The word "marriage" appeared around 1300 and likely descended from the Old French "mariage" of the 12th … See more

Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures. Even within Western culture, "definitions of marriage h… See more

Monogamy is a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse during their lifetime or at any one time (serial monogamy).
Anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study of ma… See more

There is wide cross-cultural variation in the social rules governing the selection of a partner for marriage. There is variation in the degree to which partner selection is an individual decision by the partners or a collective d… See more

The financial aspects of marriage vary between cultures and have changed over time.
In some cultures, dowries and bride wealth continue to be required today. In both cases, the f… See more

In many Western cultures, marriage usually leads to the formation of a new household comprising the married couple, with the married couple living together in the same home, often sharing the same bed, but in some othe… See more