Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding.
Polygyny is the most common and accepted form of polygamy around the world, entailing the marriage of a man with several women.
Polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, it is called polyandry. In sociobiology and zoology, researchers use polygamy in a broad sense to mean any form of multiple mating.
A spouse is a significant other in a marriage. In certain contexts, it can also apply to a civil union or common-law marriage. Although a spouse is a form of significant other, the latter term also includes non-marital partners who play a social role similar to that of a spouse, but do not have rights and duties reserved by law to a spouse. A male spouse is called a husband while a female spouse is called a wife.
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal sex. As of 2023, marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 34 countries that have a total population of more than 1 billion people, with the most recent being the pending legislation in Estonia.
A wife is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow. The rights and obligations of a wife to her partner and her status in the community and law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
In Islam, nikah is a contract between two people. Both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. A formal, binding contract – verbal or on paper – is considered integral to a religiously valid Islamic marriage, and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. Divorce in Islam can take a variety of forms, some executed by a husband personally and some executed by a religious court on behalf of a plaintiff wife who is successful in her legal divorce petition for valid cause. Islamic marital jurisprudence allows Muslim men to be married to multiple women.
Conflict of marriage laws is the conflict of laws with respect to marriage in different jurisdictions. When marriage-related issues arise between couples with diverse backgrounds, questions as to which legal systems and norms should be applied to the relationship naturally follow with various potentially applicable systems frequently conflicting with one another.
Lobolo or lobola in Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Silozi, Shona and northern and southern Ndebele, and mamalo in Tshivenda language, sometimes referred to as "bride wealth" or "bride price" is a property in livestock or kind, which a prospective husband, or head of his family, undertakes to give to the head of a prospective wife's family in gratitude of letting the husband marry their daughter.
Marriage law is the legal requirements that determine the validity of a marriage, and which vary considerably among countries. See also Marriage Act.
Traditional Sunni and Shia Islamic marital jurisprudence allows Muslim men to be married to multiple women. Men can have up to four wives at a time according to the islamic jurisprudence.
Criticisms of marriage are arguments against the practical or moral value of the institution of matrimony or particular forms of matrimony. These have included the effects that marriage has on individual liberty, equality between the sexes, the relation between marriage and violence, philosophical questions about how much control can a government have over its population, the amount of control a person has over another, the financial risk when measured against the divorce rate, and questioning of the necessity to have a relationship sanctioned by government or religious authorities.
Akin to Uganda, Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, Zambia is one of the few Christian nations that allows polygamous unions to be legally formed. Under Zambian law, polygamous unions may be contracted and they have been reported to be extremely widespread in the nation. Similar to most countries that provide polygamy as a form of marriage, the first wife must consent to the practice of polygamy before she marries her husband. If she declines, her husband will not be allowed to marry another woman while married to his current wife. According to a 2003 survey, 16% of marriages in Zambia are polygamous. While frequently more common in rural areas, the practice can also be found in more urban settings.
The legal status of polygamy varies widely around the world. Polygyny is legal in 58 out of nearly 200 sovereign states, the vast majority of them being Muslim-majority countries. Some countries that permit polygamy have restrictions, such as requiring the first wife to give her consent.
Women in Yemen have historically been placed at a disadvantage due to their gender, with a highly patriarchal society. Although the government of Yemen has made efforts that will improve the rights of women in Yemen, many cultural and religious norms, along with poor enforcement of this legislation from the Yemeni government, have prevented Yemeni women from having equal rights to men.
Women in Madagascar generally live longer than men, whom they outnumber. Marrying young, they are traditionally subservient to their husbands. Roughly a third have their first child before the age of 19, and those who wish to delay having children may not have access to contraceptives. Abortion is common, with an estimated 24 percent of women having had one. Although they are constitutionally equal to men, they have unequal property rights and employment opportunities in certain areas.
Women in South Sudan are women who live in and are from South Sudan. Since the Independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011, these women have gained more power but still face issues of inequality. Many women in this area do not have adequate access to health resources and education. While these women often face inequality, there has been progress since South Sudan's official declaration of independence. In recent years, this inequality has gained national attention and people have become more interested in the issue of child marriage that this area faces. Along with this, there has started to be a focus on the very high level of maternal mortality in South Sudan. With a maternal mortality rate of 789 deaths per 100,000 live births, South Sudan has one of the highest rates in the world.
Women in Belgium are European women who live in or are from Belgium. Generation after generation, Belgian women are able to close the "occupational gender gap". In younger generations, this is due to the increasing availability of "part-time jobs in services" for women. In 1999, the average earnings of a Belgian woman was 91 percent of the salary of a Belgian man. When not doing part-time jobs, Belgian women still "do more of the domestic work", depending on the agreement between female and male partners.
A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law, or rape-marriage law is a rule of rape law in a jurisdiction under which a man who commits rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or other similar act is exonerated if he marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for the accused to avoid prosecution or punishment.
Child marriage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the eighteenth highest in the world. In a child marriage, one or both parties are under the age of eighteen years old. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 37% of girls are married before they turn eighteen, and 10% of girls are married before age fifteen. Though significantly less than the rate of child marriage for girls, 6% of boys in the DRC are married before age eighteen.
