Marriage

===Monogamy===
[[File:Marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi.png|thumb|right|alt=The marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid|Ancient [[Sumer]]ian depiction of the marriage of [[Inanna]] and [[Dumuzid the Shepherd|Dumuzid]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Lung|first=Tang|title=Marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi|url=http://www.worldhistory.org/image/2636/|website=World History Encyclopedia|date=2014}}</ref>]]
{{Main|Monogamy}}

Monogamy is a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse during their lifetime or at any one time (serial monogamy).

Anthropologist [[Jack Goody]]'s comparative study of marriage around the world utilizing the [[Human Relations Area Files|Ethnographic Atlas]] found a strong correlation between intensive plough agriculture, dowry and monogamy. This pattern was found in a broad swath of Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland. The majority of Sub-Saharan African societies that practice extensive hoe agriculture, in contrast, show a correlation between "[[bride price]]" and polygamy.<ref name="Goody 1976 7">{{cite book|last=Goody|first=Jack|title=Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain|year=1976|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=7}}</ref> A further study drawing on the Ethnographic Atlas showed a statistical correlation between increasing size of the society, the belief in "high gods" to support human morality, and monogamy.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Roes|first=Frans L.|title=The Size of Societies, Monogamy, and Belief in High Gods Supporting Human Morality|journal=Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen|year=1992|volume=37|issue=1|pages=53–58}}</ref>

In the countries which do not permit polygamy, a person who marries in one of those countries a person while still being lawfully married to another commits the crime of [[bigamy]]. In all cases, the second marriage is considered legally null and void. Besides the second and subsequent marriages being void, the bigamist is also liable to other penalties, which also vary between jurisdictions.

====Serial monogamy====
Governments that support monogamy may allow easy divorce. In a number of Western countries, divorce rates approach 50%. Those who remarry do so usually no more than three times.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2014-11-14|title=The Demographics of Remarriage|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/11/14/chapter-2-the-demographics-of-remarriage/|access-date=2021-06-28|website=Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project|language=en-US}}</ref> Divorce and remarriage can thus result in "serial monogamy", i.e. having multiple marriages but only one legal spouse at a time. This can be interpreted as a form of plural mating, as are those societies dominated by female-headed families in the [[Caribbean]], [[Mauritius]] and [[Brazil]] where there is frequent rotation of unmarried partners. In all, these account for 16 to 24% of the "monogamous" category.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fox|first=Robin|title=Reproduction & Succession: Studies in Anthropology, Law and Society|year=1997|publisher=Transaction Publishers|location=New Brunswick, NJ|page=34}}</ref>

[[File:Hindu wedding couple.jpg|thumb|[[Hindu wedding|Indian Hindu wedding]] with the bride and groom in traditional dress.]]

Serial monogamy creates a new kind of relative, the "ex-". The "ex-wife", for example, may remain an active part of her "ex-husband's" or "ex-wife's" life, as they may be tied together by transfers of resources (alimony, child support), or shared child custody. Bob Simpson notes that in the British case, serial monogamy creates an "extended family" – a number of households tied together in this way, including mobile children (possible exes may include an ex-wife, an ex-brother-in-law, etc., but not an "ex-child"). These "unclear families" do not fit the mould of the monogamous [[nuclear family]]. As a series of connected households, they come to resemble the polygynous model of separate households maintained by mothers with children, tied by a male to whom they are married or divorced.<ref>{{cite book|last=Simpson|first=Bob|title=Changing Families: An Ethnographic Approach to Divorce and Separation|year=1998|publisher=Berg|location=Oxford}}</ref>