Introduction

Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal

Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, and sometimes forced marriage, may be practiced as a cultural tradition.

Conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns for women's rights and because of international law. In developed parts of the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights within marriage for women and legally recognizing the marriages of interfaith, and  same-sex couples. Often, these trends have been motivated by a desire to establish equality and uphold human rights.

Since the late twentieth century, major social changes in Western countries have led to changes in the demographics of marriage, with the age of first marriage increasing, fewer people marrying, and more couples choosing to cohabit rather than marry. For example, the number of marriages in Europe decreased by 30% from 1975 to 2005.

Historically, in most cultures, married women had very few rights of their own, being considered, along with the family's children, the property of the husband; as such, they could not own or inherit property, or represent themselves legally. These changes have occurred primarily in Western countries.

In the 21st century, there continue to be controversies regarding the legal status of married women, legal acceptance of or leniency towards violence within marriage, traditional marriage customs such as dowry and bride price, forced marriage, marriageable age, and criminalization of consensual behaviors such as premarital and extramarital sex.

MODERN MARRIAGE

The highest divorce rates in the world are in economically and industrially developed regions; since the primary socioeconomic rationale for marriage has always been support and protection of women and children, obviously a woman whose sole source of support was her husband’s income did not have the option to leave him if she became dissatisfied, because her need to survive outweighed all other considerations.  Indeed, it can be shown that in most periods of history, women with their own sources of income (heiresses, tradeswomen and whores) divorced at much higher rates than poor women did; they had no economic incentive to remain in marriages with which they were unhappy.  This has been noted before and analyzed to great exhaustion, but taken alone it fails to point to the true reason for the high modern divorce rate.

Most people are confused about why modern marriages fail because they misunderstand what marriage really is in the first place.  Once this is understood, it becomes obvious that the institution is alive and well; it has merely changed into a form most people fail to recognize.   Contrary to what most modern people like to believe, marriage is and always has been primarily a socioeconomic arrangement; the most basic motivation for any woman is the acquisition and retention of security for herself and her children, and only after that basic need is met can she pursue any higher motivations.  In the past, a woman married in order that she and her children would be provided for and protected, and love or sexual passion had little or nothing to do withthese considerations.

The Trouble With Modern Marriage

Marriage in America is facing a variety of novel changes and challenges. I am not referring to the current legal battles regarding who is and is not allowed to marry, but rather the hurdles facing couples who do enter into marriage.

Over the past several decades, the nature of marriage has changed. Many people are choosing to live their lives with partners without getting legally married, and Americans are increasingly more approving of this option. Unfortunately, people who do marry have roughly a 50 percent chance of staying married. That’s equivalent to flipping a coin on your wedding day. Even for couples who stay married, many report being unsatisfied in their relationships.

These emerging issues have led marital researchers to ask, “What gives?” What has changed about the nature of marriage since the 1970s that makes it less appealing to some, less satisfying to others, and generally less stable? Some researchers have blamed the ease with which we can get divorced, the general decline in Americans' desire to marry, or the decline

in respect for the institution, despite the fact that most Americans still express a desire to get married and remain optimistic about their chances for a happy union. However, there is another potential explanation: Maybe we are simply expecting too much of our marriages without investing enough time and effort into our relationships to make these expectations achievable.

A recent article by Eli Finkel and colleagues (2014) reviewed how many of the changes that have taken place with regard to our expectations for marriage may actually set the stage for many marriages to fail, and for many remaining marriages to feel unsatisfying. Specifically, the researchers argue that throughout varied periods of our history, we expected our spouses to help satisfy our needs for resources (income, putting food on the table, etc.), safety and security, and our need to feel loved and cared for.

Modern marriage, or what the researchers call the “self-expressive” marriage, adds to these existing expectations. We now expect that our spouses facilitate not only our needs for closeness and connection, but also our needs for personal growth and fulfillment. Although we have become less reliant on our partners in some ways.

