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Edited on Wed Jul-14-04 01:03 AM by happyslug
And can not find an answer, but Marriage exists in ALL CULTURES. Even in the "Homosexual" tribe in New Guinea, Marriage Exists (That one tribe is constantly on the war path and have used "Homosexuality" as part of its "War face" for generations). The Tribe claims that they only have sex with their "wives" once day a year (When they attack the "Woman" Village" and claim their young sons and have them join the "Male" Tribe). As one Anthropologist said, if you take this tribe on face value it violates what EVERY OTHER GROUP OF HUMANS DO WORLD WIDE. Furthermore it is HARD to get a woman pregnant on an one day a year "raid" (Women can only get "pregnant about 3 days out of 28 thus it is hard for all of women in the tribe to be impregnated on an one night raid). Something is not what the tribe is claiming, but if you view the Tribe as putting on a "War Face" of separating its males from its woman, you begin to see that it is a "War Face" and as such false. A more permanent relationship exists between the Woman and the Men even in that tribe but it is kept hidden to preserve the tribe's reputation as a warrior tribe.
Once you understand the above tribe is based on a false face and "Marriage" exists even in its structure you start to understand that Marriage is very old. Even today 97% of relationships are in the form of the "Pair Bond", i.e. two people forming a more or less permanet relationship with each other.
This bonding seems to be very old. One way to look at its age is to look a the practice of giving a Dowry. Dowry (in the societies that have Dowry) is often viewed as payment to the Husband's family for taking a daughter off the hands of her father. Thus Dowry seems to indicate the practice dates to at least 25,000 years ago when (based on the study of Language) all Human Societies were Paternalistic and sons were valued more than Daughters (thus a dowry was to help her new family support her).
In Africa, after the conversion to Agriculture, Dowry seen to disappear (If it ever existed) being replaced by the "Bride's Price", a price to be paid by the Husband to his wife's family for her lost to her family. Given that Agriculture started out a "Woman's Work" this is understandable, for the first Agricultural Societies tended to be Maternalistic and thus put more value on Women than Men.
Whenever Men began to work the fields, Societies switched back to a Paternalistic Society. Thus when we first have Written Records it is from Paternalistic Agricultural Societies. Such Societies accepted Marriage as a given. We also know based on their practice that what we call "Marriage" and what these early civilizations called "Marriage" had several different aspects.
First they was a tendency to use the concept of ownership when it came to Husband and Wife. But do not confuse this with our modern Concept of Ownership (A product of roughly the last 200 years) but more of the concept that the Government "Owned" every one of its Citizens, but such Citizens had Rights that varied over time and position. Thus while a "Wife" was "owned" by her Husband, he had duties to her (Including having sex with her when she demanded it).
Furthermore Marriage was a way to keep families together. In most of the world people tend to marry their Cousins. This way people are very compatible for their grew up in similar households. Another affect of this is any dispute between the Husband and Wife also would affect BOTH PARTIES RELATIVES. Thus this caused great pressure on BOTH PARTIES to tolerate each other and learn to live together (it also strengthen the Extended family, for both married partners nearest relatives tend to be the same).
This cousins marrying had its good and bad points. The main bad point is that it makes families so tied in together that it is hard to break into areas where such families rule (and it was this rule more than anything else that caused the Catholic Church of the Middle ages to advocate NO Cousin Marrying). We in the West are the beneficiaries of over 1500 years of advocacy of No Cousin Marrying and it is hard for us to see how a Society of Cousin Marrying can be useful for a Society. I have tried to explain its benefits but it has several drawbacks, but it was the norm till the Rise of the Catholic Church in the late Roman Empire.
Given this cousin marrying situation, marriage was viewed not so much as two people coming together to live together as man and wife, but at the joining of two families (or more common keeping an expanding family closer together against any possible enemies).
Thus outside of Africa, Dowry seems to have survived more as an promise of one part of a family to support another part (and Africa's "Bride's Price seems to have done the same in Africa). The Money was not so much for the care of the new "Wife" but as a promise that the wife's relatives will help and support the wife's new family.
The first break in this tradition of giving Dowry was done by Theodora (The Wife of Emperor Justinian I). In Justinian's codification of Roman law (Which was to be the main source of Law for the next 1000 years) Theodora convinced Justinian that a Valid Marriage could exist on Love alone, and if two people love each other no Dowry was needed. This was the first time ECONOMICS and FAMILY ALLIANCES were held NOT to be the ONLY reason for a Marriage.
