via sharia is variable. Consider the mahr, a marriage settlement that a husband makes on his wife, the opposite of a dowry, or a settlement that the wife's family makes on the husband (Wani, 1996, pp. 295-6). However, the mahr is not found in all Islamic marriage practices, and its enforcement is irregular. Nonpayment is one of the (few) grounds that Islamic women have for starting divorce action, though Islamic courts have not allowed Muslim women to initiate divorce.
One historical analysis of marriage in Western culture dating from the Reformation characterizes it in terms of evolution, from a mainly sacral to a mainly secular arrangement. The Calvinist marriage ethos is described as a covenant, the Anglican ethos as commonwealth, and the Enlightenment ethos as contract (Witte, 1997). The Calvinist concept of covenant that governed marital law in Geneva, the religion's seat of power, was driven by the basic view that "God is a third party to every marriage . . . and God has set its basic terms in the order and law of creation" (p. 110). Marriage would displace what would otherwise be considered the natural human inclination toward the sins of sexual incontinence. The union of "fit," mutually consenting persons created a bond meant to nurture family life and in turn social life:
Marriage served the social purpose of procreation
and protection from sin. But it also served the
divine purpose of sanctification and edification
The fact that God is a party to the marriage covenant obligates spouses to respect its sanctified form. Also implicated is the law of marriage, to be enforced by the agents of God's work on earth, Calvin's "consistory," or ecclesiastical court. The Marriage Ordinance weighed in on all marital experience--betrothal, marriage, divorce, annulment, desertion, adultery, procreation, and a range of sexual behavior inside and outside marriage. The fact that fewer than 40 divorces occurred in Geneva in t...