It seems that the expectations we place on our marriages are quite a burden for one person and one relationship to bear. Add to these demands the emerging findings, according to the review by Finkel and colleagues (2014), that Americans are investingless time and effort in the maintenance of their relationships than in previous decades, and it seems no wonder that so many are disappointed and unsatisfied in their marriages. 1

So what’s to be done?

The recent review by Finkel and colleagues suggests three possible remedies to the issue of high expectations:

First, we can reduce our expectations of our marriages. For example, perhaps we can reconcile ourselves to the idea that friends or colleagues may better meet our needs for support and encouragement at work than our spouses.

Second, we can invest more time and effort into our relationships by spending more quality time together (note the use of the word quality—spacing out in front of bad television may not qualify).

Third, we can learn to get the most “bang for our buck” by optimizing how we use the time and effort that we put into our relationships to help them meet our expectations. Relationship researchers have developed many low-cost activities and interventions designed to enhance marital quality, such as engaging in novel and exciting activities together, or becoming more aware of our behavior in relationships (Coulter & Malouf,

1 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/me-you-us/201407/the-trouble-modern-marriage

2013, Rogge et al. 2014, both cf. Finkel et al., 2014). Interestingly, this last example works by having couples watch romantic movies and then discuss how they apply to their own relationship. Either option could be turned into a great date night ...

Any way you look at it, marriage today is a tricky venture. In many ways, we seem to set ourselves up for disappointment and even divorce. The good news is that researchers are starting to understand the challenges facing modern marriage and to develop strategies to address these them. Of course, the specific challenges and solutions will vary from couple to couple and situation to situation, but this seems like a good place to start.

5 Surprising Facts About Modern Marriage

The last few years have witnessed a great deal of handwringing over the supposed “death of marriage.” There are the scores of articles about millennials rejecting the institution outright; the reports of gay couples getting divorced only years after being granted the fundamental right to wed; the oft-cited statistic that half of all marriages will end in divorce or annulment. A scan of the headlines would suggest that as a society, we’re turning our back on this ancient tradition. As it turns out, the picture is much more complicated.

Here are five surprising facts about marriage today, taken from recent studies.

1. While it’s true that the overall number of people getting married has fallenover the last few decades, this has to do with couples cohabitating and delaying marriage, rather than rejecting it outright. A 2011 Pew poll found that the share of adults who have entered marriage even once has fallen from 85 percent in 1960 to 70 percent in 2013. Much of this decline can be explained by younger adults deciding to wait until later in life to tie the knot. As the Pew survey notes, “the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7).” This is not an exclusively American phenomenon. In fact, the trend has taken root in most other post-industrial societies; a United Nations report that analyzed marriage trends found that female age at first marriage rose from the 1970s to the 2000s in 75 of the 77 countries studied.

Part of this delay can be explained by the erosion of the taboo against premarital cohabitation. Economic reasons are also a factor, as young people who are still living at home or struggling to find full-time employment are much less likely to feel ready for the responsibilities of marriage. But the Pew report found that these declines have persisted through economic upswings, suggesting that the decision to delay marriage represents a fundamental reorienting of young peoples’ priorities. Rather than forgoing marriage, they are focusing on starting their careers, building up savings, or going back to school to continue their educations before compromising their life choices for somebody else.

2. When It Comes to Having Kids Before Marriage, Socioeconomic Status Is a Huge Factor

For Americans under 35, nearly half of all births now occur outside of marriage. In part, this speaks to the dissolving social stigma against having children out of wedlock, meaning couples no longer feel pressured to get shotgun weddings in the case of unplanned

pregnancies.  But a closer look at these numbers reveals a stark class divide between those who decide to have kids before marriage and those who do not.

An analysis by research group Child Trends found that for young women without a college degree, 55 percent of births are outside marriage, while that figure is only 9 percent for those who have at least a four-year degree. Given what we know about the strong correlation between education and income, it follows that the children of college-educated parents will already be more financially secure than those of their less educated peers. Furthermore, research indicates that unwed couples are far more likely to split up by the time their child is 5, which can lead to a range of negative impacts from academic to behavioral problems, all of which are compounded by economic insecurity.