During the Dark Ages both traditions survived, marriage based on Love and Marriage based on Dowry. Come the High Middle Ages, Courtly Love comes into play. Love starts to become more and more important than Family Alliances. Part of the reason for this was the Continued Catholic Attack on Cousin marrying, but also by the idea that Woman should have a say in who she would marry (Dowry was her FAMILY grant to her Husband, not hers). Many Families kept woman in line by denying them any Dowry if the Woman would marry anyone but who the family wanted, but by the Renaissance Dowry seems to have died out in Europe except among the Royals (And that was more to seal any alliance between the royal families than to provide for the new "Queen").
Now 1000 years of Anti-Cousin Marrying had caused Europe's Extended Families to evolve from being a closely net group of Cousin Marrying relatives, to a broader but still extended families. Marrying after about 1000 AD was more a merger of two families (who had no ties previously, or distant ties if any) than one family keeping its members united (and had been the case in Cousin Marrying societies).
In Western Societies, this merging of two families around a single couple became the norm, each spouse could depend on their relatives to help them (and their children) but at the same time the couple was independent of each family. Not quite the Nuclear Family of the 20th Century, but slowly evolving in that direction.
The Black death of the 1300s also seems to have played a role in the evolving family. Those Extended Families that tended to live under one roof tend to be wiped out by the Plague, but those extended families made up of various nuclear family living apart had a better chance of at least some of their members surviving. This seems to be the start of the Modern Nuclear family, but the extended family was still more important.
Now the pre-nuclear family (i.e. 1500-1800) was close, most people of of this time period who needed to borrow money, borrowed it from older relatives. When a couple aged they paid back the borrowed money and loaned out their own money to newly married couples. This had also occurred in the Cousin Marrying Societies, but even in the "Extended Family" finance was more important than sex or emotional support. Families helped other family members, cousin would help cousins. This was the main social support people had and every member tired to keep it up for it was their only real "safety net" in case of problems.
Now with Industrialization after about 1750, the extended family came under strain. It was no longer possible for Cousins to help Cousins in the sense of helping build a house, build a barn to take in the crop. People became wage laborers and the only way they could help was by providing cash. You earned cash through work but not by working for your relatives, but for Employers.
With this new Cash economy, the extended family became a burden. Given that most people find employment through Friends and Relatives (Up to 92% of all jobs are found through Friends and Relatives) people tend to work with their Friends and Relatives. An Example was the Old Steel mills, most workers were Friends and Relatives of people already working in the Mill. If the Mill closed, ALL OF ONE'S FRIENDS AND RELATIVES ALSO TENDED TO LOSE THEIR JOB AS YOU DID. This caused great Stress on the extended family.
This was further complicated by various Anti-union actions of Manufacturers in the late 1800s through the 1930s (Using the threat to becoming a burden on your relatives if a person tried to form a union AND threatening a Union member's relatives with termination if they did support the union member).
With the growth of banks and other financial institutions in the 1900s, the need for the extended family was greatly reduced. The family switched from being an alliance of extended families to Nuclear families that provided emotional support to each partner in the marriage. The Welfare State further reduced one's reliance on the Extended Family, for the Welfare state would provide assistance if needed.
The Modern Welfare State is only the product of the Post-WWII era. With its development, the family became an emotional support group instead of an economic support group. Older people still remember when you needed your relatives if you were in economic trouble but younger people depend on the state for such assistance.
It generally takes about 3 Generations to change peoples views on how society should be formed. The Older generation remember how it was before and do not want to completely give up on the older system (Their life experience indicated the older system may be needed), the Middle Generation remember hearing the stories of the older generation and has resistance to the change based on that collective memory but no real opposition to the change, and finally the third generation whose collective memory of the older system is dim (if it exists at all) and sees the new form of society as something that is needed. This three generational change is for any new change, societies do not change overnight but over generations.
Thus three generations are generally needed before a change is fully made to a society. We are now entering the Third Generation living in the Welfare State. The older Generation is slowly dieing out and with it most of the memory of the need for the extended family and thus the need to make sure any Nuclear family member is acceptable to almost EVERYONE in the extended Family. The Middle Generation has some objections to the Change but mostly from memory of what their parents told them not real personal experience, and new generation coming of age that sees Marriage NOT as part of a larger Economic based Extended Family, but only as two people providing mutual support for each other.
This is my history of Marriage. people may disagree with it but I wanted to show how Marriage has evolved since ancient times. Marriage has moved from a mechanism of holding an extended family together against other extended families, to one of mutual economic and emotional support between members of two or more extended families, to one of providing mutual emotional support between two spouses (and a movement to expand that mutual support to two people of the same sex). I hope this answers people questions on How Marriage has changed but it seems to have existed since man first decided to form permanent relationships and that is in the time before we had a written history.
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