Should we get married?

“Why do people get married?”

I’ve been asking my self this question before I got married, and then it happened.

I’ve got married.

It’s made to look like something romantic, something magical, one soul/two bodies, collective future, family, commitment, kids, best friends, in love…..
Nobody said that all this can be done without even getting married (in most of the countries).
Without having the feeling that maybe wasn’t the right person, maybe wasn’t the right time, what to do now (divorce, court, lawyers).
So why the legal sistem is involved in the love between two people and why the religion has to be involved? Isn’t personal choice whom we spend time with and why it has no expiration date?

Throughout history most of the marriages were arranged (in some cultures even today).
Arranged marriage mostly hapened because of reproduction, collective wealth, family wealth and of course progress of the country itself.
In most of the arranged marriages is not about love (it may happen after in some cases)- it is the economy, the survival of a certain group of people, a community or a religious group.
In a modern society where a man and a woman has equal rights the formula of traditional marriage seems outdated.

Collection of rights

Edmund Leach criticized Gough’s definition for being too restrictive in terms of recognized legitimate offspring and suggested that marriage be viewed in terms of the different types of rights it serves to establish. In a 1955 article in Man, Leach argued that no one definition of marriage applied to all cultures. He offered a list of ten rights associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children, with specific rights differing across cultures. Those rights, according to Leach, included:

“To establish a legal father of a woman’s children.

To establish a legal mother of a man’s children.

To give the husband a monopoly in the wife’s sexuality.

To give the wife a monopoly in the husband’s sexuality.

To give the husband partial or monopolistic rights to the wife’s domestic and other labour services.

To give the wife partial or monopolistic rights to the husband’s domestic and other labour services.

To give the husband partial or total control over property belonging or potentially accruing to the wife.

To give the wife partial or total control over property belonging or potentially accruing to the husband.

To establish a joint fund of property – a partnership – for the benefit of the children of the marriage.

To establish a socially significant ‘relationship of affinity’ between the husband and his wife’s brothers.

History

1563 the Council of Trent, twenty-fourth session, required that a valid marriage must be performed by a priest before two witnesses.
Many cultures have legends concerning the origins of marriage. The way in which a marriage is conducted and its rules and ramifications have changed over time, as has the institution itself, depending on the culture or demographic of the time.
The first recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting a man and a woman dates back to approximately 2350 BC, in ancient Mesopotamia.

Wedding ceremonies, as well as dowry and divorce, can be traced back to Mesopotamia and Babylonia.

 Marriage in ancient Rome and Ancient Greek wedding customs:

Chinese marriage

The mythological origin of Chinese marriage is a story about Nüwa and Fu Xi who invented proper marriage procedures after becoming married. In ancient Chinese society, people of the same surname are supposed to consult with their family trees prior to marriage to reduce the potential risk of unintentional incest. Marrying one’s maternal relatives was generally not thought of as incest.

Families sometimes intermarried from one generation to another. Over time, Chinese people became more geographically mobile. Individuals remained members of their biological families.
When a couple died, the husband and the wife were buried separately in the respective clan’s graveyard. In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home.
The New Marriage Law of 1950 radically changed Chinese marriage traditions, enforcing monogamy, equality of men and women, and choice in marriage; arranged marriages were the most common type of marriage in China until then. Starting October 2003, it became legal to marry or divorce without authorization from the couple’s work units.
Although people with infectious diseases such as AIDS may now marry, marriage is still illegal for the mentally ill.

Ancient marriages

In ancient Greece, no specific civil ceremony was required for the creation of a heterosexual marriage – only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard each other as husband and wife.
 Men usually married when they were in their 20s,and women in their teens.
It has been suggested that these ages made sense for the Greeks because men were generally done with military service or financially established by their late 20s, and marrying a teenage girl ensured ample time for her to bear children, as life expectancies were significantly lower.
Married Greek women had few rights in ancient Greek society and were expected to take care of the house and children.
 Time was an important factor in Greek marriage. For example, there were superstitions that being married during a full moon was good luck and, according to Robert Flacelière, Greeks married in the winter.
 Inheritance was more important than feelings: a woman whose father dies without male heirs could be forced to marry her nearest male relative – even if she had to divorce her husband first.

 

Conclusion

So whatever you did,doing or planning of doing (married, not married) love each other and have a commitment to your self not society, religion or anybody else. Or if you decided to go through the institutions after all go for it but you need to decide,it’s your life and you’ve got to live it only once .
Love and be loved.