3. Divorce Rates Have Fallen, But the Myth Lives On

One of the most commonly accepted bits of marital wisdom in the United States says that half of all marriages will end in divorce. As it turns out, this unnerving little statistic hasn’t been true for decades. A recent New York Times analysis of divorce rates indicates that they peaked in the 1970s-1980s and have been steadily declining since then. The research suggests that if trends continue, only one-third of marriages will end in divorce—a significant improvement in odds.

Why this dramatic decline? For starters, the ‘70s and ‘80s were an anomaly in the history of American marriage. As droves of women entered the workforce and became financially independent from their husbands, they felt more able to leave unhappy marriages behind. “As a result,” the Times article reads, “marriage has evolved to its modern-day form, based on love and shared passions, and often two incomes and shared housekeeping duties.” Marrying later also leads to more stable relationships, as couples have often already lived together for years before tying the knot. This means that those relationships that do fail are more likely to end in a breakup rather than a divorce.

One important caveat is that the decline in divorce rates is concentrated among people with college degrees. More traditionally gendered roles in working-class families and years of lean economic times have kept divorce rates close to those of the ‘70s-‘80s peak for those with less education.

4. Growing Number of Adults Are Remarrying

Looking at the older side of the spectrum, a recent Pew survey shows that greater numbers of Americans are remarrying than ever before. This is due in large part to our longer lifespans, which increase the number of widows available to remarry and also expand the number of years we have to marry, separate and find another partner. Last year, 4 in 10 new marriages included at least one partner who had been married previously, and 2 in 10 were between partners who had both married before. Almost 42 million adults in the U.S. have been married more than once, an almost twofold increase since 1980.

Interestingly, there are striking gender differences when it comes to remarriage. Men who are divorced or widowed are far more open to remarrying than women in the same position, with 65 percent of men expressing an interest compared to 43 percent of women. As Belinda Luscombe points out atTime, this could be due to women’s economic independence, their outliving potential male suitors, or simply the fact that “they may feel disinclined to enter into another legally binding agreement to look after somebody else.” 

5. Approval of Gay Marriage Is Skyrocketing

Gay marriage is now legal in 35 states, and the constitutionality of gay marriage bans is under review in several others. It seems that public opinion has finally tipped in favor of same-sex marriage as well, after hovering at around 50 percent for the last few years. At the Washington Post, Andrew Flores reviewed the results of all national surveys asking opinions on same-sex marriage to find that a full 52 percent of Americans voice support for such legislation. But this number is not only increasing, it’s accelerating. Using polling data, he tracks changes in the data over the last two decades and finds that the trend is not increasing in a stable, linear way, but has instead accelerated since the early 2000s. This would indicate that instead of 56 percent of the public supporting same-sex marriage by 2016 a more accurate prediction would be 61 percent.

Even better, research suggests that this increase in support is largely due to people changing their minds, not young liberals replacing dying generations of conservative old folks. Like the shift in attitudes that brought interracial relationships into the mainstream, mere exposure effect seems to be softening generational divides on gay marriage. 

Modern Marriage: Individualistic or Interdependent?

It is commonly remarked that society in general and marriage in particular are growing more individualistic. We’re less likely to join organizations, to have several close friends we can trust, to conceive of marriage as a lifelong partnership. We’re growing more isolated (it is said), and we see even marriage, which should be an intimate and interdependent relationship, as only a vehicle for personal fulfillment. Far from sharing their daily lives, moreover, spouses are now “alone together.”

If couples are living individualistically, Yodanis and Lauer write,

spouses should be more likely to do things like live apart; keep their resources separate, including having separate bank accounts; maintain separate social networks; opt not to have children with each other; maintain independent rather than interdependent paid work and caring roles; have separate family names; and not consider their marriage a permanent relationship… Such behaviors would make it possible for spouses to maintain independence, personal freedom, and a unique identity that is separate from their spouse.

