Marriage

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==The Na culture==
 
==The Na culture==
A culture of interest in this world is the Na, a group of people in Southwest China. In this particular culture, there are three different forms of marriage. In the past, the preferred system was the "visiting marriage", in which a Na woman is allowed to have as many suitors as fancy her, and a Na man is allowed to be involved with as many women as desire him. Following integration with the rest of Chinese society, this has changed somewhat and once a child is born a woman will typically, although not always, settle down with the child's father.<ref>[http://staff.washington.edu/tamiblu/Na/myths.pdf ''The Na of Southwest China: Debunking the Myths]'', Tami Blumefield</ref>
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In the Na culture, a group of people in Southwest China, there are three different forms of marriage. In the past, the preferred system was the "visiting marriage", in which a Na woman is allowed to have as many suitors as fancy her, and a Na man is allowed to be involved with as many women as desire him. Following integration with the rest of Chinese society, this has changed somewhat and once a child is born a woman will typically, although not always, settle down with the child's father.<ref>Tami Blumefield, [http://staff.washington.edu/tamiblu/Na/myths.pdf ''The Na of Southwest China: Debunking the Myths''].</ref>
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==

Revision as of 12:55, 17 October 2010

Part of the series on

Sexuality

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A baker's dozen on sex
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50% of all marriages end in divorce. Which is REALLY good considering the other 50% end in death.

Marriage is an institution in which two (or sometimes more) individuals are legally (and spiritually, according to some) bonded to each other, until death (or divorce) do them part.

In the modern world, this is usually done on the (sometimes pretextual) basis of love.[1] However, arranged marriages, often for the purposes of creating or cementing family alliances, have been commonplace throughout history, and are still common in many cultures around the world.

Marriage has also been defined as, "The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two." [2]

Contents

Legal issues in pre-modern societies

Historically, birth control has been much less readily available than it is in modern western culture, and it continues to be rare or proscribed in many developing nations. In such societies, sex would usually result in pregnancy. For an unmarried couple, there was too much risk of the man abandoning the woman and their child, as many men would choose to do, and have throughout history. Hence the practical need for the man's obligations to the woman and child to be legally recognized, and the hence the institution of marriage, and the strong disapproval of sex before or outside of marriage.

Although, in this way, marriage could serve to protect the woman's interests, it could also result in unfortunate "shotgun wedding" situations, where an unplanned pregnancy meant the couple being coerced into a potentially unhappy marriage. Disturbingly, many societies, including the ancient Israelites,[3] required a rapist to marry his victim (this view has occasionally been espoused today,[4] but the sincerity of such views is ambiguous thanks to Poe's Law).

Another vital reason for marriages and families to be legally recognized and protected in pre-modern societies was that property, wealth, titles and businesses were transferred primarily by inheritance (primarily from a man to his first born son). In the era before genetic testing, marriages could be used to secure inheritance rights and to form valuable alliances with other families; the need for royals and magnates to secure a favorable and fertile marriage, and thus protect their dynastic interests, was a major theme in the politics of medieval and early modern Europe, for example. The same concerns permeated every level of society, since protecting family interests was just as important in a village community as in the royal court. Out of these needs emerged various traditions and practices, ranging from arranged marriages to dowries to ruthless competition (by men or women) for the most eligible marriage partners.[5]

For the same reasons, divorce was rare in these societies: it could cause family feuds and legal problems, disrupt communities, and rob children of inheritances they regarded as their birthright. Remarriage after the death of a spouse was much more common, although not without similar tensions. The fairytale cliche of the "wicked stepmother" emerged from medieval society, when a father's new bride was often regarded with resentment or hostility by his widow's family, who saw her as a usurper, screwing them out of their inheritance, and displacing them in favor of her own progeny.

Legal issues in modern society

Most of these historically important pressures are no longer so relevant, with dynasticism largely a thing of the past. Birth control and abortion are available in most developed societies, meaning that sex no longer has to result in a family, and marriage is an option rather than a near-necessity. Nevertheless, many religions and other socially conservative influences continue to promote the importance of marriage, and to condemn those to choose to engage in sexual relationships without it.

