I read the development history of marriage as follow:
1. Humans have no marriage system during prehistory time.
They did not know that mating will result in pregnancy. In the past, mating was seen as a "powerful" enjoyment in prehistoric times. This resulted in some cultures worshipping sexual organs. Also, humans do not know why female will give birth to a child. To them, when a female is pregrant, it has some supernatural forces in it.. maybe god gives it. As reproduction is necessary for the survival of humans and passing offsprings to next generation, this has resulted in a female predominant society. At that time, females tend to mate with several males, so there are no direct links to who is the father. The child only knew the mother.
2. Mass Marriage system during neolithic age
a. Later, people realised that without a male, a female would not be pregnant and would not give birth to a child. This begin to change to a male-dominant society, where the male took the lead.
b. There existed the first form of "marriage" in the form of bonding to be husbands and wives. But it's taken in the form of mass marriage. Instead of mating without any orders (in the past, mother can mate with son and so on), but now there are restrictions of mating only within the same generation (mother cannot mate with son). The mating is still internal, i.e. brothers and sisters can mate.
b. There existed the first form of "marriage" in the form of bonding to be husbands and wives. But it's taken in the form of mass marriage. Instead of mating without any orders (in the past, mother can mate with son and so on), but now there are restrictions of mating only within the same generation (mother cannot mate with son). The mating is still internal, i.e. brothers and sisters can mate.
c. Later, humans began to form clans according to "surname". They realise that the further the relationship of mating, the better survival for the next generation of their offsprings will be. This foster mass marriage between clans. That is to say, one clan will select a group of males/females and then marry them with another group of males/females from another clan. This resulted in better survival of their offsprings.
3. Transformation from mass (group) marriage to polygamy or monogomy
The transformation from mass marriage to official system of marriage is considered a revolution IMO. It takes generations for the system to work.
Polygamy means one husband having several wives. This is not uncommon in history, as seen that a chinese Emperor can have 3000 concubines in his Imperial palace.
Monogamy is more common today.
What are your views?
General Zhaoyun- Founder of H
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