I’m not an anthropologist so I don’t know the exact answer to how the institution of marriage first took flight. Marriage and relationship have always been two different things. But I have read a fair amount and what follows is my readers digest version of it.
As culture evolved there also rose a sense of owning property and having a family name. These functions served a vital role in maintaining the structure of society.
Imagine, if you will, farmer Bill and his neighbor farmer Bob. Both realize that if their farms were bigger they’d make more money. What better way to increase their property than by marrying their children to each other.
So if Bill had a daughter and Bob a son, both would be arranged to be married in order to boost the family fortune. Whether or not they liked each other was not important.
Conversely, say Bill and Bob hated each other and had an ongoing dispute that spanned generations and caused much bloodshed between the two families, then one way to keep the peace was to marry their children to each other. Again, whether or not they liked each other was irrelevant.
This model governed the practice of marriage from common folks on up to aristocrats. If you recall your History 101 you may remember how royal families married off their children to other royal families in order to keep the peace between their nations or enlarge their empire.
Remember Marie Antoinette? She wasn’t French. She was Austrian. Her mother married off her daughters to select noblemen throughout Europe in order to maintain complex alliances Austria had with other nations as a result of the Seven Years War. That war was fought because, well, why were most wars fought during those days? It was about who got to have the biggest house in the neighborhood. You get the point I’m sure.
Marie, unfortunately, suffered the worst possible fate as a result of this kind of marriage model because, as we know, she and her hubby Louis XVI lost their heads in the French Revolution. I’m told the blood was running ankle deep at the site of the guillotine.
And so marriage, then, was a business arrangement where economic, social and political issues were the determining criteria. Additionally, as Christianity evolved, the Church underwrote and used marriage as a means to solidify its position, contain a flock of believers to increase its empire as well while selling it as a moral imperative lest you go to hell if you live in sin.
When you look at the divorce laws that govern marriage today, you see how much marriage remains a business because the law covers who gets what. And the Church too brings up issues for people. Guilt and shame to name a few.
On top of all that, as a woman entered marriage, she was considered part of the property, like a chair or cow, that the man received. And just like a chair or cow, she was expected to perform certain duties, notably, bear children and cook and clean. Just like her mother. What she wanted or desired was of no concern.
Mutual affection or love was a lucky byproduct between two partners. Which is not to say people did not fall in love or desire each other. But undoubtedly there have been more than one tragic love affairs where two unhappy lovers could not marry due to being arranged elsewhere.
The idea of using mutual affection and love as a basis and criteria for deciding to marry someone did not gain attention until the middle ages. Troubadours began singing songs of impassioned love between a man and woman. The woman, interestingly enough, was often already married to someone else.
Slowly this idea took root. When we fast forward a few hundred years and read the novels of Jane Austin or go see some of the film versions of her work we see how much the women in those stories seek romance and passion while trying to comply with social and family expectations. They certainly never married outside their social rank unless they married up.
This continues to be true today too. Statistics show that women tend to marry men whose economic status is at least equal to or higher than their own. Women tend not to marry down. For men it’s more about beauty. They can go up or down.
Fast forward another one hundred years and now we have the model known to us today. First and foremost in our choice of a partner is someone to whom we feel attracted. Do they “turn us on?” Do they give us butterflies in our stomachs? Do they make us a little crazy in love? This is the celebrated theme of Hollywood romantic comedies.
The institution of marriage continues to evolve. It is an institution that tries to unite disparate ideas and values. On one hand we want passion and chemistry and romance. On the other we expect a stable marriage to serve important economic functions: financial stability, property, providing for health care and food and clothes for children.
That these two themes don’t always mix well is attested to by the divorce rate which continues to hover at around 50%. Anyone who has been in long term relationship, married or not, knows that the everyday routines of the business end of relationship can easily erode the romance that was once felt. Familiarity and duty is the antidote to passion.
But how does one balance responsibilities towards marriage while at the same time wanting to feel passion and excitement? No one wants to sink into continued marriage management when there is no excitement and affection. But that’s another conversation for another day.
