When in the evolutionary process do you think marriage became a factor in human existence?

Question

How do you think the definition of this now well known institution has been altered since it first arose?

Are you aware of any cross cultural differences or changes that have taken place over the past few hundred years?

(I recognize this is likely to be entirely speculation, but I'm curious what ideas arise from your pondering the question.)

Answer 1

I don't know when the first marriage was or when the first partnership was. I can tell you that some animals do have life mates, so it may follow that early human ancestors were the same way, but I can also tell you that there are cultures that do not infact have what we might consider 'real marriage'. This is recent to a few hundred years, but there were peoples in China that had no need for marriage. Women and men had multiple sex partners and often times didn't know who their fathers were. Families lived together without fathers. Sometimes, men would play the role of the father, sometimes not.

While marriage is found in almost every culture, it is not a universal. I think that the evolutionary benefits of marriage has to do with raising offspring as well as bond, agreement (perhaps even to give food and shelter in scarce times) between non-blood related relatives. In cultures where there is no marriage, pregnant women and offspring have their immediate family to take care of them. The family raises the child. Remember marriage is not always 'one man and one woman' but can be any combination you can think up! It's rare that marriage would be about love as well. Often times, it's about fulfilling a need.

Changes that are happening right now are right infront of us. In North America, think about homosexual marriage. It was make legal in Canada just recently. As well as the divorce rate. Marriage has it's sociocultural benefits, but what about divorce? Why is it happening? What about the fact that fewer people are getting married and more people are doing it out of love? It's a change that is occuring in North American culture. The underlying social and economic causes are probably more interesting though. Even the immediate family is experiencing a break down. Children grow up to have their own lives instead of the lives imposed on them by their fathers. This is a value that we have, but it is also another reason why marriage is less important. We live in more dense populations, immediate and extended family is not valued or needed for survival as much as individuality, women and men can be self sustaining people.

Answer 2

I think that marriage is a factor of women being incapacitated during pregnancy and wanting someone to provide for the children while she tends to them. I think that is part of our genetic makeup like it is with lions, etc. I think even in prehistoric times there were likely customs and adversarial behavior if a female felt another was trying to take her male.

I have heard everything from a 2 hour ceremony production of a wedding to the simple "say it 3 times and it is done". I have seen ceremonies that are just the couple and I have seem weddings that seem like everyone on the planet is attending. I think in all that time, the single thing that stikes people today is the removal of the word obey from the traditional wedding vows. People love it or hate it, it seems.

Peace!

Answer 3

Interesting question. I am sure that the idea of marriage came up as a way of making a statement that these two humans are in a committed union. To make sure that we stayed bonded and not easily parted. I mean male and female humans must have lived together as couples almost since the beginning. Is it not a human need to believe in a supreme being. Maybe these couples said vows to the sun god. Divorce was probably just abandonment.

Eventually the legal union of marriage must have been initiated to protect the two people involved. To protect their possessions and their children. I cannot see any other reason to make marriage a legal contract.

Answer 4

Relition is not side of the evolutionary method, anymore than is writing fiction. Evolution is organic, and faith handiest impacts that within the experience that faith might have an effect on who one chooses to mate with. As there are distinct religions with distinct positions, I do not see this as a lot more than a geographic problem. If the arena got here to a unmarried faith that had mores dictating who might mate with whom, it maybe an problem. BTW, I'm a singer in NH too.

Answer 5

The definition of marriage has changed quite a bit, and over cultures, since the beginning of recorded history. It's not always one man and one woman - sometimes multiple men or women or both, and often included homosexual relationships. The whole homophobia thing seems to be a hold-over from the victorian era - we've gotten rid of most of them, time to get rid of that one as well.

Answer 6

According to creation, God would've presided over Adam and Eve's marriage in the Garden of Eden.

It is in the process of trying to be redefined as a term (marriage) by the homosexuals. That's one of the biggest changes of our day.

Answer 7

I suggest looking at Freidrich Engels' "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State".

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm

Answer 8

very early on, and it was akin to wolves mating for life--the couple stayed together because otherwise the children would not survive--it has undoubtedly changed, since I'm sure cave men would not have had much ceremony or law read into their first "marriages"--just mutual consent

Answer 9

Marriage is simply a formal public declaration of spending the rest of your lives together. Nothing more.

Answer 10

What evolutionary process?