This would be important for fulfilling individual goals and needs while in the relationship, but it also makes it easier to leave the relationship if and when desired.

Some of these individualistic behaviors have become less rare in the past several decades, as the researchers document, but they’re not clearly moving toward becoming dominant, and indeed, none are even common. Here are the indicators they examined.

1. More than nine in ten women take their husband’s last name when they marry; keeping one’s maiden name is more common than it was in the 1960s, but less so than it was in the late 1990s.

2. As of about a decade ago, more than eight in ten spouses pooled all their finances, which “represents togetherness, commitment, and trust in marriage” (according to studies). Managing individual incomes separately is “only slightly” more popular than in it was in past decades, according to the limited available evidence.

3. Excluding separated couples, a mere 3 percent of married people live in a different household from their spouse, and between 1980 and 2000, married people becameless likely “to think that they would enjoy living apart from their spouse.”

4. Married couples still spend time together on ordinary tasks and leisure activities on a daily basis; according to a 2009 study, “couples spend more time together in join activities” than couples did in 1965. Other studies find declines in the activities spouses do together; still, as of 2000, “spouses continued to share 69% of their friends, 66% of spouses almost always ate their main meal together…, and 52% of spouses who belong to clubs or associations belong to at least one of those together.”

5. Voluntary childlessness, which should be a marker of spouses being more invested in pursuing their own goals and maintaining their ability to end the relationship, is very rare among married couples. Specifically, “among currently married women age 35–44 in the period 2006–2010, only 3.8% were voluntarily childless, meaning that they had no children and did not expect to have any even though they were physically able to.” That proportion has not changed much in the last few decades.

6. Lastly, “individualized marriage should be associated with high levels of divorce” since each partner in an individualistic marriage would put his or her own identity, interests, and desires above those of the other. Divorce undoubtedly became more common between 1960 and 1980; whether it has since increased or decreased is disputed. Yodanis and Lauer cite studies showing a decline, but other scholars believe that divorce rates have actually continued to rise. Whatever the direction of the trend, a 2007 study showed that among U.S. married individuals, “there is growing support for the norm of lifelong marriage—and less support for divorce.” Divorce is tragically widespread, but lifelong marriage remains the widespread ideal.

Despite living interdependently, as such indicators suggest that they are, married people may explain their behavior in individualistic terms, Yodanis and Lauer note. “Individualistic motives—explaining behaviors as rooted in individual interests, goals, and benefits—have become dominant in the United States,” they write. “People are expected to use individualistic motives to explain and justify behaviors, including those in marriage.” One scholar studying love in marriage “concluded that the romantic notion of love ‘reproduces the institutional features of marriage, recasting them as matters of individual volition.’”

Thinking in individualistic terms could conceivably cause some couples to live more individualistically over time, or to leave a less-than-satisfying marriage that in a more institutionalized era, they would have remained in. A separate trend—the growing emphasis on meeting one another’s emotional needs and having one’s needs met, rather than simply fulfilling the traditional spousal roles of an earlier era—could either undermine or promote individualization. It could produce a strong, interdependent relationship characterized by mutual unselfishness and gratitude. But when the spouses’ expectations and efforts don’t match up, it also produces divorce.

And of course, a more individualistic frame of mind could hold back some people from marrying in the first place, as Yodanis and Lauer mention. Nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence suggests that for most couples who do tie the knot, marriage is not individualistic. It still means combining two lives into one interdependent partnership.

Measures of how married couples actually live suggest that rather than maintaining separate, autonomous lives, they continue to form interdependent partnerships

Traditional Marriage

The traditional principle upon which the institution of marriage is founded is that a husband has the obligation to support a wife, and that a wife has theduty to serve. In the past, this has meant that the husband has the duty to provide a safe house, to pay for necessities such as food and clothing, and tolive in the house. A wife's obligation has traditionally entailed maintaining a home, living in the home, having sexual relations with her husband, and rearingthe couple's children. Changes in society have modified these marital roles to a considerable degree as married women have joined the workforce in largenumbers, and more married men have become more involved in child rearing.

