Institution of Marriage, and Divoece

EKKENTROS FORUM

The Matter: Report of the proceedings of the discussion held on 15-2-11 (Tuesday)

Venue: Residence of Dr. Babu Ravindran, Edavalath House, Thiruvangad Tellicherry-3

Coram: Seven members except Prof P.M.Sankarankutty who is out of station, attended and participated in the discussions. .

Subject: The Institution of Marriage, and Divorce

Dr. Babu Ravindran: Dictionary meaning of marriage is the formal union of a man and woman as husband and wife – it is a ‘combin-ation’.
It is a social union or legal contract between two people that create kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationship, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found. Such a union is usually formalized by a wedding ceremony.
Confucius said, “Marriage is the union of two different surnames in friendship and love, in order to continue the posterity of the former sages, and to furnish those who shall preside at the sacrifices to heaven and earth, at those in the ancestral temple, and at those at the altars to the spirits of the land and grain.”. This has not much meaning now. In the present day social set up in India, people marry in order to set up a family of their own. People marry for many reasons, - may be legal, social, emotional, economical, and religious. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved.
The institution of marriage has most probably developed out of primeval habits, that even in primitive times it was the habit for a man and a woman, (or several women), to live together to have sexual relations with each other and to rear their offspring in common, the man being the guardian of the family and the woman his helpmate and the nurse of their children. Wife is not only a source of sexual pleasure, but a helpmate, or food provider, a cook, and a mother of children. Thus habit was sanctioned by custom and afterwards by law, and was thus transformed into a social institution.
In any attempt to study the origin of marriage we have not found unanimity of opinion. It was held by eminent sociologists that the human race must originally have lived in a state of promiscuity, where individual marriage did not exist, where all the men in a horde or tribe had indiscriminately access to all the women and where the children born of these unions belong to the community at large.
Prof. Mohan Nair: It appears that even now there are some communities where men and women live together freely with multiple relationships, without marriage. I understand that in Badagara there is a community or Ashram where people live like in a similar way looking after children who belong to all of them.
Dr. Abdulla: There are some tribal communities also who follow that practice even now.
Dr. Babu Ravindran: But Darwin remarked that from what we know of jealousy of all male quadrupeds, promiscuous intercourse is utterly unlikely to prevail in a state of nature
Many writers believe that the earliest form of marriages was a so-called group marriage, implying a union between a certain group of men and certain group of women. Dr. Briffault says that, “the regulation of collective sexual relation between given groups has everywhere preceded any regulations of those relations between individual members of the group” and that “in their origin marriage regulations had no reference to such individual relations, but to relation between groups”
During the course of evolution social reforms and moral codes evolved to the present day system of marriages. Now there is wide cross-cultural variation in the selection of partners. Usually it will be a collective decision of the partners’ groups. It is generally limited to suitable partners of specific social groups – (endogamy). In certain groups a partner is expected marry their cross cousins (father’s sister’s son etc.), or even own sister’s daughter as in the case of some Brahmin communities in the South. This is mostly to protect their family property from going outside. ‘Levirate’ marriage is in which widows are obligated to marry their husband’s brothers. Now with the growing IT facilities, the E-mail marriage bureaus take up the responsibility of giving the choices.
Marriage is usually formalized at a wedding/marriage ceremony. Christian marriages are supervised by priests and conducted in church, Muslim marriages by Mullas, and for Hindus the custom varies from group to group. Some groups take the help of temple priests, while others depend on family elders. Earlier the marriages were conducted at the residence of the bride, but now it is mostly shifted to marriage halls. As per rules marriage has to be registered with the appropriate authority to have legal sanction.
Religious groups have different views on polygamy, the practice of a man taking more than one wife. Islam and Confucianism allow that. But Christian, present day Hindu and all others do not approve that.
