Marriage is a very important element in people’s life. In fact, it is referred to as religious in most communities. Therefore, it has to be well nurtured to allow its growth andeverlasting duration. When, someone gets married, they start their own families, which, they spend the rest of their lives protecting and taking care of them. It may be difficult to keep a marriage together, but there are certain factors that bind together families and marriages. First and foremost, love is the most important aspect in any marriage and family (May 2009). In fact, marriages are as a result of love. Two people fall in love before they can get married. Once they get married, they start having their own children, who also spend the rest of their lives loving their parents. The love that children have towards their parents and the love that parents have towards their children also play a big role in binding together marriages and families binding them together (Lamanna & Reidmann, 2012).
Divorces are viewed differently by men and women. Men look at it as a way to their freedom so that the can go back into the free, searching, and dating world. On the other hand, women view divorces as a home breaker, whichever way it happens and for whatever reasons it happens. In the society, women, have always been seen as the 'heart' of the family. Whenever a family or a marriage would break, all the blame is put on women, hence the work hard to keep their marriages from breaking (May 2009).
The other important factor that binds marriages and families’ together is children. Children are the results of every marriage. In fact, in the past days a marriage would not be considered complete until the couple has children. However, in the modern day, people can get married and decide whether to get children or not. Children are considered a special factor that binds marriages and families together. Perhaps it is because of how valuable children are in the society (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2009). A man and a woman in a marriage share special bonds with their children. The children are what they have in common, thus none of them would want to be away from their children, and therefore, they do everything in their power to keep their marriages and families intact (Lamanna & Reidmann, 2012).
Over time, the factors that bind marriages and families together have changed. They may be changing because of the fact that in the modern day, some people get married for the wrong reasons. Women marry men they do not love because of their wealth and men marry beautiful women because of their beauty and body shapes. As a result, such marriagesdo not have love, which one of the factors that bind together families and marriages. In Addition, in modern families, children are not mandatory (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2009). Couples get married and do not get any children either because they do not want to have any, they are too busy to take care of children or women would refuse because they do not want to distort their shapes. The fact that the factors that used 2 bind together marriages and families have been diminishing overtime, divorce rates have been on the increase. Couples do not find it hard to get divorced because they have nothing bind (May 2009).
Stepfamilies were very common in the traditional society. However, they were not culturally accepted as they are in the current time. Perhaps, this explains why conflicts were common in the past in most families than in the past. Nevertheless, the economic and social conditions have changed with time, which have enhanced the growing bond between family members. This indicates how negatively stepfamilies were stereotyped. According to the integrationists, age is socially fashioned and established through symbols close to social relations. As people get older, their interactions with the other members of the society tend to change with time (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2009). Because their vulnerability, the rest of the society take the initiative of taking care of the elderly, which implies that the elderly care is the responsibility of the community and more so of the close family members.
References
Lamanna, M. A., & Reidmann, A. C. (2012). Marriages & families: Making choices in a diverse society. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
May, W. E. (2009). Marriage: The rock on which the family is built. San Francisco: Ignatius Press
Lamanna, M. A., & Riedmann, A. C. (2009). Marriages & families: Making choices in a diverse society. Belmont, Calif: Thomson.
