Marriage is a sweet relationship between a man and a woman, that is regulated by laws, rules, customs, beliefs, and attitudes that prescribe the rights and duties of the partners and accords status to their offspring. Marriage is attributed to the many basic social and personal functions for which it provides consumption and satisfaction of personal needs.
Perhaps its strongest function concerns procreation, the care of children and their education and socialization, and the regulation of lines of descent. Through the ages, marriages have taken a great number of forms. The main legal function of marriage is to ensure the rights of the partners concerning each other and to ensure the rights and define the relationships of children within a community. Marriage has historically conferred a legitimate status on the offspring, which entitled him or her to the various privileges set down by the traditions of that community, including the right of inheritance. In most marriages also established the permissible social relations allowed to the offspring, including the acceptable selection of future spouses. Depending on the society, marriage may require religious and/or civil sanction, although some couples may come to be considered married simply by living together for a period of time in common law marriage. Though marriage ceremonies, rules, and roles may differ from one society to another, marriage is considered a cultural universal, which means that it is present as a social institution in all cultures. In most societies, a marriage is considered a permanent social and legal contract and relationship between two people that is based on mutual rights and obligations among the spouses. Marriage is often based on a romantic relationship, though this is not always the case. But regardless, it typically signals a relationship between two people. A marriage, however, does not simply exist between the married partners, but rather, is codified as a social institution in legal, economic, social, and spiritual/religious ways. Because marriage is recognized by law and by religious institutions and involves economic ties between the spouses, a dissolution of marriage annulment or divorce must, in turn, involve a dissolution of the marriage relationship in all of these realms. Typically, the institution of marriage begins with a period of courtship that culminates in an invitation to marry. This is followed by the marriage ceremony, during which mutual rights and responsibilities may be specifically stated and agreed to. In many places, the state or a religious authority must sanction a marriage in order for it to be considered valid and legal. In many societies, including the Western world and the United States, marriage is widely considered the basis of and foundation for the family. Other forms of marriage that occur around the world include polygamy (a marriage of more than two spouses), polyandry (a marriage of a wife with more than one husband), and polygyny (the marriage of a husband with more than one wife). (In common usage, polygamy is often misused to refer to polygyny.) As such, the rules of marriage, the division of labor within a marriage, and what constitutes the roles of husbands, wives, and spouses generally are subject to change and are most often negotiated by the partners within the marriage, rather than firmly dictated by tradition. This is why marriage is often greeted socially with immediate expectations that the couple will produce children, and why children that are born outside of marriage are sometimes branded with the stigma of illegitimacy. In the Western world, monogamous marriage between two spouses is the most common form of marriage.
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