Criticism of Marriage - Other Concerns

Other Concerns

Other criticisms of marriage include:

• concerns about the well-being of women, since, in many parts of the world, not only that there is virtually no protection - in law or in practice - against domestic violence within marriage, but it is also nearly impossible for women to get out of an abusive marriage;

• the powerful symbolic value of the institution of marriage as subordination of a woman to a man;

• concerns that abusive practices are maintained and exacerbated by ideologies of ownership and entitlement in personal relations that derive from the principles of marriage;

• the fact that the marital contract is drafted by the state, and not by the couple who gets married, and it may, at any time, be changed by the state, without the consent (or even knowledge) of the married people, and that the terms of the contract represent the interests of the governments (many of which may be theocratic, male dominated etc) and not of the couples.