Marriages are made in heaven but not necessarily the experience will be heavenly. Marriage is a common feature in every corner of the world and the process of marriage is always bound by a religious function that is it is solemnized in the name of one god or the other. Some sort of priest is always involved in it. It is as if the seal of approval is given by god so that the god fearing couple stays within the boundary of marriage institution. It is as if people will stray if god is not involved in it. But it has not been so always.
Of all the animal kingdom marriage is only unique to humans. Evolutionally our immediate forefathers lived in groups and had sex with multiple partners. The female species was not dependent on the male in any way and could gather her own food also. So there was no need of a commitment to stay together. Then slowly we started walking on two legs, we moved out of forest to the grass lands and our brain size became bigger. This large brain size is the reason that a child is born in quite a helpless state requiring great care, unlike the primates.
Life was tough in those ancient times and to survive they needed one person to provide food and protect while the other looked after the fragile children. This was the genesis of early form of commitment like marriages today. They would stay together for about three to four years till the child became self sufficient to some extent, and then they would part ways for other partners. Agriculture played a big role in this as now people became tied to the land. Now the men being stronger tilled the land for food and the women looked after the household and children. Slowly this became the default system and formed lifelong relations. Then this monogamous relation became a dominant part of our culture. But the real purpose of marriage was always to see the children survive which syncs with the evolutionary strategy of being a dominant species.
Another angle is that female sexuality was always dominant and men wanted to control it by ways and means. With the creation of the institution of marriage, attested in the name of god, the society expected to control and channelize the sexual desire within the couple only. But now we are on the top of the food chain and no longer need to fear about getting killed by wild animals, now we live in a world with abundant resource and now women are a big part of our workers being financially and socially independent. So all the reasons why we needed the intuition is not applicable now.
A research found that percentage men in marriageable age thinking that a successful marriage is the most important thing has dropped by 6 percent in the last 20 years. Similarly the same percentage has dropped by 9 percent for women in same age group. But marriage is still thought as the highest level of commitment towards each other with the complete approval of the society.
The advantages of marriages are many- companionship, stability, emotional support, sex life, financial benefits, legal benefits, inheritance benefits to even tax breaks and insurance benefits. Likewise the same advantages can also become disadvantages like infidelity, lack of compatibility, lack of freedom, being stuck due to the stigma of divorce or raising children, custody battle, joint liabilities to even expensive marriage expenses. In third world countries like mine arranged marriage is still the most common form of marriage where both have little interaction before marriage and the societal pressure to stay together in spite of differences is huge.
While in west the divorce rate may be higher than here but here the lack of compatibility rate is higher than the divorce rate, though with more women getting financially independent the gap is closing down fast. Now most young women don’t need a provider of food and shelter and they are earning themselves, and they are less willing to be the home maker. The greater the women liberation the greater is the decline in either of them seeking marriage commitment.
Though still now a dominant percent of millennial genre think that raising kids is an important duty but they assign less importance to getting married. Thus a new form of open relationship is sprouting these days where they stay together without the commitment of marriage but with all the functionality of it. There are quite a few alternatives like live- in relationship, co habitation or even creating a living will. Maybe those Bonobos’ where actually right all along.
Our mindset is still heavily inclined towards the institution of marriage as a confirmation to being part of the organized society but with time things change and we are in the midst of that change now.
