The practice of marriage is one of the universal aspects of the human experience. It is an ancient practice, bound by tradition, customs and laws. Throughmarriage, new families begin and established ones continue into a new generation.
In the United States today, marriage is changing. An increased divorce rate and more single-parent families are altering young people's attitudes toward marriage. The increasing acceptability of living together as an alternative isa factor in the decline of the number of couples getting married. In addition, homosexuals are seeking the recognition of their long-term partnerships astrue marriages. And yet for all this change, some aspects of marriage remainremarkably the same.
Marriage is an ancient practice, although its meaning in the past is different from what we expect from marriage today. For example, marriage in ancient Rome did not generally involve love; instead, it was more like a business arrangement. Divorces were common. (Get more on this).
Throughout much of human history, marriage was not a bringing together of twoindividuals, but rather of two families. During the Middle Ages, bride and groom often did not know each other at all--it was their parents who arrangedthe engagement, or betrothal. The bride could have been as young as twelve; boys did not usually marry until they were seventeen.
Part of the custom of marriage involved the exchange of goods or money. In Medieval Europe, for example, each bride came with a dowry, which was given tothe groom's family. A dowry's components could include such simple items as household linens to such important items as land deeds. In other cultures, itwas the groom's family who compensated the bride's family by paying a bride-price. The bride-price was to compensate the family for the loss of the bride's work, and in return to bride's family gave up their rights to her labor andher children. The bride-price (sometimes called the progeny-price), is morecommon in societies in which the children become part of the father's family(for example, take his last name), than in matrilineal societies. However, ifthe marriage produced no children, the contract was off and the bride returned to her family, and the bride-price returned
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