Financial dealings are also a part of the marriages in different societies. Dowries and Bride- Price continue even today. It has often led to women being killed in the name of dowry. In Muslim marriages, the groom is expected to pay a bride-price to the bride’s family for the right to marry their daughter. It is called ‘Mahar’.
Polygamy existed in three specific forms, Polygene, Polyandry, and group marriages. Historically all the three forms existed, but polygene seems to have been more common. Polygene is when one man has more than one wife e.g., Dasaratha, father of SreeRama. In Polyandry a woman is married to more than one husband e.g., Draupathy. And, Group Marriage is when a family unit consists of more than one man and more than one woman, any of whom share parental responsibility for any children of the group.
In normal Indian set up to-day, a man marries one woman and lives with her with their children as a close unit family with all sentimental attachments as father, mother, daughter and son, and in-laws. There are social and moral restrictions and understanding that are the basic necessities for a peaceful society.
Apart from being willing to be governed by the rules of the land and religion as required by society, the key to successful marriage life is love, understanding, mutual respect, trust, commitment, and togetherness.
Divorce: Divorce is the final termination of the marital union, dissolving the bonds of matrimony between two parties of the wedlock. In monogamy it allows each of the former partners to marry another. In polygene it allows the woman to marry another. Divorce is now allowed in almost all countries except in Malta and Philippines.
Reasons for divorce are several. In India we do not have survey or statistics published in this regard. It would be interesting to note such details published in UK. According to the statistics of a survey group published in UK the percentages of divorce due to various reasons are,
Adultery, extra-marital sex, infidelity 27%
Domestic violence 17%
Midlife crisis 13%
Addiction – alcohol/gambling 6%
Workaholic 6%
In three-fourth of the cases where extra-marital sex was the reason for divorce it was the husband who was the offender. In family strain, the wives’ families were the primary source of strain. Emotional and physical abuses were more evenly split among husbands and wives. 70% of the workaholics were men. According to the 2004 survey, over 90% of the petitioners for divorce were wives, and these were invariably not contested. More than half the divorces (53%) were after 10 to 15 years of married life. 40% were after 5-10 years. During the first five years of married life, there were hardly any petitions for divorce. The first few years are therefore divorce free. If the Marriage lasts for more than 20 years it is unlikely to end up in divorce.
In most countries, divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process. It also involves the issue of spousal support, child custody, child support, distribution of property and division of debts.
There are two basic approaches to divorce, fault based, and no-fault based. Laws vary as to the waiting period before a divorce is effective. The three types of divorces normally come across are,
1. No-fault Divorce
2. At-fault Divorce
3. Summary Divorce.
No-fault divorce requires no allegation or proof of the fault of either party. The application may be made by either party or by both parties jointly. On the other hand, at-fault divorce requires proof by one party that the other party had committed an act incompatible with the marriage obligations. ‘Ground for Divorce’ is the term used for this and this was the only way to terminate a marriage. In USA no-fault divorce is now available in all 50 states and the last state which permitted no-fault divorce was Columbia-New York in 2010
In India, divorce is still a social taboo, although legally the courts allow divorces in specific cases. Divorce rate is significantly low in India, though in Kerala it is slightly higher. In spite of the existence of reduced economic disparity between spouses, either of the two was always expected to compromise with the other so that the marriage bonding survived. In most cases women in the past were forced to adjust to the unbearable post-marital conditions for the sake of the welfare of the family, children, and even for herself as she was hardly open to any means of earning her own livelihood. But, spread of education, Human Rights activism etc. have become ways to break free from the marital clutches for many a woman.
As regards the connected laws relating to divorces, The Hindus (including Buddists, Sikhs, and Jains) are covered by the Hindu Marriages Act of 1955. Christians are governed by the Indian Divorce Act 1869. For Parsis there is a separate law viz. Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936. Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act1939 covers Muslims. The practice of ‘Talaq (Triple Talaq)’ among Muslims. is well known. When the female demands the divorce it is called by the name ‘Khula’.