The legality of marriages is still important, since they are recognized and upheld by the state. In most societies, partners in a legal marriage have recognised responsibilities and entitlements towards each other, such as the right to be considered next of kin and inherit property from a deceased spouse, the right of hospital visitation, and the right to sue under wrongful death statutes. Legislative rights and responsibilities are also incurred including: right to petition governments for citizenship of spouse, taxation rights and duties, shared finances including debt, and the obligation to care for children that come from such a union. However, the marriage partners also retain individual rights, identities and accountability.

The financial implications of marriage and divorce make them one of the biggest and most profitable areas of litigation. This has led to the trend of wealthy couples negotiating prenuptial agreements before they tie the knot, in order to protect each partner's interests in the case of a divorce.[6]

In most countries, only a marriage between one man and one woman is legally recognised. A few Islamic cultures recognize polygynous households, in which a man takes more than one wife. In most Western countries, there has been increasing demand in recent years for same-sex marriages to be legally recognized. In many cases where legislation has approved homosexual marital contracts, these are actually "civil partnerships", legally equivalent to marriage but not technically defined as marriage.

Traditional marriage

Traditionally, marriages in most societies have involved a man and one or more women and are idealized as loving relationships. Historically, marriages have tended to make women subservient to men, as in the wedding vow to "love, honour and obey". Women would be expected to provide and raise children, and to look after the home, while men would be expected to protect and provide for the family.

This conception of marriage with fixed gender roles has attracted fierce criticism from feminists, while many social conservatives still cling to it. One controversial aspect is the sexual obligations ("conjugal rights") ostensibly implied within traditional marriage. Nowadays, most democratic societies recognise that women (and men) are not obliged to have sex with their marriage partner, and hence that marital rape is a genuine and serious crime. However, chauvinists such as Phyllis Schlafly have persisted in claiming that, by entering a marriage, a woman has agreed to consent to sex with her husband at any time.

The Religious Right promote the "one man, one woman" model of marriage as "traditional", ignoring the many Old Testament examples of polygamists, such as King Solomon — and that the Christian practice of monogamy was derived more from the pagan traditions of the Greco-Roman world than from the Bible. Indeed, this idea of traditional marriage being between "one man and one woman" wholeheartedly ignores the concept of the harem (one man and many women) which has been dominant in many, if not most, human cultures throughout history.

Same-sex marriage

See the main article on this topic: same-sex marriage

Many fundamentalists and other wingnuts are aghast at the idea that two men or two women could apply for the same governmental rights that the civil institution makes available to heterosexual couples. Somehow, they constantly conflate the political and the religious institutions involved, and believe that the institution of marriage is being "destroyed" by opening it up to homosexuals.

As with "family values", religious conservatives often used phrases like "I strongly support traditional marriage" as an indirect way of saying "I hate the gays". By the same logic, they believe anybody who favours same-sex marriage rights to be opposed to "traditional marriage", as if it is impossible to support both heterosexual and homosexual marriage. This is a classic example of a false dichotomy.

It is by this kind of logic that the federal law passed in the United States in 1996, which denies same-sex couples of the right for their legal marriages to be recognized outside of their own state, is called the "Defense of Marriage Act".

The case for marriage

Today many men and women appear to be happily married in equal marriages. Even in countries where marriage resembles female bondage, most women want to be married,[7] likely because most men do not come close to exercising to the utmost extent the power that the law gives them over their wives in these countries. In almost all human cultures the overwhelming majority of adults end up in heterosexual marriages. Exceptions are unnatural communities like monasteries and convents. Marriage or long term partnership appears natural for humans.

Many who are happily domesticated quite like it. Probably due to hormonal drugs similar to the ones that make you think your offspring are cute rather than killing the horrible creatures.[8]

While it may be argued that marriage is simply a formalisation of the typical sexual, monogamous relationship (and is therefore not strictly necessary), you do get a nice cake. Which kind of settles it really.

