Kinship and Marriage

2175 Words5 Pages

Kinship and Marriage

The definition of marriage ranges cross culturally, and in our culture it means the union of a man and wife, but that is also changing with time. Marriage serves a lot of purposes for the individuals who are getting married, and for their families. Being Sikh, and more specifically Punjabi, marriage plays a very big role in our society, and it is very different from the marriage portrayed in Yano and Dobe societies. These three societies may be very different from each other, but they all have religion in their societies, and I think they may have more in common regarding marriage, although they may seem very different. Marriage may be portrayed very differently in different societies, but the more you compare it to other cultures, the more similarities you will find. The purpose of this essay is to show the similarities between the three different societies and to understand why our definition of marriage is different but the underlying reasons and purposes of marriage remain the same.

In Indian societies marriage is often only between a man and a woman, and in the past there have been polygynous marriages, but those were mainly allowed and limited for royalty. Today, Indian societies practice arranged marriages, because they tend to be beneficial to the families and for the individuals that are getting married. Indias divorce rate is very low compared to that of the United States, the U.S. has a divorce rate of 50%, while India's is 1.1%. A reason why Indias divorce rate is lower than the U.S. is because divorce is looked down upon in India, and is considered a very bad thing, especially for females. Even if a person has marital problems, they are expected to push through it because if not their fa...

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...each for their own purposes, and have limitations to who you can and cannot marry.

Although these are just few of the many similarities I had found while comparing these three different societies, I have come to realize that these societies are more similar than they seem. The similarities that are found within each of these societies marriage traditions and patterns can be traced back five thousand years ago, and they all come from one central geographic area. But although they all evolve from one idea, as time has passed, and the geography has changed, people have moved around, different cultures have been introduced and incorporated into cultures, the more the idea and concept of marriage has changed, but the core concept still remain the same cross culturally. Marriage is still known to be the union of a man and woman cross culturally, or well, in most cultures.

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