Marriage

====Power and gender roles====
[[File:Are married women required by law to obey their husbands., OWID.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|Countries where married women are required by law to obey their husbands as of 2015<ref>{{cite web |title=Are married women required by law to obey their husbands? |url=https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/women-required-to-obey-husband |website=Our World in Data |access-date=15 February 2020}}</ref>]]

Historically, in most cultures, married women had very few rights of their own, being considered, along with the family's children, the property of the [[husband]]; as such, they could not own or inherit property, or represent themselves legally (see, for example, [[coverture]]). Since the late 19th century, in some (primarily [[Western world|Western]]) countries, marriage has undergone gradual legal changes, aimed at improving the rights of the wife. These changes included giving wives legal identities of their own, abolishing the right of husbands to physically discipline their wives, giving wives property rights, liberalizing [[divorce]] laws, providing wives with [[reproductive rights]] of their own, and requiring a [[wife]]'s consent when sexual relations occur. In the 21st century, there continue to be controversies regarding the legal status of married women, legal acceptance of or leniency towards violence within marriage (especially sexual violence), traditional marriage customs such as [[dowry]] and [[bride price]], forced marriage, [[marriageable age]], and criminalization of consensual behaviors such as [[premarital sex|premarital]] and [[extramarital sex]].

[[Feminist theory]] approaches opposite-sex marriage as an institution traditionally rooted in [[patriarchy]] that promotes male superiority and power over women. This [[power (social and political)|power dynamic]] conceptualizes men as "the provider operating in the public sphere" and women as "the caregivers operating within the private sphere".<ref name="Weadock">Weadock, Briana. [http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/0/3/0/p110303_index.html "Disciplining Marriage: Gender, Power and Resistance"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425130145/http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/0/3/0/p110303_index.html |date=25 April 2012 }}. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA,, 14 August 2004.</ref> "Theoretically, women ... [were] defined as the property of their husbands .... The adultery of a woman was always treated with more severity than that of a man."<ref>Evans, Tanya (2005) ''Women, Marriage and the Family'', p. 64 in Barker, Hannah, & Elaine Chalus, eds., ''Women's History: Britain, 1700–1850: An Introduction'', Oxon/London: Routledge, {{ISBN|0-415-29177-1}}.</ref> "[F]eminist demands for a wife's control over her own property were not met [in parts of Britain] until ... [laws were passed in the late 19th century]."<ref>Evans, Tanya, ''Women, Marriage and the Family'', ''op. cit.'', in Barker, Hannah, & Elaine Chalus, eds., ''Women's History'', ''op. cit.'', p. 66 & n. 69.</ref>

Traditional heterosexual marriage imposed an obligation of the wife to be sexually available for her husband and an obligation of the husband to provide material/financial support for the wife. Numerous philosophers, feminists and other academic figures have commented on this throughout history, condemning the hypocrisy of legal and religious authorities in regard to sexual issues; pointing to the lack of choice of a woman in regard to controlling her own sexuality; and drawing parallels between marriage, an institution promoted as sacred, and [[prostitution]], widely condemned and vilified (though often tolerated as a "[[lesser of two evils principle|necessary evil]]"). [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], in the 18th century, described marriage as "legal prostitution".<ref>{{cite book|author=Wollstonecraft, Mary |title=Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Man and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UOzywCVo3swC |year=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43633-5}}</ref> [[Emma Goldman]] wrote in 1910: "To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock".<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1910/traffic-women.htm The Traffic in Women by Emma Goldman 1910]. Marxists.org. Retrieved on 5 September 2013.</ref> [[Bertrand Russell]] in his book ''[[Marriage and Morals]]'' wrote that: "Marriage is for woman the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution."<ref>{{cite book|author=Russell, Bertrand |title=Marriage And Morals |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.227102 |year=1929}}</ref> [[Angela Carter]] in ''[[Nights at the Circus]]'' wrote: "What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?"<ref>{{cite book|author=Carter, Angela |title=Nights at the circus |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IklaAAAAMAAJ |year=1984 |publisher=Chatto & Windus|isbn=978-0-7011-3932-2 }}</ref>

Some critics object to what they see as [[propaganda]] in relation to marriage – from the government, religious organizations, the media – which aggressively promote marriage as a solution for all social problems; such propaganda includes, for instance, [[marriage promotion]] in schools, where children, especially [[girl]]s, are bombarded with positive information about marriage, being presented only with the information prepared by authorities.<ref>Hardisty, Jean (2008) [http://www.publiceye.org/jeans_report/marriage-promotion-part-2.pdf Marriage as a cure for poverty?]. Red Sun Press, {{ISBN|0-915987-21-X}}.</ref><ref>[http://government.arts.cornell.edu/assets/faculty/docs/smith/nopromomarriage.23feb.pdf Reduce Poverty Using Proven Methods: Eliminate Federal Funding of "Marriage Promotion" and Staff HHS with Appointees Who Value All Families]. arts.cornell.edu</ref>

The performance of dominant gender roles by men and submissive gender roles by women influence the power dynamic of a heterosexual marriage.<ref>Veronica Jaris Tichenor, "Thinking About Gender and Power in Marriage", The Kaleidoscope of Gender, 2010</ref> In some American households, women internalize gender role stereotypes and often assimilate into the role of "wife", "mother", and "caretaker" in conformity to societal norms and their male partner. Author [[bell hooks]]<!-- bell hooks, the writer, spells her name in all lower-case, and that applies even at the beginning of a sentence. --> states "within the family structure, individuals learn to accept sexist oppression as 'natural' and are primed to support other forms of oppression, including heterosexist domination."<ref>{{cite book|author=bell hooks|title=Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uvIQbop4cdsC|year=2000|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=978-0-7453-1663-5}}</ref> "[T]he cultural, economic, political and legal supremacy of the husband" was "[t]raditional ... under English law".<ref>Barnett, Hilaire A, ''Introduction to Feminist Jurisprudence'' (London: Cavendish Publishing, 1998 ({{ISBN|1-85941-237-8}})), p. 35 and, per p. 35 n. 35, see chap. 3 (author then of Queen Mary & Westfield Coll., Univ. of London).</ref> This patriarchal dynamic is contrasted with a conception of [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] or [[Shared earning/shared parenting marriage|peer marriage]] in which power and labour are divided equally, and not according to [[gender role]]s.<ref name="Weadock" />

In the US, studies have shown that, despite egalitarian ideals being common, less than half of respondents viewed their opposite-sex relationships as equal in power, with unequal relationships being more commonly dominated by the male partner.<ref name="Sprecher">{{cite journal|doi=10.1023/A:1025601423031|year=1997|last1=Sprecher|first1=Susan|last2=Felmlee|first2=Diane|journal=Sex Roles|volume=37|issue=5/6|pages=361–79|url=http://business.highbeam.com/435388/article-1G1-20247079/balance-power-romantic-heterosexual-couples-over-time|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430030941/http://business.highbeam.com/435388/article-1G1-20247079/balance-power-romantic-heterosexual-couples-over-time|archive-date=2011-04-30|title=The Balance of Power in Romantic Heterosexual Couples Over Time from "His" and "Her" Perspectives|s2cid=141083115}}</ref> Studies also show that married couples find the highest level of satisfaction in egalitarian relationships and lowest levels of satisfaction in wife dominate relationships.<ref name="Sprecher" /> In recent years, egalitarian or peer marriages have been receiving increasing focus and attention politically, economically and culturally in a number of countries, including the United States.