- What is marriage?
- Marriage history
- Marriage characteristics
- Types of marriage
- Importance of marriage
- Divorce
We explain what marriage is, its history, the types that exist and other characteristics. Also, what is divorce.
What is marriage?
Marriage or conjugal union is a institution fundamental social, involving two Physical persons Y natural. It is the way to formalize a couple's bond and submit it to legal regulations, social, moral and even religious ruled by the society.
Marriage is at the same time a legal figure, a social and religious ceremony, and a traditional cultural entity. That is to say that by marriage we can understand different types of social, cultural and legal concepts, depending on the tradition specific to a society and its imaginary.
Thus, marriage is commonly regulated by the law (especially to prohibit unions that are considered culturally inappropriate, such as incestuous), but it has a millenary existence, with a presence in societies that understood the Justice and the Condition in a very different way than contemporary.
In fact, the word marriage comes from Latin matrimonium, derived from the union of the words mater ("mother and cute, a term used to refer to ceremonial or legal situations, as in patrimonium ("Patrimony", that is, the inheritance that the father leaves when he dies).
This term was used in Ancient Rome to refer to the right of a woman to be the legitimate and recognizable mother of the children of a man, which gave her the status of married (not available) and the right to inherit the property that she left. her husband upon death.
Furthermore, marriage is often seen as the foundation of society. This is based on the idea that any human society aims at the perpetuation of the species and the protection of future generations. To achieve this, the marriage union is proposed.
In short, marriage is the exclusive union of two individuals who wish to share all their assets and rights. In principle it is a question of man and woman, since the end of the marriage is attributed to human reproduction, but this sense has changed in modern times.
Marriage history
The history of marriage began with the ways in which cultures ancient celebrated and formalized the union of their kings and nobles. It often resulted in dynastic changes, strategic unions, or changes in the succession of the can political, as the case may be.
At that time the commoners did not celebrate any marriage, since it was not necessary to have sexual relations or to conceive children. In any case, they could do it according to very simple ceremonies.
It was frequent for the unions of commoners to involve economic exchange: whoever received the wife also received control of a dowry, belonging to the woman, which could be animals, properties or a land to start a family productive and sustain it.
Depending on the culture and the religion, the marriage could be monogamous (a single woman and a single man) or polygamic (several women for a single man), as in the Eastern tradition. But as we understand it today in the West, marriage was born in Ancient Rome.
His name was matrimonium and it was subject to certain laws and regulations.Then it was assimilated by the nascent Christian culture, in which it became a sacred bond, celebrated before God and according to certain rites from the Old Testament, that is, from the Jewish religion.
Thanks to the separation of state and religion that occurred in the West since the end of Middle Ages, marriage became more of a legal figure than an indissoluble religious nexus.
Thus arose the civil marriage, which allowed people of different religions or those prevented by ecclesiastical law to marry. Divorce was also possible, which allowed the interruption of the marriage, although the Church was slow to recognize it, since their marriage vows are “until the death separate them ”.
More recently still, the need for equal marriage or equal civil union arose, depending on the legislation of each country, which allows homosexual couples to formalize their love and access the same rights as heterosexual couples.
The right of homosexual people to marriage received enormous resistance from the conservative sectors, who still prefer to think of marriage in religious terms and not in legal terms.
Marriage characteristics
Marriage, as we understand it today in the West, is characterized by:
- Be a voluntary and lasting legal bond. People can marry only of their own free will, and must do so through a series of rites and legal (and religious, if you wish) ceremonies that testify to the validity and legitimacy of the fact.
- It can be civil and / or religious. Everything depends on the beliefs of the spouses, although the only valid before the State is the civil, and the only valid before the Church is the religious.
- Being monogamous. It involves only two people, who are committed to having an exclusive love and sexual bond (fidelity).
- It is traditional and conventional. It is governed by the conventions and social, moral and religious traditions of the community and the nation, so it can have marked differences from one region of the world to another.
- Create a community of goods. Called "conjugal community", it implies that all properties Y capitals Obtained from the beginning of the marriage are from both spouses equally, which implies a common distribution and the need for arrangements in case of divorce.
Types of marriage
There are the following types of marriage:
- Religious marriage It involves a set of rites and ceremonies with a strong symbolic component, determined by the type of religion in question: Jewish, Catholic, Islamic, etc. It generally requires that both spouses practice the same faith and is often much more rigid with its mandates and demands.
- Civil marriage. It is the legal, secular and juridical counterpart of religious marriage, which is governed by the laws of the State and not by the mandates of religion or religion. moral. Therefore, it is much more permissive on certain occasions and is the only valid before the Justice.
- Equal or homosexual marriage. It is about the union between two people of the same sex, under the same terms of heterosexual civil marriage. In some latitudes it is more accepted than in others, and in some it is under a name other than "marriage", such as "civil union".
- Marriage of convenience. This is the name given to marriages that, in principle, are not born from love but from interest, that is, of an exchange like any other. Marriage for interest is not well seen socially, despite the fact that in ancient times all forms of marriage were, in principle, for interest: a prince and a princess used to marry to unify their kingdoms, not because they loved each other, for example.
Importance of marriage
Marriage is a central figure in the constitution of societies. More or less explicitly, all societies have as their fundamental principle the reproduction of the species and the formation of new families. For this reason, the marriage bond from the beginning has been legally protected and protected by traditions social, moral and cultural.
Precisely for this reason, the introduction of new forms of marriage are always controversial: it is a small but significant change in the matrix idea of society.
For some it means making it broader, more democratic and encompassing the lifestyles that already exist, while for others it means the loss or alteration of values ancient created in a society much earlier and very different from the contemporary one.
Divorce
Divorce is the legal act of interruption of the marriage, that is, the legal separation that dissolves the conjugal community (the community of property created by the marriage).
It is carried out according to legally agreed terms, depending on the degree of understanding of the spouses who are about to separate. In some cases, one of the two must sue the other to demand the end of the marriage, and a lawsuit is set.
Divorce, while accepted by some churches, is not related to religion. In many cases, divorced individuals cannot remarry in the church, until the death of their former partner, since in the eyes of religion, they are still married to her.