Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Most ancient societies needed a secure environment for the perpetuation of the species, a system of rules to handle the granting of property rights, and the protection of bloodlines. The institution of marriage handled these needs.
For example, in ancient Hebrew , the law required a man to become the husband of a deceased brother's widow.
Marriage comes from Middle English which was first seen in CE. However, the ancient institution likely predates this date. The main goal of marriage, earlier on, was to act as an alliance between families.
Throughout history, and even today, families arranged marriages for couples. Most couples didn't marry because they were in love, but for economic liaisons. Over the next several hundred years, marriage evolved into a widespread institution embraced by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. But back then, marriage had little to do with love or with religion.
What was it about, then? Marriage's primary purpose was to bind women to men, and thus guarantee that a man's children were truly his biological heirs.
Through marriage, a woman became a man's property. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: "I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring. If wives failed to produce offspring, their husbands could give them back and marry someone else.
When did religion become involved? As the Roman Catholic Church became a powerful institution in Europe, the blessings of a priest became a necessary step for a marriage to be legally recognized.
By the eighth century, marriage was widely accepted in the Catholic church as a sacrament, or a ceremony to bestow God's grace. At the Council of Trent in , the sacramental nature of marriage was written into canon law. Did this change the nature of marriage? Church blessings did improve the lot of wives. Men were taught to show greater respect for their wives, and forbidden from divorcing them.
The Ohio State University. Department of History. Home Topics Africa. Middle East. North America. International Relations Religion Education Sports. Search form Search. Connecting History.
Hot off the Press. History Talk. The Real Marriage Revolution. Hindu marriage Couple married Marriage and Children Opponents of same-sex marriage often claim that marriage was invented "to make sure that every child had the protection of a father and a mother," and that legalizing same sex marriage would undermine this traditional function of marriage.
Making Marriage Modern: Love, Sex, Rights, and Gender Roles The first step in the process of overturning traditional heterosexual marriage came just years ago, when the idea emerged during the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution that free choice based on love and compatibility should be the basis for mate selection.
The Marriage Revolution Thus, it was heterosexuals who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. Graff, What is Marriage For? Boston: Beacon Presss, Readers may also be interested in the following Book Reviews:. To discuss and comment on this article, please visit our Facebook page. RSS Feed. Email alerts. Hindu marriage ceremony. A Jewish Marriage Contract. Mariage du Duc de Bourgogne, Louis de France A Jozef Israels painting depicting a Jewish Wedding Chart Depicting the Social Basis of Polygyny in non-western cultures.
Read Article. Featured Book Review. Around 5AD great Christian theologians such as Augustine wrote about marriage and the Christian Church started taking an interest in the ceremony. It was at this point that Christians began to have their marriages conducted by ministers in Christian gatherings, but it was in the 12th century that the Roman Catholic Church formally defined marriage as a sacrament, sanctioned by God. In Catholicism, it is still believed that the Sacrament of Matrimony is between God, the man and the woman, while the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CE re-valued marriage as a merely life-long and monogamous covenant between a man and a woman.
During the Victorian era romantic love became viewed as the primary requirement for marriage and the rituals of courting became even more formal. An interested gentleman could not simply walk up to a young lady and begin a conversation.
He had to be formally introduced and only after some time was considered appropriate for a man to speak to a lady or for a couple to be seen together. Once formally introduced, if a gentleman wished to escort a lady home from a social function he would present his card to her and at the end of the evening the lady would review her options and chose who would be her escort! She would then notify the lucky gentleman by giving him her own card requesting that he escort her home.
Almost all courting took place in the girl's home, always under the eye of watchful parents.
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