Essay on Functions and Importance of Marriage – The importance of marriage consists in the functions that it performs. The main functions of marriage are as follows:
1. Regulation of Sex Life:
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Marriage is the powerful instrument of regulating the sex life of man. Sexual impulse is powerful in man. He is exposed to its influence throughout his life. It is an urgent and an irresistible need of man. It has to be controlled and regulated in a proper manner to avoid chaos and confusion in society. Marriage has come to be such a regulative means. Hence marriage is often called the licence for sex life.
Marriage regulates sex relations also. It prohibits sex relations between the closest relatives, that is, between father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister, etc. Such a kind of prohibition is called “incest taboo”. Marriage also puts restrictions on the premarital and extra-marital sex relations.
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2. Marriage leads to the Establishment of the Family:
Sexual satisfaction offered by marriage results in self-perpetuation. It means marriage insists on the couple to establish a family of procreation. It is here the children are born and bred up. It is the marriage which determines the descent of the new born individual. Inheritance and succession follow the rule of descent.
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3. Provides for Economic Cooperation:
Marriage makes division of labour possible on the basis of sex. Partners of marriage distribute and divide work among themselves and perform them. In some of the primitive tribes we find a clear-cut division of work between the husband and wife. Even in the modern industrial societies, we find husband and wife working outside the family to get more income to elevate their economic status.
4. Marriage Contributes to Emotional and Intellectual Interstimulation of the Partners:
Marriage brings life-partners together and helps them to develop intense love and affection towards each other. It deepens the emotions and strengthens the companionship between the two. It also helps them to develop intellectual cooperation between them.
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5. Marriage aims at Social Solidarity:
Marriage not only brings two individuals of the opposite sex together but also their respective families, groups and kindreds. Friendship between groups is reinforced through marriage.
It is often suggested that by encouraging marriage between different groups, castes, races, classes, religious, linguistic and other communities, it is possible to minimise the social distance between groups and strengthen their solidarity.