Today, marriage is based on the idea of love. Before getting married, couples take vows to love one another no matter what until death parts them. This, according to Coontz, ensures that couples are getting married for emotional and sexual fulfillment (or Love), rather than survival and political gain. That is why it is believed that “married couples should be best friends, sharing their most intimate feelings and secrets” Love, Coontz explains, is not a new idea and it has been seen in marriages before. Even though many marriages in history were arranged, the couples eventually fell in love.
Many couples end up deciding that the woman and the children will take the males last name, because that it just how it has always been and why change the tradition. Many women find that having the same last name as their husband helps them feel more like a family, and a new name is an important symbol of the journey they are taking together. Personally, when I get married, I will gladly change my last name to whatever my husband happens to be, because following the tradition is important to me. Williamson gave her own experience on how not following tradition can affect everyone in the family when she stated “He’d just delivered the happiest news of his mother’s life - that her first grandchild had been born and followed up with a sucker punch to the heart. The baby was going to have my last name” (69) Williamson’s mother-in-law is woman who
Paola Mammana 12/2/2011 Hindu Marriage Vs. Jewish Marriage The dawning wedding day heralds the happiest and holiest day of one's life. This day is considered a personal Yom Kippur for the chatan (Hebrew for groom) and kallah (bride), for on this day all their past mistakes are forgiven as they merge into a new, complete sou. Marriage is vitally important in Judaism. Refraining from marriage is not considered holy, as it is in some other religions. On the contrary, it is considered unnatural.
In many cases, the wife was expected to run the house and provide child care. The husband would be the breadwinner and handle the financial decisions. Love was shown in part by performing duties for the family. As we discussed marriage has undergone many transformations that helped weaken the social norms that defines normal relationship ideas over the past few decades. Some examples of this are apparent with the increasing number of cohabiting relationships and the changes in both marriage and divorce rates during the 20th century.
For example – as marriages were a crucial part of family honour, prestige and not to mention political alliances and economical partnership it was essential that a father find a suitable groom and the only way that was access to vast finance for a dowry as it was seen the larger the dowry, the better status of marriage. The more female offspring the father of family had, the more likely the money would run out and no more dowries could be afforded and therefore the daughters had two options – to become nuns or prostitutes but in most cases this was both. From thereon they were just dumped in convents and most of those nuns didn’t care for
This led to many protests and campaigns by women to allow them more rights. These campaigns were often successful in gaining publicity and persuading the government to pass more laws to help women. It became known as the Women’s Liberation Movement. When women social attitudes were that the husband was in charge of everything and the wife should do as he said. Women were not happy about this and wanted to be seen as equivalent to their husbands in the marriage.
Additionally, seeing as women make up half of the worldʼs population they are also another important factor to understand. When looking at world history is a whole it is clear to see that women influenced many developments, and they clearly played a role in shaping todayʼs cultures. We are living in a world today that is starkly contrasted with the one that women were living in back then, nonetheless, some of the ways that women are treated and looked at today branch from the beliefs and social systems of civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some will say that men still are the head of the family, others will say that things are far more equal now than they were back then. That will continue to be an ongoing debate with no clear right or wrong answer.
However, this period where so many great changes had been made in the church, in literature, and in all other artistic areas, women took a big step backward in their fight for equality. Women were thought of as property, owned first by their fathers, and then their husbands. This is only true, however, for the upper-class. Commoners during this time were not affected by the new social reforms. Lower class women still could own properties and shared many responsibilities with their husbands.
Nancy Cott, PhD, testified in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that "civil law has always been supreme in defining and regulating marriage" and that religious leaders are accustomed to performing marriages only because the state has given them that authority (Walker, 2010). Same-sex marriage is a civil right. The 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia confirmed that marriage is "one of the basic civil rights of man," and same-sex marriages should receive the same protections given to interracial marriages by that ruling. Equality is for everyone, and the civil right of marriage should not be withheld from same-sex couples because of the closed minded views of those who are afraid of change. The very idea of marriage has been an ever changing concept since its inception far before religious use of the institution.
Their traditional way of earning a living is by collecting alms, receiving payments for blessing newborn males, and serving at the temple of their goddess. Hijras are mainly associated with a few traditional occupations, the most common being ritualized performances at childbirth and marriage. The hijras' performance consists of dancing and singing, and blessing the child or the married couple in the name of the goddess. In return for these blessings the hijras receive cash and goods. Hijras have effectively maintained economic predominance, if not total monopoly, over their ritual role.