wealth within the group
  • Religious, racial, and cultural differences
  • Sense of superiority or inferiority
• Advantages of endogamy:
  • Contributes to group unity and solidarity
  • Keeps women happier within their group
  • Helps preserve property within the group
  • Safeguards the purity of the group
  • Maintains secrecy about the group’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as professional secrets
• Disadvantages of endogamy:
  • Divides society into small units, affecting national unity
  • Limits the choice of life-partners, leading to practices like polygyny, dowry, and bride price
  • Can foster hatred and contempt for other groups
  • Close-in-breeding may harm the biological potentiality of offspring
• Endogamy is condemned due to these disadvantages.
• Exogamy is preferred by modern, civilized societies over endogamy.

Exogamy

• Exogamy is the rule of marriage in which individuals must marry outside their own group, prohibiting marriage within the group.
• The rule of exogamy prohibits marital connections and sexual contacts among blood relatives.
• The degree of nearness for prohibited marriages varies across communities. For example, in Melanesia and Australia, a son may marry his father’s wife if she is not his direct mother. Similarly, marriage of cousins is allowed among Muslims.
• Forms of Exogamy:
  • Gotra Exogamy: Hindus must marry outside their gotra (ancestral lineage).
  • Pravara Exogamy: Those who share the same pravara (common saint) cannot marry within their group.
  • Village Exogamy: Some Indian tribes, like Naga, Garo, and Munda, practice marriage outside their village.
  • Pinda Exogamy: Individuals from the same Pinda (common parentage) cannot marry within their group.
• Causes of Exogamy:
  1. Desire to be distinct from others encouraged exogamy.
  2. Individuals may feel insignificant if marrying within their own circle, leading them to select partners outside their group.
  3. Female infanticide led some tribes to marry outside their group due to a shortage of girls, sometimes resulting in the kidnapping of girls from other groups.
  4. The belief that close in-breeding could affect the biological quality of offspring contributed to the practice of exogamy.
• Endogamy and exogamy are not mutually exclusive and can coexist in some societies. For example, in India, caste Hindus practice both. Castes and subcastes are endogamous, but gotra is exogamous.
• There is a growing trend toward exogamous marriages today.
• Endogamy is considered conservative and widely criticized, while exogamy is viewed as progressive and more scientific.
• Exogamy has helped bring together people of different castes, races, religious groups, and tribes, fostering social solidarity and communal unity.