Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage…
Which, I suppose, means once you either allow yourself to be or are forced to let others strap you into the thing, you can't get away.
Silly? Maybe, but no more than some of the other assumptions and stances I've seen on this thread. Well, except for Fenriswolf. I have to agree that so long as the couple's new 'identity' is the mans' (My grandparents were "Mr. and Mrs. Athos LeFere" and she was often referred to as "Mrs. Athos LeFere"), or only the woman is expected to in any way alter her name, that's pretty damned patriarchal. At the same time, there are enlightened souls, rebels, call them what you will, who don't do this. That the woman can keep her full 'maiden' name at all tells me the male dominance of marriage is weakening. (Stupidities like the miserable "Promise Keepers" movement is another good example).
Uterus control? Sometimes. But the controller is not always a man. Sometimes it's a matriarch, or sometimes it's the families involved. Then we're talking about marriage as a means of alliance, increasing influence, or pure financial gain for the family, which, unlike what some other person claimed earlier, seems to be the most ubiquitous purpose of getting hitched, at least until recently. Time was, any marriage in any culture, including western, where the families involved had any power, influence, and/or wealth whatsoever* was often at least as much a contract between the two families as between the actual individuals involved—indeed, sometimes they were a rather secondary consideration, the specific children involved actually less important than the marriage itself taking place. "Oh, my son Henry drowned yesterday. But fear not, old bean—Richard can marry your daughter." (I still think this is the real reason behind the taboo against incest—your son won't cement any alliances marrying his sister. Also note how quickly the 'universal taboo' is discarded where power is accrued or better retained by brother-sister marriages).
So, we replace the male-controlled uterus with the family-controlled uterus (said family not always being controlled by males, whatever the culture believes) or, say, in the case of Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer, a state-controlled uterus. That's one of the real problems with unfaithfulness, btw—if your wife has a child by, or you father one with a member of yet another family, you can throw the whole thing into a state of higgly-piggly, because the perfect receptacle of their hopes and stuff now has a rival who can possibly 'cash in'. This is one place where women are definitely on the short end of things, because it's much easier to prove she's had a child, and if the husband's been off fighting for eleven months, he and his kin can do the math (which is one reason math sucks), at least if they won't buy the 'Zeus did it' excuse. Which in turn leads to putting wifey under lock and key, and then forming all sorts of asshat rationalizations to justify that. In other words, since marriage is about transmitting property, and the woman is obviously integral to that, she herself becomes property of a sort, with even more patriarchal asshattery dreamed up to justify that.
Then religion sometimes gets involved (note that the ancient upper-class Greeks were perfectly capable of doing the above without any particular religious justification that I'm aware of) and makes the rationalizations god's fault. (Judiaism, Islam, and Christiantity all dig on this, btw, with the degree varying from sect to sect.) One basis, though, remains when Dad buys it, who gets his best goat? Still, these religions transformed marriage from a contract between to families to that AND an act of faith. And if marriage is an act of faith, what is divorce? Unfaith? Felating the devil's penis? Although it may not be all there is to it, this is quite likely one reason that grandma and grandpa stayed married for sixty years: God, together with tradition said they had to.
Thing is, though, things have changed a helluva lot in the US in the last 100 years. For one thing, the consequences to possible offspring don't matter nearly so much in the US, at least most of the time (or so we like to pretend). I suspect part of this comes from the fact we have lawyers who've managed to largely circumvent the consequences of 'unsuitable' matches at will—if your grandmother really wants to, she can disinherit you and leave the family business to your friend Jim, and if her lawyer's good enough, there's probably not a damn thing you can do about it no matter who you marry. Also, despite what we like to believe, many of these marriage traditions really have more to do with aristocracy, or at least wealth and influence, then those who have comparatively little of either; whereas the U.S. is simply stiff with commoners, many of whom, shockingly, aren't particularly wealthy (by their standards, anyway). In the last century, many of them have turned to imitating Hollywood instead of dukes and earls. More on that in a trice.
Because these consequences matter less, these folks worry less about their families and 'good matches' and more about—ROMANCE. Which has a good side—it tends to reduce the patriarchal nature of the institution, since both of the people who are actually involved have to agree to give ye wedded blisse a try, but it also means the happy pair are free to believe the twaddle pumped out in third-rate novels, films, and music*, and be shocked, shocked, I tell you, when RL doesn't quite work that way.
One consequence of romantic marriage: a higher divorce rate. If your marriage keeps you and/or your family in power and/or social standing, or there will is a dowry that must be paid back, or land lost, or your children's future thrown in limbo, you tend to think twice, then again about divorce (unless you can 'put away' your spouse, a truly nasty piece of business). But if you marry purely for twu wuv without other, more temporal considerations, why, when that goes away (which it will, if you don't work at keeping it), why stay married? For better or worse, the traditional answer to that question, "Because God says so," carries less weight than it once did. And U.S. society was made to accept divorce by Ronald Reagan, so go blame him. (I don't think he cares any more now than before he croaked.) So no 'stigma' there, either, or at least less.
Not exhaustive, and probably incorrect in so many little ways I shudder to count them (because it's math, dammit), but something to chew on.
Note: I keep using the man's point of view because, like it or not, that's the way things're set up, which is why I must give Fenriswolf a nod. The 'holiness of motherhood' (my phrase, not theirs) that judges in the U.S. tend semi-invariably to back (at least until recently) in their decisions concerning child custody is a distinct thing from marriage itself, although it is a big turnaround from times past, when the woman could be cast on the trash-heap while the man kept everything. Sadly, it's not always as much of an improvement so much as a way to avoid considering each case on its own merits.
Note 2: Although Hollywood's product serves as inspiration for some, the antics behavior of the people who create the fantasies has also gotten its devotees. Thus, for those of you who enjoy such commentary, the common schmoo in the U.S. has gone from imitating those who, on the surface, in any case, are traditionally supposed to be moral paragons, to those who are traditionally supposed to be some of the most amoral shits on the face of the earth. What truth there is to such traditions is arguable, but the shift of emulation has clearly occured. So you can also blame the actors. Which leads you back to Reagan. Funny, that.
*Namely that love goes on and on without a fair amount of effort expended to keep it doing so by both pirates**, aka 'soul mates.' There are other errors propagated, but this one is my 'favorite.'
**I meant parties, but this was such a funny error by the spell checker I couldn't bear to remove it.
