Marriages and Unions

Introduction
The duration, dominance and the stability of the marriages and the commitment not only
define the fertility pattern of the female and males but are also related to the vast societal
and economical alterations like the enhancement in the womens acquisition of education
and work activity at the work field. People are giving birth to more children outside the
lock of marriage for an increasing number of the countries across the globe1.
Fertility and marriages
The link between the decrease of marriage on one side and the whole extent of
reproduction on the other side is not really straight. In many countries the number of
marriages and the reproduction decreased at the same time. But the whole link between
the marriage and the reproduction has grown to opposite side than from rising. Hence the
decrease in the marriage that is the portion of second shift in demography should not be
taken as a significant reason for less present reproduction level in most of the European
countries. On the other hand, the western countries in which the decrease in unions have
been less proclaimed, the reproduction extent is less at present than in the areas of the
world where new commitments are quite prevalent 2
A significant contrast is between the marriage trends in many progressing countries and
in the urbanized world is that in the previous, these traditions can help in high
productivity while the whole level of reproduction is decreasing. In conventional standard
of family, that was present in the whole progressing countries, the reproduction is
relatively increased by making the females married right after their adulthood. The family
is the institution of the economy yield and is the mere source of riches, societal rank and
the safety of the participants. New family members particularly the new born bys are
required to handle the income and to establish the rank of family. The requirement to
increase the fertility is emphasized where the death rate is high for the kids3. But the
reproduction is normally seen by utilizing the important statistical data. Important
statistical data about the birth of children to the married couples or for unmarried females
mostly do not state whether the mother is living with the father of baby or not. Important
statistical data are quite researched by the normal difference in the marriage and the nonmarried reproductions, that is regarded as legal or non-legal reproduction and it doesnt
give regard to the cohabitation.
Early marriages
1 http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/theme/marriageunions/index.shtml
2 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol19/6/19-6.pdf
3 https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf

Birth, marriage and demise are the important stages of a persons life where only
marriage can be done with personal choice. The authority to choose for this event was
identified by the fact even in the era of Roman Empire. This is considered as human right
since long time. Still many people go through the marriages without being involved in
this matter of choice and they are not given the authority to choose for themselves. Some
people are compelled for marriage at a very young age and so they are very young to take
any important decision of their choice and cannot select a life partner or they are unaware
of the overall responsibilities and impacts of marriage. They are just asked or their
consent very vaguely that is enough to satisfy according to the tradition of that area
however in fact the agreement is the real binding of the two people making commitment
for life. There is a perception that when a female is married she turns to womanhood and
this can be done to even a 12 year old girl. Further, when a male is about to marry, this
shows that he is a man and he must give up the things that are considered specific for
children only. The early marriages occur in many ways and can involved many reasons,
there is one problem that is common in all and that is whether it is the case with a yo8ng
boy or a young girl, this violates the human rights. The humans have the right to have a
full agreement to the marriage and this is the authority that was identified in 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and later in many other departments.
Hence, the agreement cannot be given any importance when the people involved are very
young and are not mature. Still in many communities of Africa and South Asia, the
marriages at a very young age of life are taking place especially in case of females4.
The tradition of the marriage that is involving the required age and the process by which
the spouse is chosen is based on the customs of the society or the family. The role, the
system, the way of life and the overall duties of the people are considered. The concept
and the responsibly of the family changes throughout the globe and his is a matter that
changes from time to time 5
Even the least official age at the time of wedding without the agreement form parents is
18 or even more in some countries; there are many females that get married at very young
age. In 2010, there were almost 158 counties that had the least age of wedding for female
with no agreement from parents was 18 years. However there were almost 29 countries
where this legal age was lesser than 18 years. Moreover, in 146 counties females below
18 years of age could get married with the agreement form the parents there were 52
counties where females below 15 years could get married with the approval from parents.
For the men, the official age to get married with no parent approval was 18 years or more
in 180 countries. In more 8 countries, the official age to get married for men with no
parent approval was below 18 and in 105 countries the men below 18 could get married
with parents consent. There were merely 23 countries that have persimmon to get married
to the boys below 15 years with the parents approval. In most of the countries, the
wedding prior to the age of 18 was prevalent in females. In 63 progressing countries, the
present information shows that the least age of marrying with no parent consent was 18
4 https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf
5 Boyden, Jo with UNESCO (1993), Families: Celebration and Hope ina World of Change, Gaia Books, UK.

year or more and there were 39 counties where minimum 20% of the females from 20 to
24 years old were married at the age of 18 and 20 countries had a percentage of 10 with
women being married at the age before 15. In Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Mali, the
Central African Republic, Nepal, and Mozambique almost 50% of the women of 20-24
age bracket have been married before the age of 18.
This data shows that the early weddings with the approval from parents are quite
common exercise or the legislations reading the least age of marriage are not very well
implemented. Still the occurrence of the adult marriage in the females has been declined
dramatically after 1970s. The marriage at adulthood is not very common among men.
Only 4 countries had a percentage of 10 with males from 15-19 years age married in the
1970s and till the start of 21st century, there were only 2 countries that has same
occurrences of males between this age group6.
Bad finances are the main reason that affects the marriages at early age. When the
poverty is prevalent, the girls at young age are considered to be a pressure at the family
and they are often married to men of quite more age and this is very much common in
South and Middle Eastern Asian communities. This is considered to be a good way of
surviving and this is very well accepted by masses. Conventionally the communities in
the Sub-Saharan Africa, the females family get the animals from the men and the family
of men as a way to pay for the bride7.
Young females may face troubles in consequences of the young age wedding and the
females who really needed salvation id they had been present could be really impossible
to make records. The effect of marriage at puberty for girls is quite vast and is also
present on some men. If it is seen from the aspect of the human rights that is a clear
refusal of the childhood and the adulthood and it also deprives a person from the liberty
followed by the absence of choice for creating a self-sufficient personality and also
affects the emotional and mental health. It also restricts the choices of getting eructation8.
The increase of cohabitation and decrease of marriages
Families and the live-in relationships in the progressed countries have been altered
significantly after 1960s. The main characteristics of this alteration are like the slow
decrease of the marriage and the increase of the live-in relationships, the delay of the
official commitment and giving birth to children. This increase the problems in the union
6
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/
PopFacts_2011-1.pdf
7 Rwezaura, Bart (1994), The Changing Context of Sub-SaharanAfrica in Philip Alston (ed.) The Best
Interests of the Child,
Clarendon Press, Oxford.

