Rumeysa Şenoğlu

Law Faculty

17.08.2017

“Marriage is a social institution rather than a romantic one.” Discuss.

Social institution is an organization, which dominates people’s attitude living together within the

same community and shapes how to behave others by coercive ways. The institution consists of a group

of people and serves the profits of people and society in many ways like financially etc.

Throughout the history and in today’s world, marriage has been one of the social institutions, which are

constituted with a declaration of intention of a woman and a man in order to integrate their lives to each

other. It differs from a romantic process having romantic matters like love. These are so different; “love

is freedom, marriage is oppression; love is anarchical, marriage is ordered and rule bound; love is

individualistic, marriage is a unity of a man and a woman; love is selfish, marriage is altruistic; love lasts

for as long as it does, marriage is a life-long institution.” (Grossi, 2014, p. 116). I strongly believe that

marriage is a social institution, which is imposed on individuals by the society, providing the continuity of

human species, making the state control the notion of family.

At the beginning, people get married with a person in order to ensure the persistence of

humankind in both traditional and modern societies in economic and social ways. Firstly, couples living in

traditional societies work together on their plantation when they will get married and their children

become a labor economically for them. During the times of hunting and gathering, the economic

conditions take a new form with understanding marriage. “Among hunter– gatherers, there is complete

specialization within the household–men hunt, while women gather-and thus female contribution to

subsistence is driven by the relative importance of hunting/fishing with respect to gathering.” (Minguela,

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2011, s. 315). In tradition communities, marriage is associated with economy; for instance, while only

men claims responsibility for earning income of household, division of labor has occurred in marriage as

their child can help them in all working life. In modern society too, the marriage means more salary.

Since the process of industrialization, there has been huge increases the percentage of women in

working life. In addition to this, kinship has become a tool to provide human’s species continuity when a

marriage has been occurred between two people. The marriage increases the relative/kin relationships

and the spouses get social statue because of the fact that the number of relatives is doubling with

marriage. Associations among relatives are established as a mutual relation by marriage and if there is a

dangerous situation, the kinship will be more effective to get away from this; thus, in point of the

community’s view, the family growing up thanks to family tie establishing marriage seems more

powerful. They have had social status as the evidence of being strong within the society. As a result,

marriage has been occurred for continuity of humankind economically and socially.

Marriage has been used for controlling the concept of the family from the moment when the

state is present. It has been realized under the supervision of the state. Michael Warner, the professor of

American Studies, states, “in the modern era, marriage has become the central legitimating institution

by which the state regulates and permeates people's most intimate lives.” (1999). At the beginning, the

state satisfies its “labor” need by using “marriage concept”. Ideal types of women and men, which the

state needs for work force/labor, are reached with marriage. Before state, women tends to care a child

or do housework unlike men. Women could not take a part of working life with inside community; but

after the formation of state, the modernization has occurred and the new work area has arisen for

women out of their home. The state aims to destroy gender differences with opportunity of women’s job

in the all parts of life. Ideal types of women and men, which are for the benefit of state, are controlled by

state in this way. Moreover, the marriage can be prevailed legally only if it comes true in front of the

state official and when a woman gets married, she will pass state register of her husband on official

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records. Because of the fact that the government can control the individuals in views of security. The

marriage serves a purpose of state control. Paternity is schematized and archived processionally. The

government intervenes in any unfavorable situations utilizing that connection, which occurs with

marriage, between husband and wife. Therefore, the marriage is a social institution, which is controlled

by the government and makes taxes control easier for the state using state register system.

The last- third argument cannot be ignored: the concept of marriage is a field of social

pressure’s interest. Social pressure is a kind of social influences, which make a huge impression on

individuals’ lives. Asch, a gestalt psychologist, has indicated (1955) that an approvable truth by all people

is that all people’s practices, common senses and faiths shape by social influences. The society enforces

the individuals to get married by using the concepts of religion and tradition instead of perceiving

marriage as a romantic process. Firstly, religion has taken impressive part of people’s lives most of the

time of nowadays’ history. The society uses religion as a kind of traditional object to intervene on

people’s lives. “Many religious traditions place on marriage as the ideal site for sex and childbearing -

and the stigma that religious groups have traditionally accorded to nonmarital childbearing, extramarital

sex, and cohabitation (Christiano 2000; Stolzenberg, Blair-Loy, and Waite 1995; Thornton, Axinn, and Hill

1992; Thornton 1985) - suggest that unmarried parents who are active churchgoers may not get

normative and social support for nonmarital, romantic relationships.” (Wolfiger and Wilcox, 2008, p.

1312). To give an example, it is a sin that having sex and children before marriage for Islam and if the

community witnesses a relationships which is contradictory to Islam, they impose terrifying pressure on

the relationship. The marriage is arranged above the social pressure without carrying any romantic

points by using also traditions. The countries have different structures of family and in some of them;

marriage is seen as a tradition, mostly in African countries. Especially, the traditional gender roles are

imposed to women like childcare and homemaker with view of social forces. Feinberg quoted and

argued that, “marriage was permanent and monogamous; children were automatic, essential, and

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central; husbands earned money and made decisions; wives stayed home taking care of house, children,

and husband.” (2012). As we’ve seen in citation, the society attributes some roles to women and men

traditionally. Therefore, in those cultures, the marriage becomes traditional and symbolizes the society

order, that is why; the community imposes social forces about marriage on individuals.

As a result, the marriage cannot be described as a romantic formation; it is just revealed in the

form of “social institution” providing network about kinship and maintaining hominid line financially and

emerging as a social force by using government to take control of the society. I believe that, marriage

may contain romantic elements but it cannot base on “romance and so on.” It constitutes as a form of

“social establishment” in the direction of some aims mentioning in this paper. A romantic being cannot

survive forever; but a social institution obtains so many years, even forever.

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REFERENCES

Asch, S. E. (November, 1955). “Opinions and Social Pressure” Scientific American, Vol. 193, 5, 31-35.

Díez Minguela, A. (2011). Mating (marriage) patterns and economic development. The History Of The

Family, 16(Marriage patterns, household formation and economic development), 312-330.

Feinberg, J. (2012, Spring). “Exposing the Traditional Marriage Agenda” Northwestern Journal of Law &

Social Policy, Volume 7, 2, 3, 302-351.

Grossi, R. (2014). “Conclusion: Law, Love and Marriage”, inside Looking for Love in the Legal Discourse of

Marriage (p. 107-118). Australia: ANU Press.

Warner, M. (1999). The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free

Press.

Wolfinger, N. H. and Wilcox, B. W. (Mar., 2008). “Happily Ever after? Religion, Marital Status, Gender and

Relationship Quality in Urban Families” Social Forces, Vol. 86, 3, 1311-1337.

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