The history of marriage

By Justin Klawans, The Week US, Peter Weber, The Week US

last updated 10 June 2025

Interhuman relationships go back to the early years of civilization, but there is one ritual known the world over that has a much fresher history: marriage. Most evidence suggests that the institution of marriage is a relatively new concept in human society, and is perhaps only several thousand years old. Moreover, the idea that one man and one woman would spend their whole lives together has become routine only within the last few hundred years.

Many of the modern partner trends, like polyamory and throuples, are actually variations on old themes. Also taking root in historical precedence are fads like the "trad wife" movement, which has been making waves on social media. But even newer than the idea of marriage? The idea that you'd marry someone because you actually love them.

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Marriage's primary purpose was to bind women to men, and thus guarantee that a man's children were truly his biological heirs. This was particularly important in patriarchal societies where these heirs would often inherit leadership roles. Through marriage, a woman became a man's property. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: "I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring."

As the Christian church became a powerful institution in Europe, the blessings of a priest became increasingly common. Through the years, "there have been differing views about whether weddings are primarily religious or secular events," said the Christian-based Nelson University. For "much of the early Christian Era, the Church stayed out of weddings and let the state handle the union of man and woman." But by the eighth century, Christian churches started to perform weddings, and the ritual became widely accepted as a sacrament.

Not all religions view marriage the same; for the Jews, while "no wedding ceremony is described in the Torah, the institution of marriage began with Adam and Eve," said ReformJudaism.org, and most Jewish scholars "agree that 'marriages' originally constituted a man's 'reserving' a particular woman or women as his property." In Islam, marriage "is a contract, not a sacrament," said Brandeis University. And "because it is a contract, it conveys legal rights and obligations to each spouse."

Beyond religion, varying cultures also have unique customs when it comes to marriage. In Scotland, a tradition called the Blackening occurs when "friends and family seize the engaged couple and gunk them with anything from rotten eggs and fish guts to manure and molasses," said the BBC. And in certain Chinese provinces, there is a "ceremonial practice involving sobbing and singing by the bride and her family" where the bride "may cry intermittently," with her tears "seen as an expression of gratitude," said the South China Morning Post.

The shift from "common law" marriages — where two people (or their families) simply declared they were married — to legal marriage began in the church, with the calling of "banns," or public announcements before the marriage in the 13th century. "By the end of the Middle Ages, written marriage contracts had become a regular part of the marriage process," said Jessica Levey at American Marriage Ministries.

Marriage licenses arrived in the U.S. in the colonial era — Massachusetts started recording marriages at the local level in 1639 and statewide two years later, according to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. At the time, the husband's dominance was officially recognized under a legal doctrine called "coverture," under which the new bride's identity was absorbed into his. Great Britain introduced non-religion civil marriage in the Marriage Act of 1836. By 1929, all U.S. states had laws on marriage licenses. Marriage became a federal issue with the introduction of the married-couple income tax filing in 1913.

As previously mentioned, marriage was viewed in ancient times simply as a binding contract between a man and woman. But in the 18th century, society "encouraged young people to select their marriage partners based on their romantic attachments," said the National Women's History Museum. This represented a notable change from prior eras, when the "brides' and groom's feelings were not of paramount consideration" when it came to selecting a partner. As parents and guardians took a backseat in attempting to find partners for their children, lovers "needed to find one another and then determine the extent of mutual attraction." This is also when courtships became a significant part of finding a spouse. Since then, romance and attraction have become synonymous with marriage and weddings.

Weddings themselves have also continued to transform in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with various "wedding trends" and specialty events becoming ubiquitous. While destination weddings have always existed, they have been shooting up in popularity of late, with the desire to jet off a foreign land in order to wed becoming increasingly commonplace. In 2023, nearly "one in five couples who married had a destination wedding," said The Cut, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years.

In 1920, American women won the right to vote, transforming marriage into a union of two full citizens, and in the following decade a sexual revolution introduced the idea that marriage should be a vehicle for mutual desire and satisfaction. In the 1960s, "we decided marriage was a right," not a guarded (and segregated) privilege, and "in the 1970s, we began to rearrange marriage laws" accordingly, marriage historian Stephanie Coontz said to Connecticut Public Radio. Between 1974 and 1993, U.S. states finally recognized — and banned — marital rape, an idea inconceivable when the husband "owned" his wife's sexuality.

Marriage has taken even more of a swing in the last 50 years, particularly when it comes to the wider acceptance of same sex marriages. While the LGBTQ+ community has been pushing for marriage equality for years, it was only in 2001 that the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same sex weddings. Other nations have followed, and particularly in the United States, people "gave our all to ensure every person, regardless of whom they love, is recognized equally under the law," said Humans Rights Watch. The "moment for full marriage equality [in the U.S.] finally arrived on June 26, 2015," when the Supreme Court "granted same-sex couples in all 50 states the right to full, equal recognition under the law."

But same-sex marriage remains taboo in some nations, with couples continuing to fight an uphill battle. Same-sex unions are "banned in many countries, and the expansion of broader LGBTQ+ rights has been uneven globally," said the Council on Foreign Relations. Still, there continues to be a push, especially in largely conservative places like Russia and African nations, for marriage equality. This can have benefits beyond civil unions themselves, too, as global analysts "find a strong correlation between LGBTQ+ rights and democratic societies."

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.