8 https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf

and the people dont want to get married and prefer to sex and even reproduction without
marriage and this is quite prevalent in the progressed countries. After the time of the
golden age of marriage and the increase of the birth rate in 1950s and 1960s, the marriage
have been decreased and its contribution as the main factor in the society and personal
relationships are not continued in the Western countries. Many marriages are eventually
broken with the divorces and hence people prefer to cohabitate rather than getting
married.

Commitment mist often stays with no marriage now. Families and the relationships are
different in the whole Europe, and almost all the countries are facing this where the
couples are choosing to live together without getting married. More children are being
born with no marriage and only a few children stay with their two parents at the same
time. This current shift of the family is proven by the different family unions and the livein arrangements and is there are less common married families with the children. There
are live-in relationship, staying away with commitment and also homosexual
relationships along with the single parent families. There is no obvious limit between the
family and non-familial life; Ahlburg and de Vita (1992: 2) have seen that the family
trends in the America are so transitioning that the the U.S. Census Bureau faces
problems in observing the family trends.
Legal alterations are also been showing in the family scenario. There are many new
legislations regarding the same sex partnerships, and on registered and unregistered
relationships that affect the whole system.
The speed of the alteration of the relationships and the family setup in the countries
throughout the globe is different. The variation can be seen in the time and the sequence
of the starting life changes. Things like home leaving, getting married and getting a baby
may not be same in some traditions and there are not proper sequences for these events
and they may take place with no regards to youth and the adult life (Rindfuss 1991,
Corijn and Klijzing 2001, Heinz and Krger 2001).
Because of this overall delay and decrease in marriage the number of married people has
decreased rapidly and particularly they are not below the age of 30. This change was
especially seen in the last communist countries of the Eastern and Central Europe where
Marriages were done earlier till 1900s like in Czech Republic and Slovakia chapters. This
trend of live-in relationship is not very modern ad it has been done earlier in the history
as well in the counties of Northern, Western and Central Europe by the people who were
poor and could get married or get legally committed. There were also some cases in
Sweden where intellectual people were against the church marriages (Villeneuve-Gokalp
1991, Kiernan 2004, Probert 2004).9
In the last 10 years, the live-in relationships are quite prevalent form of commitments in a
number of western counties and are a well-known form of starting a family10. These
9 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol19/6/19-6.pdf

unions are dominant in the America and the Caribbean in which the women between the
age of 20 to 34 get married.

These unions are not dominant in Africa in which 10% of the women with this age
preferred to live in cohabitation. In the America and Europe, the consensual commitments
were not very common but getting popularity day by day as more people are living
together with no marriage for a longer duration. But the information of the progressed
countries doesnt really show the accurate information of the dominance of the
commitments that are present with legal marriages. 11
The increase of childbearing outside of marriages
Wedding is not regarded as the only setup for giving birth to the children. A large number
of populations are now willing to bear a child with no commitment or marriage and
pregnancy is not a precursor of getting married. This is different from the trend of the 70s
where the live-in relationships were not long lasting and many marriages were done
during the first child bearing of the couple. This might be because of the social impact on
the people who wanted to give birth to children within marriage (check chapters on
Austria, England and Wales, the Netherlands, and France; Toulemon 1995). While there
are more popular trends of contraception, particularly the tablets, the couples can also
delay their marriages and also delay the child bearing. There is no link of child bearing
with the marriage now and this can be seen that non-marital births are much more
prevalent than the married births in the last thirty years in most of the countries. Giving
birth to children with no marriage is also taken as a way of starting a family with different
impact on the economical and social situation (Heuveline, Timberlake and Furstenberg
2003; Kiernan 2004).This is important to make a contrast between the children with love
relationship and consensual unions. In the last group it is hard to recognize the single
mothers who raise their children with o father and the couples who are not living in one
place but have some commitments and behave like two parents12.
Giving birth to the children in the Live-in relationship is thought to be the most prevalent
way of starting a family in most of the countries and covers a large number of births
taken place in the countries where live-in relationships are common13
Recommendations/concluding remarks
10 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol32/14/32-14.pdf
11
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/
PopFacts_2011-1.pdf
12 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol19/6/19-6.pdf
13 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol32/14/32-14.pdf

-Politicians, the policy makers and the society leaders, are suggested to make and
implement the policies and the laws to stop the marring of the females that are below the
age of 18, to enhance approach to the contraception methods and information also the
emergency contraceptive pill for the adults especially for those who are not marriage and
are under 18 years, to enhance the sex awareness, to give punishment to people force the
relationships and to give the adults the opportunity to get safe abortion service and to
improve the approach of women to the basic healthcare.
- Steps need to be taken to affect the society trends regarding the postponed marriages,
the decline of education in females at school levels and also giving some sex awareness
and to give approach to the contraception services.