Functions of Marriage

The functions of marriage in sociology have been a well-discussed topic till now. Each person should have a piece of knowledge regarding the operations of marriage as a social institution, as it helps people grow broad-minded regarding what marriage is and what it is meant. Marriage also fulfils many other functions:

• It determines the legal father of a woman’s child
• The family functions to produce and associate children
• Initiate joint property for the benefit of children
• Create a bond between the husband and wife’s families

What is Marriage?

Marriage is a socially authorised and consented union that unites two or more individuals as companions or married couples. 

The implication of the functions of marriage in sociology in this union is that there will be, 

• sexual relationships
• procreation
• begetting
• breeding
• Endurance in the relationship

Shulamith Firestone has written the Dialectic of Sex.

Functions of marriage in sociology mainly include some points.

• Marriages are the regulating factors of sexual behaviour
• Marriages redeem the economic needs of the marrying partners or individuals
• Marriage conserves kinship
• Marriage gives a proper institution for the appropriate care and guidance for being a good human and a well-educated person to the children they give birth

Depending entirely on society, marriage may require religious and civil approvals. However, some couples may contemplate marriage by simply living together for a period known as common law marriage.

Though marriage occasions, norms and roles differ from one society to another. Marriage is considered universally cultural, which means it is a social institution in all cultures.

Characteristics socially associated with Marriage:

Marriage serves several functions. 

• It helps to socially identify children by defining kinship bonds to a mother, father, and other extended relatives in most societies
• It also serves for regulating sexual behaviour, for transferring, preserving, or consolidating property, prestige, and power, and most significantly, it is the basis for the institution of the family

 Some more briefly described relevant functions of marriage as a social institution are to be added,

1. Marriage helps all the cultural bodies to have a magnitude of control over overpopulation. 

• It expands to provide dictated rules about when it is the right time to give birth to children
• Constrains sexual behaviour, which assists in reducing sexual contest and adverse effects associated with the sexual conflict
• Marriage gives a well-defined framework in which people’s requirements are met, Like shelter, food, clothing, safety

People understand who they are economically and socially accountable for when it comes to the institution of marriage.

1. This bottom line more or less coincides with the prior function
2. However, rather than just knowing which individual is with whom inexpensively and culturally, marriage is a legitimate test that lets people know about inheritance and posterity.
3. Under the shelter of marriage, children start to eradicate their gender roles and other cultural rules and ethics. 
4. Probationary Marriage is a system under which a male and a female are allowed to mingle and are given the maximal permissible mixing complex by society before marriage.

Marriage lets everyone know who is liable for children. It legalises children’s actuality by socially establishing their legacy.

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Different Types of Marriages

In the Western part of the world, monogamous marriage between two individuals is the most common form of marriage. 

Other forms of marriage that took place around the world include

• Polygamy
  • A marriage of more than two individuals
• Polyandry
  • A marriage of a female individual with more than one male individual
• Polygyny
  • An individual male marriage with more than one female individual

Marriage norms, the distribution of labour in a marriage, and the roles of husbands, wives, and spouses, in general, are susceptible to change. When the offspring inherits the father’s name, the family is called Patronymic.

Moreover, these are most often discussed by the partners within the marriage rather than firmly defined by tradition.

• Suppose in a kinship organisation; the maternal uncle has a dominant place in the life of his nephews and nieces as an assembly matter
• In that case, the kinship usage is called avunculate
• Secondary kin is someone’s wife’s brother

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Marriage Law

Marriage law refers to all the legal requirements determining a marriage’s validity, which widely varies among countries. 

• The married individuals must be single and have no live spouse from a prior marriage
• The married couple must be psychologically healthy for the marriage, which means they must be free of any mental illnesses
• The legal marriage age in India is 21 years for both males and females as per recent laws passed
• In the United States, one can marry without the consent of their parents or other authorisation, after reaching the age of 18 years, except in Nebraska, where 19 years is the general age of getting married, and 21 years is the marrying age for Mississippi
• Marriage in England and Wales to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples is legitimately recognised in the forms of both civil and religious marriage

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Conclusion

Marriage represents a multi-level commitment to one that involves person-to-person, family-to-family, and couple-to-state responsibilities. In all societies, marriage is seen as a relatively permanent bond in individuals, so much that it is virtually irrecoverable in some communities. The stability which is provided by a life-long promise of staying together makes marriage the institution most suitable to rearing and socialising the next generation of members, as a necessary task if the society’s rules, values, and goals are to be maintained and followed and if the community itself is to be dictated.

Henceforth, this article has covered all the pertinent issues about the roles of marriage in sociology.