What is Marriage?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines marriage as, “the condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony”. This definition raises several questions about marriage and how it may have already changed meaning throughout the last few decades.  Has marriage become more complex and complicated these days, compared to its simple denotation a while ago of being husband and wife forever? I believe the term “marriage” has drastically changed over time and now when people use the word “marriage”, it doesn’t have the dramatic reactions of what it did back in time. Marriage was referred to as a sense of togetherness and it meant having a lifelong commitment to the person you loved. Its literal meaning carried a high level of emotion and spurred excitement. Its meaning now lacks the strength it once carried. People nowadays are more hesitant to become married because divorce rates have overwhelmingly increased and today’s society isn’t as family-oriented as the ones a few generations ago. Individuals did not have as many problems with marriage in the past because its meaning was something to strive for and was important to each individual. Now, marriage has taken a turn and does not have the same interpretation and significance it once had. 

            Another interesting circumstance involving the term marriage concerns the question of if we were truly put on this Earth to try and find a spouse to whom to get married to?  I believe God created us to help improve our world and reproduce to be able to be part of a lifelong cycle of generations. If this is true, marriage is instrumental to our lives because with the term “marriage”, God believes the one you are married to is the one you will be having a child with. However, society has influenced the perception of marriage and now young adults are getting “married” at such an early age, only to realize the unfortunate news a few years later that their spouse isn’t the one they once wanted to spend the rest of their life with. Young teenagers are becoming pregnant so soon that they are pressured into getting married and then later get divorced because of all the controversy and problems associated with raising a child. People do not really think of the “true” actual meaning of becoming married these days and tend to value it less and less.  They glance over the term now as if it doesn’t hold as much meaning because people now generally think it is common to have a divorce so they may now think becoming married is only a temporary relationship until the love is lost and its time to move on to someone new.