In the majority of the companies, the marriage is the alliance of a Homme (the Mari or husband) and of a Femme (the woman or marries), with an aim of forming a family. In this case, one speaks about marriage monogamist. In a certain number of countries, in particular African and Arab S, is practiced the marriage of a man with several women, one speaks then about Polygamie. In very rare regions, Asian, one practices the marriage of a woman with several men, it acts then of Polyandrie. In some companies, the marriage is the alliance of two people, of any sex, with an aim of forming a family.

The marriage is a union with life in certain religions and indefinite duration which are completed only with the Divorce or after the death of the one of the couple. This union can be civil when it is actée by an officer of Civil statue elected by the State or religious when it is actée by the priest of a religion.

The marriage implies in general sexual relationships between the husbands (to have marital legally obligatory until recently in the majority of the legislations, and still today in many countries), the not-consumption of the marriage which can be the cause of cancellation of this one.

The marriage cannot thus be interpreted like the free and voluntary union of two beings since it marks alliance between the husbands on the one hand and a higher authority: Church, State, tribe, which is recipient with the contract and which fixes whole or part of its terms.

Terms of the marriage

The marriage exists in very many forms on the surface of the sphere. Theorists of the systems of Relationship, as the users of the current language have thus recourse to precise terms to name the characteristics of each one of them. The following concepts are thus distinguished, which all are not exclusive between them:

  • the Monogamy: an individual has only one spouse.

  • the Polygamy: an individual has several couple.
    • the Bigamy: case of polygamous having two united.
    • the Polygyny: marriage of a man with several women.
    • the Polyandry: marriage of a woman with several men.

In all the cases the higher authority, State or Church are one of the terms of the marriage. It is this authority which fixes the privileges and the constraints related to the marriage as well as the rules of its possible rupture.

Moreover, in all the cultures, to marry implies to choose the geographical place of existence of the hearth:

  • the patrilocality : the hearth of married is geographically in the residence or the paternal village. The woman thus leaves her hearth of origin to join that of her husband.
  • the matrilocality : the hearth of married is geographically in the residence or the maternal village. The man leaves his hearth of origin to join that of the bride.
  • the neolocality : the grooms found their hearth independently of that of their parents. It is what generally occurs in the Occidental culture today.

Civil wedding and Church wedding

Since the end of the 19th century, the marriage is not any more the prerogative of the only religious institutions. This fact results from one tendency to separation between the capacities from the Church and those of the State in the Western companies. The States wishing to affirm their legitimacy within the population, most of the institutions structuring the social order became laic: education, right, science, etc

For example in France, the obligation of a religious ceremony of the marriage disappears as of 1792, and the religious authorities are more authorized to marry only already married couples civilly. This laicization of the civil statue, operated at the time of the French revolution and maintained under the certificated Mode, can be regarded as the first stage of the development of the Laïcité in France, more than one century before the law of 1905.

The Catholic church considers that the purely civil marriage between two catholics or two orthodoxe is not valid. In the same way, the civil wedding of a catholic or orthodoxe with not baptized is not valid.

She considers that the purely civil marriage between two not baptized Protestants or two is valid.

The Church considers that the civil wedding should not be underestimated, and considers that it is not a question of a simple administrative obligation. Indeed, the official proclamation of the Right S and the Owe S of the husbands is fundamental with regard to fidelity, the mutual help, the assistance, the community of life, the participation in the loads of the household, and solidarity in the Dette S (in France, articles 203 and 212 of the civil code).

One cannot thus put on the same plan the civil wedding and the church wedding. In Israel, also, there is no primacy of the church wedding on the civil wedding.

In France, the Témoin S of the civil wedding must be major and be two at least and four at the most.

The Témoin S of the church wedding are not inevitably the same ones as the witnesses of the civil wedding. There is no limit with the number of witnesses of the church wedding.

See also: catholic Marriage

Organization of Marriage

The organization of a marriage consists in managing the whole of the preparations related to the course of the day when the ceremony will take place. For a typical marriage, with ceremony, the hiring of room, the Delicatessen, the Photographer, the make-up girl, the luxury car, the List of marriage, the Wedding cake, the decoration of the Wedding hall, the religious preparation, the Publication of the banns, the manufacture of the Dragée S are as many stages which justify than the grooms must there be caught a long time in advance. It is thus necessary to prepare its Budget marriage well. This preparation can be started more than one year in advance for the anxious most far-sighted couples that this day is perfect. For this reason, certain dates are reserved one year in advance with the Town hall, for example it will be difficult to find one Saturday afternoon of free in July if one is caught there only in March. The same case arises for the search for a delicatessen. One can also deal with Organisateur of marriage, or Wedding Planner in English, who allows to guide the grooms in their choices.

The white is the traditional color of the wedding gowns in occident, but one did not always marry in white in France. Formerly, the bride generally wore a red dress of color (as it is always the case in China nowadays), because it was the color easiest to obtain for the Teinturier, therefore the least expensive. A white dress was to on the other hand often be made of a fine fabric (Soie or Coton of good quality) which was much more expensive. The tradition of the white wedding dates only from the end of the XVIIIe century.

One celebrates between 250.000 and 300.000 marriages per annum in France.

It is the classical music which accompanies the marriage in occident, with typically:

  • Felix Mendelssohn - Wedding March (the one night Dream of summer)

  • Franz Schubert - Ave Maria
  • Johann Pachelbel - Pachelbel gun
  • Richard Wagner - Lohengrin Prelude to Act I
  • Edward Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance March No I
  • Antonio Vivaldi - will primavera (Seasons Furnace)

Various forms of marriage in the world

Antiquity

In the ancient Greece, the men were distinguished from the God X in particular by their need for taking care of the survival of their species, thanks to the union of the women and the men. To distinguish the human being from the other animals, the marriage was thus a social tool to justify the sexual relations.

According to the religious tradition

By country

In France, since a law of April 4th, 2006, the man and the woman cannot contract marriage before the 18 years age (before, the age of the woman was fixed at 15 years), except authorization of their parents, which necessary minor is even in the case of émancipés.

Particular cases

  • the Marriage arranged: Negotiation between two families to marry their respective children, the latter can give their assent or in the cases the most extreme families can oblige them to marry (Forced marriage).
  • the Phony marriage: contracted without the intention of the two husbands to live together, but with an aim for one of them of profiting from one or more advantages ( ex: employment, fortune, housing, nationality, advantages in kind etc ).
  • the Homosexual marriage: since 2005, this type of marriage between two of the same individuals sex obtains a legal recognition in some countries of the world.
  • the mixed Marriage: between two different individuals of Culture S (because of an ethnic membership or religious). See for example the case of the Marriage free-Algerian.

Wedding anniversaries (in the French folklore)

See too

References

Random links:Saint-Leger-of-Aubées | List leaders of the Lithuanian apskritys | Hadji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev | Breizh Zion | Pedro Bernardo