Traditional marriage in india

Marriages in India are filled with ritual and celebration that continue for several days. Generally anywhere between 100 to 10,000 people attend. Often, many of the attendees are unknown to the bride and groom themselves. Though most Indian marriages are arranged, some couples in urban areas consummate "love marriages", in which the partners decide to marry each other without family involvement or assistance. The traditional Indian wedding is about two families being brought together socially, with as much emphasis placed on the families coming closer as the married couple.

Many wedding customs are common among Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Muslims. They combine local, religious and family traditions. The period of Hindu marriage ceremonies dates from the application of tilak.

Marriages in India are a mainstay in the social calendar of the whole community. Many wedding traditions originated in India. Increasingly, Western features are incorporated, such as speeches, the first dance and the traditional wedding cake.

South Asian-style weddings are typically very lavish.

Marriage is one of the most important events in an individual's life. It is coming together of two individuals, two souls and two families. In the Indian context, the importance and sanctity of the wedding institution can be gauged from the fact that a number of rituals are performed to accomplish it. Marriages in India are performed with utmost care and in accordance with ancient practices. A number of considerations are still taken in account before choosing a prospective match. 

The regional, religious, cultural and traditional diversity calls in for a variety of customs and rituals being followed in different Indian marriages. Though the feeling and fervor behind all the weddings is the same yet you will find differences in rituals, ceremonies and traditions in different parts of India. Moreover, marriage is considered a lifetime affair, which is celebrated just once. As a result, it becomes an event to be cherished and to make fond memories for the rest of the life. The bride and he groom feel elated as they are treated royally on the occasion. 

Finding a suitable match is one of the most blessed things on this earth. It is the most anticipated moment in everyone's life as they eagerly wait to meet their soul mate. Wedding is therefore special for every unmarried person and they want it to be the most memorable moment of their life. This is very much evident in the wedding preparations, which are done best according to one's own capacity. Be it wedding dress, jewelry, make up, decoration or arrangement, everything should be just perfect, for this dream come true state.

5 Reasons 'Traditional Marriage' Would Shock Your Ancestors

Ever since marriage equality became a national topic of conversation, we've been hearing a lot about "traditional marriage." For people who are against gays getting married, there seems to be this idea that if we could just hold on to the way people married in the olden days, everything would be right with the world. It's like they think we could all have our own beautiful sparkly unicorn, if only everyone would marry their opposite-sex high school sweetheart, have a bunch of kids, and stay together forever.

The problem is that most of our assumptions about what marriage was like back in the day are complete bullshit.

1. People did not marry young

To get this out of the way at the beginning: Marriage is absolutely a cultural thing, and has looked very different across time and space, just like Doctor Who. (Also like Doctor Who, marriage has usually been controlled by men who thought the women were there just to make the guy look awesome.) I'll be concentrating on what marriage has been like in the Western

world, because most of the anti-marriage-equality people come from that background. That said, this conservative idea that you should meet your future spouse in high school and marry by the time you finish college (at the latest) is crazy. I think people assume that our ancestors all married really young because the most famous historical marriages were all among royalty.There are a few issues with this. The royal marriage pool was so small that by the time princes and princesses were children, they pretty much knew who their two or three potential mates were. Their royal parents were also almost certainly using them as bargaining chips in treaties or alliances. So their getting married around puberty made sense from a political standpoint, but was as weird as a dog in a tutu to everyone else. Even when they did get hitched that young, couples often didn't live together, and certainly weren't expected to have sex, for many years.

