Why Marriage?
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Why do people get married? Statistics suggest that as many as nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce. With only a 50% chance of success, why marriage? There are a variety of reasons that couples do get married. Not all of them are good reasons, but some of them can be very valid.
Some couples get married so that they can live together. Whether they themselves believe in marriage or not, some couples who want to live together get married because their families, friends, or society in general wants them to be married if they live together.
Others marry so that they can have children. Marriage is obviously not a biological requirement to have a child, but many people believe that children are better off in the world if their parents are married. Research tends to back this up, and suggests that children whose parents are married have certain advantages over those whose parents are not married.
Other people marry because of their belief system. They may have been taught (or may have come to believe on their own) that marriage is a divine creation, and that it is all a part of the diety’s plan for the world that people get married, have children, and live together. For some, marriage is not just a two-way contract between husband and wife, but is rather a covenant between the couple and God.
There may be financial and practical benefits to marriage. It may help with taxes, with the logistics of a daily schedule, with income, and even with the necessity for grocery shopping. In a marriage, people are able to get help with some of life’s most basic tasks.
Marriage is important to society as well. Many people believe that the so-called “nuclear family,” consisting of a father, a mother, and children, are the basic building blocks of society. It is in the family that children learn to become citizens; it is in the family that children learn about relationships; it is in the family that children learn about what is expected of them in society, how to act and how to be. Central to the nuclear family is the traditional idea of marriage, consisting of one man and one woman in a monogamous and permanent relationship.
No one in the modern age would suggest that a single-parent family is not a family. With a large number of people growing up in single-parent households, it would not be right, fair, or proper to suggest that a one-parent family cannot function and achieve the same things that a two-parent family can. However, studies do suggest that children who are raised with both a mother and a father do have certain circumstantial advantages over children raised in one-parent households.
In earlier times, marriage helped to stabilize the economics of a rural agricultural society. By having one man and one woman together with their children, a regular workforce for the farm was grown at home. In industrial society, this emphasis changed from children who contribute to the family economy to a view in which the family serves as the training ground and shelter for children, preparing them for life in the adult world.
In the modern world, marriage is no longer a situation of bondage or slavery for women, as it was in medieval times. Both men and women benefit financially as well as emotionally and spiritually from the arrangement of marriage. Some studies even suggest a link between better health and marriage. In addition, marriage is an important institution to many religions who, even though marriage is licensed by the state, nevertheless sanction marriages and perform marriage ceremonies.
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