Marriage performs five main functions in human societies. It fulfils biological and psychological needs, creates new families, specifies the rights and responsibilities of the spouses and their kin, creates alliances between groups, and allocates goods and services through bridewealth, bride service and dowry. Through these functions marriage regulates sexual relations, gives children a legitimate place, and binds separate families into a wider society.
This note sets out the functions of marriage with ethnographic examples for the UPSC Anthropology Optional. It falls under Paper I, topic 2.3 (marriage: functions of marriage; marriage payments) of the Anthropology Optional syllabus.
Functions of marriage at a glance
| Function | What marriage does | Result for society |
|---|---|---|
| Biopsychic | Meets sexual and reproductive needs, and the needs for companionship and children | Perpetuation of society |
| Creation of new families | Joins members of two families into a new unit | Food, shelter, roles, and the care and enculturation of children |
| Rights and responsibilities | Fixes legal parenthood and rights over sexuality, labour and property | Order in sexual relations, child care and property |
| Alliance | Creates ties between the kin of the married pair (affines) | Mutual help in subsistence, ritual, defence and trade |
| Allocation of goods and services | Transfers wealth and labour between families | Circulation of property; stability of the union |
1. Fulfilment of biopsychic needs
- Biological needs: sex and reproduction.
- Psychological needs: companionship, affection and the desire to have children.
Marriage gives these needs a socially approved outlet. In doing so it ensures that new members are born and cared for, and so paves the way for the perpetuation of society.
2. Creation of new families
Families are not self-sufficient units. Through marriage, representatives of two families join to create a new one for the mutual benefit of its members: the husband and wife, and any children born to or adopted by them. The new group usually provides each member with:
- basic needs such as food and shelter;
- a socially approved role;
- for children, protection, nurture and enculturation.
3. Specification of rights and responsibilities
Marriage customs are extremely diverse, but in every society marriage creates rights and responsibilities for the married pair, and often for their families too. Drawing on Edmund Leach's list of the rights that marriage may confer, the usual ones are:
| Right established | Problem it solves |
|---|---|
| The husband is the legal father of his wife's children, and the wife the legal mother of her husband's children | Who is responsible for the young, who cannot survive by themselves |
| Each spouse has rights of sexual access to the other, often exclusive | Who may have sexual relations with whom |
| Each has partial or full rights to the fruits of the other's labour | How the work of men and women is shared |
| Each has partial or full rights over the other's property | How property is held and used |
| A joint fund of property is set up for the children | How children are provided for and inherit |
Not every right is found in every society, as Leach himself stressed, but most marriages confer several of them.
4. Creation of alliances
Everywhere, marriage creates ties between the relatives of the married pair. These affinal ties serve subsistence, ritual, political, legal and economic purposes. In simple societies everyone needs a group of people to call on for help, and a wide circle of relatives by marriage supplies it.
| Obligation of affines | Example |
|---|---|
| Subsistence | Gifts of food are due at marriage, birth and death. If one group has a poor harvest and its affines in another area do not, such gifts can carry the hungry group through the shortage. |
| Ritual services | Among the Rindi of eastern Sumba, Indonesia, wife-givers are regarded as the source of life and spiritual well-being. A man with a long illness may move into the house of a wife-giver and place himself under the protection of that group's ancestor. Wife-takers are associated with death, and may be called on to carry home the body of someone who dies away from home (Gregory Forth, 1981). |
| Mutual defence | Among the Tetum of Timor, affines as well as clan members joined in defence when clans fought. |
| Continuity across generations | Rules of exogamy, and repeated marriages between the same groups, renew the alliance in each generation. |
| Preservation of identity | Marriage within a religious or ethnic community helps to preserve its tradition and identity. |
What happens when alliances break down
In the New Guinea Highlands, before contact with the outside world, stone axe heads were made by tribes living near suitable stone and were traded between regions. Marriages between tribes created the affinal links that made this trade easier. When steel axes arrived, the making of stone axes stopped. As trade declined, so did the occasions for arranging marriages between tribes. The network of affinal ties decayed, and conflict and warfare increased (Aaron Podolefsky, 1984).
Alliance theory
Claude Lévi-Strauss made alliance the centre of his theory of kinship. The incest taboo obliges a man to give his sister or daughter in marriage to another group and to take a wife from outside. Marriage is thus an exchange between groups, and society is built from these exchanges. E. B. Tylor had put the same idea in a phrase: early groups had to choose between "marrying out and being killed out".
5. Allocation of goods and services
Marriage involves the transfer of goods and services among the husband, the wife and their families (Goody and Tambiah, 1973). The transfer may take place at the wedding or continue for as long as the marriage lasts.
| Form | Direction and content | What it does | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bridewealth (bride price) | Property passes from the groom's family to the bride's | Compensates her family for the loss of her labour and children; legitimises the children; stabilises the marriage, since it must be returned on divorce | Cattle among the Nuer; common among many Indian tribes, such as the Ho and Santhal |
| Bride service | The son-in-law works for his father-in-law for a period | Compensates for the loss of the daughter's services where wealth is scarce | Many foraging and horticultural societies; the lamsena custom among the Gond |
| Dowry | Goods pass from the bride's family with the bride to the couple or the groom's family | In Goody's view, a form of inheritance given to a daughter at marriage | Plough-farming societies of Europe and Asia. In India the giving and taking of dowry is prohibited by the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. |
| Gift exchange | Roughly equal gifts pass in both directions | Affirms the equality of the two groups | Parts of Oceania and North America |
Other functions noted by anthropologists
- Economic cooperation. G. P. Murdock stressed that marriage unites the complementary work of men and women in one household.
- Legitimacy and descent. Marriage gives a child a recognised father, a descent group and rights of inheritance.
- Regulation of sexual competition. Clear rules reduce rivalry and conflict within the group.
- Social status. In most societies a person becomes a full adult only on marriage.
Using this topic in a UPSC answer
- List the five functions in one line, then expand each in two or three sentences.
- Give most space to alliance: use the Rindi or the New Guinea axe trade, and name Lévi-Strauss.
- Present marriage payments in a table with direction, function and example.
- Add Indian illustrations: bridewealth among central Indian tribes, bride service among the Gond, cross-cousin marriage in South India as a renewed alliance.
- Conclude that marriage links the biological fact of reproduction to the social facts of family, kinship and exchange.
For presentation, see our guide to anthropology answer writing with diagrams, thinkers and case studies. For current issues among the communities named, see tribal India today.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main functions of marriage?
The main functions of marriage are to fulfil biological and psychological needs, create new families, specify rights and responsibilities, create alliances between groups, and allocate goods and services between families.
How does marriage create alliances?
Marriage links the kin groups of husband and wife as affines. They owe one another help in subsistence, ritual, defence and trade, and these ties are often renewed by further marriages in later generations.
What rights does marriage establish?
Marriage commonly establishes legal parenthood of the children, rights of sexual access between the spouses, rights to each other's labour and property, and a joint fund for the children.
What is the difference between bridewealth and dowry?
Bridewealth is property given by the groom's family to the bride's family. Dowry is property given by the bride's family that goes with the bride to the couple or to the groom's family.
What is bride service?
Bride service is an arrangement in which the groom works for his wife's father or family for a period, before or after the marriage, in place of or in addition to a payment.
What is alliance theory?
Alliance theory, developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, holds that marriage is an exchange between groups required by the incest taboo, and that these exchanges are the basis of social solidarity.
What are affines?
Affines are relatives by marriage, such as a spouse's parents and siblings, as distinct from consanguines, who are relatives by descent.