2. Marriage where short

These days, the demographic most likely to get divorced is baby boomers. Many of these couples have been married for well over 30 years. Why is it that our ancestors could stay together for life, but today, people are so determined to file off the ball and chain when their sentence is almost over?The answer is that couples never stayed in unhappy marriages if they didn't have to. People have been panicking over how divorce is going to ruin society forever, because it has almost always been legal in the Western world. Ancient Greece and Rome both allowed divorce, and the most famous divorcee of all time is certainly Henry VIII, whose first one occurred in 1534. John Milton, the poet most famous for Paradise Lost, also wrote four books on how awesome divorce was in the 1640s. (If you were forced to read those in school, your teacher was going through some personal stuff.) Inevitably, religious figures freaked out and tried to ban them.In America, the 1870 census revealed such a high number of divorces that the government ordered a report on the subject. By the 1920s, divorce was so common that society was convinced marriage would soon be a thing of the past. And yet here we are almost 100 years later, and people are still fighting for the chance to get hitched.If you couldn't get a divorce, annulment was often an option. And if even that wasn't possible, all you had to do was wait it out. The high death rate in the past meant that half of all marriages were over in 4-12 years, because somebody was rotting in the ground by that point.

Who knows how many of those couples would have wanted out after 30 long years together, listening to the same boring stories over and over again? In a way, divorce has just replaced death. And I think we can all agree that legally ending a marriage is a much better solution than murder.

3.Single family and blended family where always normal

All that divorce and dying meant that people found themselves in their 20s and 30s, single, and looking to bone someone new. While sex outside of marriage was always going on, most

people wanted to get married again so that their dick supply was on tap, if you will. And since those first marriages had often produced children, this meant that blended families were totally common.In fact, they may have been the norm. Some historians think that stepparents and stepsiblings were almost more common than original families in the late medieval period. Even third marriages weren't strange, and stepchildren were considered as much a person's kids as their own biological ones. This doesn't mean that all remarriages went swimmingly, of course. The "wicked stepmother" trope goes back to at least Ancient Rome.But before those parents chose to remarry, or if they never did, children would find themselves being raised by a single parent. This is another supposedly "modern" development that is going to ruin the next generation. And in the gay marriage fight, this has taken on a new angle. Apparently, all kids need to be raised by both a mother and a father, or they will be forever fucked up. According to these arguments, a single parent, and certainly two same-sex parents, can never provide an appropriate home for their offspring like a mother and father.The thing is, in the old days you would count yourself lucky if you managed to reach adulthood with both of your parents still alive and kicking. Even up to 1900, a quarter of children would lose a parent before they turned 15. And in the 1950s, those halcyon days of supposedly perfect families? Between divorce, death, and sex outside of marriage, 22 percent of kids were still being raised by a single parent. If being raised by one gender ruins children, our ancestors were screwed.

4.Procreation wasn’t anything

One of the last-ditch arguments by people who are anti-gay-marriage is that marriage is somehow only for the purpose of having children. Since it takes an egg and a sperm to make a baby, this leads them to the conclusion that the only acceptable type of marriage is between a man and a woman.

People much smarter than me have pointed out how ridiculous this is. What about couples where one partner is infertile? Or couples where the woman has gone through menopause? Are those marriages also totally invalid? But I'm here to tell you that even if every marriage ever was between totally fertile men and women, it wouldn't make a difference. Happily married couples have been trying to keep babies from happening since the dawn of time.In the Middle Ages, some couples took this to the extreme. Catholic men and women could enter "Josephite marriages" where they lived together as husband and wife, but never got it on. But for those who actually did want to have sex, birth control has existed in one form or another foreverIn the saddest, most extreme cases, it involved "accidentally" killing a baby after it had been born. As terrible as it is to think about, we've been doing it regularly since the freaking Paleolithic period. But then we came up with birth control and that was a lot nicer. Condoms have existed since 3000 BCE. Today we have IUDs, but those have been around for millennia as well, except back then they included rocks and paper. If eating a certain plant

had even a tiny chance of keeping you from getting pregnant, women figured it out a long time ago.In the 19th century, American women as a whole apparently decided they wanted fewer kids. By 1860, the average family had 2-3 fewer children than it did in 1800. Unless everyone just started having less sex (you try that and see how it goes), family planning was becoming as important as what hat to wear to your state's secession party. And abortion was considered a completely legitimate option by everyone in that period. Until the first time you felt the fetus move inside you, it wasn't considered to be alive. Around 1840, the number of abortions among women on all levels of society skyrocketed.So unless you and everyone in your family tree are basically the Duggars, you might want to lay off claiming procreation has always been the goal of marriage.

