Marriage is a social contract for the satisfaction of physical, biological, psychological a.id spiritual needs of male and female leading to the formation of a family to bring up children and live together.
Sexual relationship and procreation are undoubtedly the primary aims of marriage. Marriage validates sex relationships. All this is clear forming the following well known definitions of marriage. Of these the last definition is the best and most integral since it covers the civil religious, social, economic and biological purposes of marriage.
1. Wastermarck
“As a relation of one or more men to one or more women who is recognized by custom or law, and involves certain rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering the union and in the case of the children born of it.”
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2. Jacobs and Stern
“Marriage is a term for social relationship for husband and wife or of plural mates; also used for the ceremony of uniting marital partners.”
3. Robert H. Louie
“Marriage denotes those unequivocally sanctioned unions which persist beyond sensual satisfactions and thus come to underline family life.”
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4. D. N. Majumdar and T. N. Madan
“It involves the social sanction generally in the form of civil and/or religious ceremony authorising two persons of opposite sexes to engage in sexual and other consequent and correlated socio-economic relations with one another.”
This definition of marriage lays ephasis upon its following characteristics.
(i) It is a result of civil or religious ceremony.
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(ii) It is a means of contact of persons of opposite sex.
(iii) In it the male and female get the right of mutual relationship in economic, social and biological spheres.
The above definition of marriage may be summed up by saying. “Marriage is a more or less permanent association of one or more male with one or more female for the purpose of giving social sanction to progeny, satisfaction of biological and social needs and fulfillment. This wide-based definition of marriage covers this institution as it is found among Hindus, Muslims, Christians and tribals in India.