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In
Africa, a Nuer woman sometimes married a ghost. It was believed that a
man who died without heirs would haunt the village, so a woman was wed
to him in absentia and her children assigned to him.
In
India, a Nayar woman could marry a man in a traditional ceremony -
then never have to see him again.
In
Siberia, a young Chuckchee woman could marry a male infant, then raise
him. When the baby husband became a man, he would be strongly
connected to the woman.
Maybe so. But certainly confused.
Through the ages and around the world, marriage has come in many
shapes and forms.
"Marriage is a difficult concept to define," says University of
Toronto anthropologist Sandra Bamford, who offered the above examples.
"No one form is practised worldwide. Marriage is the product of very
complex historical changes through time."
Think business transaction. Or political alliance. Both motives have
propelled many a bride and groom down the aisle.
Theories abound on how Western marriage evolved. Some scholars have
concentrated on the emergence of private property and need for
rightful heirs. Others subscribe to the "marry out or die" scenario,
in which marriages were used to build bonds between villages and
assure allies in case of attack.
Some
cultures have insisted on elaborate wedding rituals, while others have
been more laissez-faire.
"To
eat, drink and sleep together makes a marriage," according to a
medieval peasants' proverb from France.
Humans can't even agree on a seemly number of wives. Eighty-six per
cent of societies today allow more than one wife, according to Rutgers
University anthropologist Helen Fisher. But in the vast majority of
those cultures, she adds, only about 5 to 10 per cent of men actually
have several wives at once. Polygamy is too pricey.
"What's remarkable is that humans bother to pair up and have been
doing so for millions of years," says Fisher, who notes that 97 per
cent of mammals don't pair up to raise their young.
She
points to basic hard-wiring in the human brain that has evolved over
time, systems that propel sexual drive and physical attraction, as
well as feelings of deep attachment.
"Marriage is a badge of homo sapiens," Fisher writes in her book
Anatomy Of Love: The Natural History
Of Monogamy, Adultery And Divorce. "To bond is human."
In
the beginning, according to Fisher, primitive man and woman swung down
from the trees and tottered upright. A male needed to protect and
gather food for the female, who now carried an infant in her arms, not
clinging to her underbelly.
"Bipedalism,
I propose, would start a sexual revolution," Fisher says.
The
evolution of language spurred it along, she adds. "There were ways of
saying, `She's mine.'"
And
ways of grunting goodbye. A primitive pair likely parted after the
child was no longer suckling, about four years, says Fisher, who
portrays early man as a serial monogamist.
When
humans started farming, more of them settled into longer, more
dependent relationships. A man and woman were both tied to the land
they worked together.
The
way marriage eventually evolved depended on the place and culture. In
the West, historians look to ancient Greece and Rome.
Among the ancient elites there, marriage was about keeping or
expanding power and money. In Rome, a woman was prohibited from
marrying beneath her. Emperor Augustus legislated that senators could
marry only the daughters or sisters of other senators.
"They wanted to maintain the class hierarchy," explains Alison Keith,
a University of Toronto associate professor of classics and women's
studies.
Romance stories (forbidden to marry, lovers overcome Herculean
obstacles to finally wed) flourished in 1st century Greece. But the
tales may have been fuelled by wishful thinking. There's little
historical proof that people married solely for love, Keith says.
In
both ancient Greece and Rome, monogamy was the standard. But affairs,
at least for men, were accepted. In Rome, divorce was a simple legal
matter that could be initiated by the husband or wife.
By
the 4th century A.D., the Roman Empire was teetering. In Western
Europe, social confusion reigned. Germanic, Roman and Judeo-Christian
beliefs were at odds, influencing and modifying each other, says
Jacqueline Murray, a history professor and dean of arts at the
University of Guelph. "It was a very long, slow, tortuous process."
Germanic tribes afforded women few rights, even the chance to say no.
Some tribes stormed into villages, capturing and carrying off their
brides. As polygamists, they believed more wives meant more power.
"Marriage was seen as a way of developing ties of loyalty and
kinship," says Murray. "It led to uneven distribution: many women
concentrated in the hands of a few men."
It
also led to more upheaval as marauding bands of warring brothers
pillaged the countryside, Murray notes. "The children of many wives
would vie for power. Any child could inherit."
Slowly, the Roman Catholic Church filled the power vacuum. To
theologians, marriage was mystical, analogous to the union of Christ
and the Church, says Murray. Fornication was a sin. Marriage was one
of the seven sacraments.
The
Church's doctrines from the 10th to 12th centuries, innovative at the
time, shaped the evolution of Western marriage today. The Church ruled
that marriage must be monogamous, that the man and woman must both
freely consent (undercutting arranged or coerced marriages) and that
the union must be for life (no divorce).
"These rulings significantly enhanced the position of women," says
Murray. "It gave them a way to resist a forced marriage. Once married,
they couldn't be discarded at will."
But
in practice, not a lot changed quickly. Wealthy families still
arranged marriages.
"The
children had too much to gain or to lose to disagree," explains
Isabelle Cochelin, assistant professor of history at the University of
Toronto. "They wanted the good of the family."