5.Gay marriage always existed

In 2013, Justice Alito, one of the nine people who will decide in June if the Constitution protects same-sex marriage, said that gay marriage was, "newer than cell phones and the Internet." If you know this isn't true, congrats, you are smarter than a member of the Supreme Court. Being gay is not some new fad. Gay people have always been around, which means they have always formed relationships. And, to different legal standards, many of these relationships were what we would consider marriages.

Gay marriage was not uncommon in Ancient Rome; even the Emperor Nero publicly married at least two men. During the Ming Dynasty in China, it was not uncommon for older men to marry young men and bring them into their families as official sons-in-law. While Christianity officially frowned on men marrying each other, they also came up with a way around this taboo. Both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic church allowed "brother-making" in which two totally straight single guys had an official ceremony telling everyone what good friends they were and how they were going to live together and pray together but totally not do any guy-on-guy stuff.Single women living together has always been more acceptable than men cohabiting (because women don't have sex drives, right?), but that doesn't mean that all female "roommates" tried to hide their bean-flicking activities from their neighbors. Many of them were open about their relationships, and both the women involved and their friends considered the couples married, whether they had gone through a ceremony or not. In the late 1800s, these relationships were called Boston Marriages. In at least one case, Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant were considered a "common household" under the law for tax purposes. In Spain in 1901, Elisa Sanchez Loriga pretended to be a man in order to marry Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Despite needing to use deception, after they were found out, the marriage was still allowed to stand.If you want to admit you don't like the idea of same-sex marriage because it makes you think of sex that makes you feel icky, feel free to say it. I'm sure everyone would feel better knowing how much you fixate on their bedroom antics. But it's time to stop pretending that "traditional marriage" exists. Gay marriage is now legal in 18 countries, including

Luxembourg, Uruguay, and South Africa. So come on, Supreme Court. Do the right thing. Make America as progressive in civil rights as South Africa.

Comparative Analysis on Modern vs. Traditional Marriages

Modern romantic love marriage could never have worked in a traditional society. This is because today's

modern love marriages consist of two people who fall in love over a period of time, they get to know each

other very well and know all about each other. They have little ways of communicating that only they

understand. They share their likes and dislikes with each other and have equal roles in family life. Women

now are much more independent and sometimes even support the family.

Modern Marriage has no roles/expectations of any kind. In hetero marriage, if you are the man, everything that goes wrong is

probably going to be seen by the court as your fault, and if you divorce (which is easy), you lose your kids and pay out the aZZ

in child support until they are 18. If it is a gay modern marriage, then we are still sorting out the specifics for that as a society

right now - so basically, if anything goes wrong, your legal fees will make sure your post-marriage life is a hell on earth. 

A modern marriage is based upon mutual respect; decisions are made together fully taking into account each other's feelings. A

compromise may be worked together to resolve the issues. A modern marriage is more of a team concept. There may still be

pattern of roles, but it's based upon what works for each person as well as the union. The word "expectation" from the

traditional marriage is replaced with respect and "appreciation". Both in the marriage are allowed to fully express and be

themselves without bowing down to the man's decision.

Differences, reasons and things to consider:

With religious ceremonies, there are procedures to be followed and you have to stick within the bounds of cultural traditions,

while non-religious ceremonies let you plan your own wedding with no restrictions and limitations and can be done within your own time frame – where the marriage will take place, type of music, the attire, the exchange of vows, the solicitation of gifts and basically you can have it your own way.

