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CHAPTER 4
MARRIAGE AND POSITION OF WOMAN
1. WHAT IS MARRIAGE?
It is a significant fact about man that when he wants to act, he does so in co-operation with others and not individually. He always tries to associate with others while performing a particular act and he has to act from the very beginning of his life for the satisfaction of his elemental needs or impulses. By elemental impulses we mean those impulses which are original in human nature, in the sense that there are no peoples known to have failed to take account of them. Such impulsions are hunger, love, vanity and fear1 and for their realisation man has evolved different massive social institutions. The social institutions of marriage and family arise out of the efforts made by mankind to adjust their activities with a view to satisfy their primordial appetite for sex-love. The institution of marriage thus tries to regulate the sexual acts of persons living in a group. The control of sex-impulse is the primary function performed by the institution of marriage. But marriage is something more than a regulated sexual behaviour. It is quite different from ordinary sexual union in the sense that marriage is more or less durable, it is recognised by custom or law, it requires some formality to celebrate the union and it gives rise to certain rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering the union and in the case of the children born of it.2 As the marriage determines the exact nature of relations of the parties constituting a union, it not only regulates their sexual relations but also settles the problems of descent, inheritance and succession which arise out of marital union. Some times, the latter function is considered more significant than the mere regulation of sexual behaviour.3 Because of these characteristics of marriage which distinguish it effectively from ordinary sexual union, the institution of marriage occupies an important place in the life of a society.
