FUNCTIONS OF MARRIAGE
The major functions of marriage may be discussed under the following heads:
1. Satisfaction of sex:
Marriage brings the two individuals together and allows them to have sex with each other in a socially approved manner. At the same time, married couples are permitted by society to have sexual relationships with their respective spouses and not with anyone else. Thus, marriage regularizes sexual relations.
2. Marriage fulfills the economic needs of marriage partners:
Marriage provides the framework within which people’s needs are met: food, shelter, clothing, safety, etc. Through the institution of marriage, people know for whom they are economically and socially responsible.
3. Social recognition:
Marriage gives social recognition to all sexual relationships, which otherwise would have created several social problems. Marriage alone makes society accept the relationship of boy and girl, as husband and wife.
4. Procreation of children:
The children born as a result of socially recognized marriage are accepted by society as legitimate and legal heirs to the property and other assets of the family.
5. Sense of sympathy:
After marriage alone, the husband and wife and their children develop a sense of sympathy for each other and begin sharing their joys and sorrows. They then sacrifice everything for the sake of each other.
6. Basic of family:
Another function of marriage is that it is the basic of family life. After marriage, family comes into being and with that the virtue of all the family life emerges in society.
7. Stability in relationship:
Only after marriage do relationships come into being, e.g. the relationship of husband and wife, son or daughter, father-in-law and mother-in-law or that of grandfather and grandmother, etc. These relationships get stabilized with the passage of time but only after marriage and not before that.
8. Marriage regulates sexual behavior:
Marriage helps cultural groups to have a measure of control over population growth by providing proscribed rules about when it is appropriate to have children. Regulating sexual behavior helps to reduce sexual competition and the negative effects associated with sexual competition. This does not mean that there are no socially approved sexual unions that take place outside of marriage.
Early anthropological studies documented that the Toda living in the Nilgiri Mountains of Southern India allowed married women to have intercourse with male priests with the husband's approval. In the Philippines, the Kalinda institutionalized mistresses. If a man’s wife was unable to have children, he could take a mistress in order to have children. Usually, his wife would help him choose a mistress.
In this way, each family has very prominent and basic functions to perform. Without these functions, our whole social system would have been a hotchpotch, creating various problems. Then marriage alone has helped maintain high moral standards, of which any society can feel proud.
0 Comments