With religious ceremonies, the wedding should always take place in a church, but with non-religious, the location of the

wedding will naturally be outside the church – can be on a beach, a cliff, under a bridge or anywhere. A religious head should always preside over the wedding ceremony in traditional weddings, while modern ceremony can be

held by a justice of peace, a county clerk, or anyone who is licensed to conduct the ceremony. A close family member or a friend can also perform official duties for the ceremony.

Non-religious weddings let you set your own rules while religious weddings require you to follow traditional edicts.

In traditional weddings, religion is the heart of the wedding, while in modern weddings, it’s acceptable to not include any

religious events, whether this is because they don’t prescribe to any particular religion; they have conflicting religious beliefs; or their families do not approve of a marriage against their value.

In a traditional wedding scenario, vows and readings are by the book/Bible. Instead of taking excerpts from the Bible,

readings and vows in a non-religious wedding can be taken from any book. They can include poems, letters, lyrics of a certain song, or even include the best memories of each other and feelings from beginning to present. Also, they are able to say it individually, alternately or together.

Also, with non-religious weddings, couples are able to make it unique – one that stands out from the rest. They are able to

play their own music and give their wedding a touch of who they really are. Say what they want to say for each other with no limits and let their guests say something about them as well. Couples are able to make it as memorable as possible. While with religious weddings, you have to stick to the procedure that most people had to go through in the early days.

Couples get to save more in modern weddings than in traditional weddings.

Basically, it may all depend with the upbringing, values, beliefs, etc. And frankly, money should be considered.

All in all, whatever kind of wedding couples go through or whatever kind of vows they exchange in the ceremony, it does not lessen their commitment in any way. Besides, the whole point is that their marriage is legal and that they’re together.

In a traditional society none of things would work out. Why? Because in a traditional society they believe in

arranged marriages. A very important part of arranged marriage is the significance of a middle man. This

may be a family friend or a relative of the person who is to be married. They look for the girls/boys social

status, their education level, and their appearance. The two that are to be married may know each other or

may not know each other at all. Marriage was contracted according to a principle other than the self-

interest of the participants. Traditional marriage is based on the principle that marriage requires a more

durable foundation than romantic love.

In a traditional marriage the two getting married usually don't know each other and are married at a young

age. This means that the couple to be married will have to learn to love their mate if this is possible. They

may even be too young to fall in love. Arranging marriage was so important because it was believed to

protect and preserve the family unit. It was so important that some families would go into debt just to have

someone marry their daughter. The bride's family pays for just about everything including the expensive

marriage ceremonies. The higher the caste the more expensive the wedding is and the more money the

daughter's family has to give to the males family. That is why families would rather have a boy.

Traditional Marriage- People got to actually know each other before marrying and that's why marriages were more successful, people didn't get married generally when they were teenagers they didn't have as many children before marriage or any children at all, most everyone wore white dresses and black tuxedos most people got married in a church, people spent very little on wedding planning and arrangements, very few divorces although there were some. 

Modern Day Marriage- People barely know each other at all they just get drunk up at Vegas one night and say hey let's get married! spend ridiculous amounts on arrangements and wedding planning, traditionally people are supposed to wear white dresses for women and black tuxedos for men but these days you see brides strutting out in pink, blue even lime green gowns and the grooms make their own rules too, people treat marriage like their next boyfriend or girlfriend they don't work their problems out they just sign divorce papers, there are a lot of divorces now a days there are a lot of brides who are pregnant before the wedding or who have kids already by someone else. 

In other words it was easier back in the older times, but some marriages are successful modern day marriages because some people still have old fashioned values.

A traditional marriage has more of a hierarchical structure when the man is the focal point; he is the breadwinner; the emotionally strong person in the family. The final family decision is his to make. There are expectations of family roles in that the man is the breadwinner and the woman is the homemaker (even if she works full time). The woman often feels taken for granted (a by-product of expectation). The women are basically an extension of the man and often lose sense of "themselves".