Feminist views

Criticism from radical feminists

American feminist Andrea Dworkin asserts that marriage is akin to the rape of women by men. She said:[9]

Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.

However, in a 1995 interview with author Michael Moorcock, she stated that her position on modern marriage was that it afforded the wife no protection from marital rape, putting her in direct opposition to anti-feminist ideologue, Phyllis Schlafly[10]:

There is a long section in Right-Wing Women on intercourse in marriage. My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a reading of our laws, that marriage mandated intercourse--it was compulsory, part of the marriage contract. Under the circumstances, I said, it was impossible to view sexual intercourse in marriage as the free act of a free woman.

Feminist scholar Marlene Dixon, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, said:[11]

The institution of marriage is the chief vehicle for the perpetuation of the oppression of women; it is through the role of wife that the subjugation of women is maintained. In a very real way the role of wife has been the genesis of women's rebellion throughout history.

Many feminist theorists, such as women's rights activist Victoria Woodhull[12] and Australian Dale Spender[13], have argued that marriage is a form of institutionalized slavery and prostitution.

Other feminist views

It should be noted that the Radical Feminist view is not necessarily shared among other branches of feminism. Liberal Feminism, for instance, does criticize the institution of marriage on grounds of loss of autonomy, but only suggests changes, rather than outright abolition[14]. Large portions of the feminist community are also highly concerned with Same-sex marriage, seeing it as an opportunity to expand the equality in marriage itself, and are more interested in improving marriage, rather than, again, tearing it down entirely[15].

Linda Hirshman has this recommendation for women seeking independence: Marry a man who is old and rich enough to hire "unlimited household help," by which she presumably means a lot of nannies and maids[16], although she may mean a young pool boy.

Marriage and religion

Within strict religious practices, marriage is frequently or generally institutionally oppressive. This is true today in Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, and was in Hindu areas until the first half of the twentieth century. Even today in parts of the Hindu society where religious teachings and traditional family values are strictly followed, marriage is oppressive. Progressive-minded Hindus oppose these traditional Hindu family values.

Christian marriage, if it strictly follows religious teachings and "traditional family values," is also oppressive. Historically, women often had to hand over control of their property to their husbands and promise to obey them.

The Na culture

In the Na culture, a group of people in Southwest China, there are three different forms of marriage. In the past, the preferred system was the "visiting marriage", in which a Na woman is allowed to have as many suitors as fancy her, and a Na man is allowed to be involved with as many women as desire him. Following integration with the rest of Chinese society, this has changed somewhat and once a child is born a woman will typically, although not always, settle down with the child's father.[17]

See also

Footnotes

  1. Or there being a baby on the way: a "shotgun marriage".
  2. Bierce, Ambrose, The Devil's Dictionary, Castle Books, NY, 1967
  3. Deuteronomy 22:28-29.
  4. Fundies Say The Darndest Things - "if a man rapes a woman in Gods eyes they are married"
  5. See any Jane Austen novel.
  6. For a satire of money marriage and divorce litigation, see the Coen Brothers film Intolerable Cruelty.
  7. You could cynically say that they don't want the marriage, they want the wedding, and the pretty dress, and the pretty shoes, and the cake and the OH MY GOD!!! ARE THOSE FLOWERS BURGUNDY RED?!?! I ORDERED CARMINE RED FLOWERS! NOW MY DAY IS RUINED! GIVE ME CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!
  8. Irregular noun: My daughter is, of course, that intelligent, beautiful and charming. Yours is an ill-raised brat.
  9. [1]
  10. Dworkin interview with Moorcock
  11. Marlene Dixon, "Why Women's Liberation? Racism and Male Supremacy"
  12. David A. J. Richards, Women, Gays, and the Constitution, pp 168, ISBN 9780226712079
  13. Wendy Shalit, A Return to Modesty, pp 230, ISBN 9780684843162
  14. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy entry
  15. NOW article on feminism and SSM
  16. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=10659
  17. Tami Blumefield, The Na of Southwest China: Debunking the Myths.
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