Marriage

It is every woman’s dreams to be married at one point in their life. The society regards it strange for a man to spend his life celibate. Marriage institution has been regarded important traditionally, by the religion and by the government. According to religion, marriage is holy and two people cannot leave together unless they agree. Religion believes that marriage is a moral obligation and children should be brought up in a marriage institution. It is also wrong to leave people to control this institution without regulations. In spite of all these I agree with Congressman McDonald’s proposal that marriage has lost its usefulness. According to feminists, marriage main purpose was to bring out males dominance (Gallagher, 1996), as the man becomes the head of the house. Traditionally when women get married they become submissive to their husbands and the husband provides for the family. With the era of women becoming independent and earning their money, men find it hard to stay in a marriage where the wife earns more than him. This and other issues bring about the issue of divorce with some women preferring to get children out of wedlock and bringing them up on their own.

In the case where people are advocating same sex marriage to be made legal and others where husbands go to jail for raping their wives shows that marriage has lost its function. The new procedures where DNA’s are used to detect the paternity of the children have made People to prefer making private arrangements for finances and child support when a woman gets pregnant. These two issues together with the issue of cohabitation have made marriage lose its functions i.e. companionship and creation. Marriage institution has also become a way of benefiting the government and other business institutions which go to lengthy processes in processing inheritance rights and other decision making rights (Gallagher, 1996).

Women believe in big flashy weddings that use a lot of money for just one day. This wedding day becomes the most important thing in their life. This should not be the case since a lifetime together cannot be determined by a day .The importance they give this day makes men look at them as potential wives and nothing else. Women believe that men should provide financially to the family and a big number would not stay in a marriage that the husband does not provide even if she is working. According to most women marriage should be legal. Women believe that men who do not agree to marry them are shunning away from responsibilities and fear commitments. On the other hand women who have good careers prefer making an informal agreement of cohabiting in which case they can easily move away incase of dissatisfaction.

Marriage is a contract between two people who want to bring a family together. It is right to bring up children in a warm home with a father and a mother. Study show that children who are brought up with a father and a mother have better moral values compared to the ones brought up by single parents. However this does not address the fact that most children are brought up by parents who are in constant conflicts and multiple separations. Divorce causes psychological trauma to children who are left to choose which parents they would want to live with. To avoid this conflict people should live in together through religious marriage where they are bided by the religious rules in to good marriages.

In conclusion marriage institution has become nonfunctional. People get married but because of the changes in culture and modernization they end up divorcing and living their separate lives. Some people even prefer to live in abusive and bad marriages because kids are involved and divorce is a process. Therefore marriage should be scraped out of the government legal system. Traditional and religious way of marriage should be encouraged and the benefits associated to the government legal marriage like tax deductions and credits added to them. Informal religious marriages and traditional marriage are favorable since they have private rules that govern couple who get married using them. They offer disciplinary action to people who go against them. Since marriage is a private arrangement between two people, they should be left to make their own decision without the government intervention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

Gallagher, M. (1996). The abolition of marriage: how we destroy lasting love. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing Inc