Children in noble families were often betrothed as babies, says
Cochelin. Daughters were married by age 12 and sons by 14. Peasants,
busy working as servants or apprentices, tended to marry in their late
teens or 20s.
The
Church tangled with customs. It ruled that dowries, or bride prices,
shouldn't keep the poor from the marriage sacrament. Folk wedding
traditions - feasting, exchanging gifts such as rings and drinking
from the same cup - were deeply entrenched. The Church eventually
adapted some of them into its ceremonies.
In
the 1500s, the Protestant Reformation challenged the Catholic Church
on many fronts, including marriage. Reformers believed it was not a
sacrament and should be regulated by the state. Divorce, they said,
should be allowed in limited situations.
Marriage underwent secular scrutiny in the next centuries, with some
scholars viewing the institution as a contract that could be broken.
"In
some European countries, marriage law began to shift," says Carleton
University history professor Rod Phillips, editor of the
Journal Of Family History
and author of Untying The Knot:
A Short History Of
Divorce. "It's not that
marriage was less important, but there had to be a way out."
No
matter what the law, a miserable husband or wife might take desperate
measures - be it murder or prayer. Numerous patron saints from the
Middle Ages endured cruel husbands, trying wives, horrid
mothers-in-law or dysfunctional families.
Then, there was desertion. The New World was a magnet for men hoping
to vanish. Once settled in a faraway colony, they might marry again.
"It's amazing how many were found out, usually by running into someone
from their town," says Phillips. "They were sent home and convicted of
bigamy."
In
early Canada, great swaths of area had no clergy. Some couples waited
to marry, while others simply lived as husband and wife.
In
New France, the state acted as marriage broker extraordinaire. With
too many lonely men in the colony, some 770 eligible women (known as
filles du roi -
daughters of the king) were sent over at the king's expense to marry
and raise little New Francers, starting in 1663.
Like
an eager salesman, New France's administrator, Jean Talon, promoted
marriage, offering monetary incentives for tying the knot, says James
Snell, professor of family history at the University of Guelph. Rugged
frontiersmen faced penalties if not married by a certain age.
"It
was a way to create a stable society," Snell says.
But
not too romantic.
So
when did men and women start marrying for love?
"It's the big debated question," says Phillips.
In
the 1700s, the Age of Enlightenment, Phillips found a swing in
sentiment by comparing records of marriage petitions. Early in the
century in France, those seeking permission to marry gave practical,
economic reasons for wanting to marry someone - that the chosen spouse
was a good worker, for example. Toward the end of the century,
petitioners were talking of love and attraction.
"It's a shift in their sense of themselves, but economic and social
reasons are still important."
In
the 1800s, society's gears shifted again with the Industrial
Revolution. Those who left the farm for the city found a greater
choice of potential marriage partners. For the young, the move from
farm to factory work meant a cash income and more independence from
the family.
In
the middle and upper classes, status and property still meant marrying
well, with parents ensuring their offspring hobnobbed with the right
sort. The lower classes often enjoyed more leeway. (In other words,
says Phillips: "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to
lose.")
Home
life centred on the nuclear family.
"In
farm or craft households, the family was a production unit with hired
hands or apprentices," says Ed Montigny, a history lecturer at the
University of Toronto.
"With industrialization, the focus was more on the union of the mother
and the father, based on child-rearing."
Couples married later, waiting to afford the surrey with the fringe on
top. In the latter half of the 19th century, the average age of
marriage for both men and women was close to 30, says Ellen Gee, a
sociology professor at Simon Fraser University.
"Many had low-wage, insecure jobs. People tended to marry late until
post-World War II prosperity."
In
the 1800s, the state regulated marriage and legislated family matters.
Laws were passed allowing a married woman to own property separate
from her husband's.
"Bit
by bit," says Montigny, " the ultimate power of the husband was being
eroded."
Provincial laws differed, but for most Canadians, divorce took an act
of Parliament.
"Divorce was deliberately difficult," says Snell. "Marriage promoted
social order. The state didn't want people uncoupling."
But
uncouple they did. They'd get a U.S. divorce, although it wasn't valid
in Canada. And many believed that after seven years of desertion,
divorce was automatic.
"It
wasn't true, but people acted on it," says Snell, author of
In The Shadow Of The Law: Divorce In
Canada 1900-1939.
Ontario didn't get divorce courts until 1931, he says. The legal
grounds for divorce - only adultery at first - were broadened in 1968
and 1986.
By
the end of the 20th century, marriage had changed dramatically. Not
only were divorce laws liberalized, but more women were becoming
economically independent. The 1950s divorce rate was 40 per 100,000
marriages. In 1997, it was 223 per 100,000.
Legal, effective birth control and greater social acceptance of single
mothers and unmarried couples has shaken marriage at its roots. While
the purpose of marriage was once procreation - with good spousal
relations a bonus - the focus now is on the relationship, says Gee.
"We have very high expectations, which explains, in part, the divorce
rate."
Will
marriage survive? Yes, say the experts. And it will reflect the
culture of the times, as it always has.
What
fascinates Fisher is the large number of marriages that don't end in
divorce, as well as the tendency for divorced people to remarry. "The
human need for attachment," she says, "will be with us until the
planet dissolves." |
