Do you want to know about the history of marriage? Well, if we look back into the history of marriage some striking factors come to the fore.
Most of the ancient societies introduced marriage for protecting the bloodlines and as a system to hand down the property rights.
Thus, according to ancient Hebrew custom, if a person dies with a widow, his brother has to marry the brother's wife.
In the ancient times marriages were not considered to be a mere personal affair with primary concern on the couple only.
But rather, the system was primarily the union of the two families that brought the couple together.
The ancient marriages, universally, were all arranged marriages.
The history of marriage claims that in the older world, marriage was effectively an economic liaison.
The couples got engaged and tied the knot not because they loved each other but due to an economic contract between the two families.
There was hardly any room for the romantic love, even mere affection was not taken as essential.
In most of the cases the couple had their first meet in the marriage ceremony only.
Moreover, the wives had virtually no rights and were expected to stay subservient to the husband.
And the husbands could just dismiss the wives whenever they would wish to.
According to the ancient history of marriage (especially Roman, Greek and Israel), marriage was actually considered to be the principle social institution.
In Sparta, childless and single men were treated scornfully.
In fact, the Roman Emperor Augustus passed stringent laws compelling marriage and penalizing the people who chose to stay single.
However, the marriages were mostly monogamous.
The father of the groom arranged the best economical marriage for the son and had an economic contract to be signed by both the parties before witnesses.
The bride was usually in her teens and the groom in his 30s.
Along with the high age disparity there existed a great inequality in the political and educational rights.
Men could do anything with the wives and children.
He could sell, punish or kill them if he wishes to.
The ancient marriages regarded women as the 2nd sex and inferior to the men.
They were usually confined to home and their chief role was to manage the domestic chores and produce children.
The wives were universally expected to be loyal to their husbands.
But, on the other hand, the husbands could turn to concubines and prostitutes to satisfy their excessive erotic lust.
In fact, the Greek orator Demosthenes declared once that they have prostitutes for their pleasure, concubines for their health, and wives to bear them lawful offspring.
According to Israel history, Solomon had 300 concubines along with his 700 queens.
However, the scene changed with the introduction of Christian teachings, which stressed on the couple's emotional consent to the engagement.
As in 866 Pope Nicholas declared marriage as one of most precious incident of life and asked everyone to maintain a lifelong relation with his/her partner.
It is considered as a vital Church teaching all over and through years.
Finally, let's hope the little discussion on the history of marriage would be helpful.