On the Institution of Marriage
November 13th, 2009 | by Semantic Overload | published in discussion, society
Given that marriage is an institution of great importance across many (if not all) cultures, it is not unreasonable to expect some sort of a definition of marriage. Ironically, anthropologists are yet to agree on such a definition! Of course, it does not help that the institution itself has been constantly changing over time. So my query is the following: What exactly is the institution of marriage? The institution of marriage, in my opinion, has conflated three different, but related, institutions: (1) a personal institution, denoted pMarriage, (2) a social institution, denoted sMarriage, and (3) a legal institution, denoted lMarriage. [...]
