eem likely to alter permanently long held notions about the sanctity and primacy of marriage.
Marriage justifiably lies near the center of the current discussion about the structure of sexual relationships. If only because of its historical predominance, marriage remains the standard love relationship. The centrality of marriage is such that even those most the conventional forms of relationship between men and women organize their analyses of sexuality and sex roles around the criticism of marriage. Although marriage has largely lost the presumption of inevitability and permanence, it is still appropriate to describe sexual relationships as marital, pre marital, and extra marital. Where love and sex are concerned, marriage is still the measure of all things.
It is generally acknowledged that marriage in Western society took its present form in the Middle Ages. Of course the institution has a far longer history than that. Indeed customs determining permanent heterosexual partnership arevirtually universal in human society. In any case, the marriage customs prevalent in this society are sufficiently complex and sufficiently embedded within the fabric of society to defy simple characterization. Marriage is both difficult to define and difficult to describe.
The peculiarity of marriage is the intensity with which its norms are disputed, at the same time that its functional possibilities remain quite unclear. It appears to be a purely personal relationship, a sacrament or at least a serious institution guarded by moral or religious authorities, and a mere legal contract (Margolis & Margolis 291)
In the past, the claims of marriage to its position at the center of family and social life have typically depended on moral justifications. Among its properties, marriage literally and figuratively licenses sexual relations between a man and a woman who place themselves within its framework. At the same tim...