Some thoughts on marriage

Some thoughts on marriage

There was a spirited argument at a bachelor party about why people get married, or in other words, why does the institution of marriage exist ? why get married at all, when you can just live together with a mate of your choice ? This sparked off a hot response saying that this is against Indian culture, or 'sanskruti.'  The logical question at this point was, obviously, 'what is this sanskruti?' - pls define the same. That pissed him off, and the discussion went tangentially from there.

Anyway, that started me thinking about marraige. What is marriage ? The dictionary defines 'marriage' as a 'contract' - a legal union. A couple can be said to be married only when a priest or a legal authority says that they are married. Else it is a casual union, without any kind of legal or moral sanctity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage

 That got me thinking even more - why should  a social authority like  a priest or magistrate have a monopoly on marriages ? It should logically be only between the two concerned parties, and at most their families.

Indian sanskriti defines various  types of marraiges , which includes stuff like Gandharva vivaha (where the couple just agree to live together, without a license Eg case of Shakuntala and  Dushyanta ), Rakshasa vivaha (Groom fights girls family for the girl - Eg Abduction of Amba Ambika and Ambalika by Bhishma), Asura vivaha (Purchase of the girl for money)  and Pisacha vivaha (a kidnapping and forced marriage). Later Manusmriti laid out 4 legal/ socially acceptable forms of marriage – Brahma, Arsha, Daivya, Prajapatya; but the point remains that less conservative forms of marriage were known and practised in Indian sanskruti, until social sanction became too powerful to avoid.  

http://society.indianetzone.com/weddings/1/hindu_types_marriage.htm

This brings us to the point at hand – why is marriage so crucial to society, that immensely complex and powerful traditions, laws and religious taboos were created to control the mating function?

One logic put forward is that marriage exists to avoid  competition and ensure the DNA pass on of the male. Unmarried females are a cause of concern in less sophisticated societies, as all the males want to mate with them and impregnate them, causing strife. 'To the victor comes the spoils' leads to the strongest guy 'owning' all the women, leaving nothing for the lesser dominant males - as can be seen in the animal kingdom, as in Lions and Gorillas. This situation is intrinsically unstable, as the strongest guy will become weaker and the young males will become stronger with time, leading to a constant situation of strife.

To avoid this, society came up with a fair distribution policy, alloting one mate to each person, and no one else will be allowed to pursue the mate - with the understanding that he / she will also not pursue other mates. This will ensure smooth pass on of DNA.

 However, there are some gaps in this theory - mainly, what happens in case of an infertile mate? Indian culture is replete with stories of Holy sages being called in to provide their sperm to fill in for dead or infertile kings - Eg Ambika and Ambalika of the Kuru clan, Kunti, Madri and Gandhari, Drupad, etc etc. The children of these unions were inheritors of the property and royal privilege, even though they were definitely not the descendants of the said kings.

 Contrast that with the fate of Ghatotkacha or even Karna - they were children of kings and queens, but due to the fact of their bastardy, their illegitimacy, they were not eligible for kingship, even though their father / mother acknowledged the kinship.

 So that brings us to the actual cause of marriage - the ability of society to identify inheritors of property, and ensure smooth pass of title.

The only reason that marriage exists is to provide  a clear and unambigous social structure to ensure property holdings. The whole basis of the capitalistic system depends on ownership rights (Meum and tuum, the greek concepts of mine and yours) If every ownership title was simply a matter of 'strongest take all' , it will lead to chaos. A father would not be interested in farming if he could not ensure that his child would not get it after him. this is especially true in case of land and farm holdings - if every bastard and by-blow was entitled to his share, social structure would be at a pass.

In fact, in England, they went even further and said that only the first born legal child could inherit land, even the other legal children were left with nothing. This was the law of Primogeniture, and was installed to prevent fragmentation of land holdings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture

Thus we come to the three principles of marriage

1) Equality - every man should be able to get a mate, and available females should not be cornered by a single big bully

2) DNA pass on - to enable each male to pass on his DNA in an identifiable manner. Thus the distaste for adopted children, illegitimate children and 'cuckoos' - children born by other people impregnating a wife.

3) Property title and caste/ social class - to ensure smooth running of social capitalist / monarchist system. In a tribal or hunter gatherer system, illegimate children are not taboo, as  it makes no real difference to the social structure. Only in a more mature system will you see this insistence on a 'lawful' marriage and 'legitimacy' of children.

So while the dynamics and love, support, sex etc between the couple is the cornerstone of the relationship between the couple, it is the social requirements listed above which are the cornerstone of the institution of marriage.