The Holy Sacrament of Marriage in the 1900s vs the 2000s

đź“ŚCategory: History, Life
đź“ŚWords: 1208
đź“ŚPages: 5
đź“ŚPublished: 23 February 2022

Marriage in the 1900s and Marriage in the 2000s is similar because it has always been the promise of love for eternity, but they are surprisingly different because of the changes in ages, reasons for marriage, and who can get married. The sacrament of marriage is known to be the most important sacrament in one’s life, bonding two humans to hold loyalty and love throughout eternity. Sadly, there have been ever so changing rules and morals within this sacrament, some being positive changes and others negative. Over time, marriage has continued to be questioned further by a chunk of the population as more and more extensions have been made in the bonding of marriage.

To begin, marriage in the 1900s differs from marriage in this century in a multitude and an almost shocking amount of ways. The ethics and implications of the holy sacrament a century ago encaptures many features that are now heavily questioned in today’s day and age. In the 1900s, same-sex marriage was heavily frowned upon and against the law, whereas today there are same-sex couples all around the world. The Government started off on the wrong foot by getting involved and implicating bans and regulations on such personal and independent matters. For example, this Britannica article states, “From this perspective, the devaluation of same-sex intimacy is immoral because it constitutes arbitrary and irrational discrimination, thereby damaging the community. Most same-sex marriage advocates further held that international human rights legislation provided a universal franchise to equal treatment under the law. Thus, prohibiting a specific group from the full rights of marriage was illegally discriminatory. For advocates of the community-benefit perspective, all the legal perquisites associated with heterosexual marriage should be available to any committed couple” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 12). It is truly awful and shameful that the government had ever limited the right to love from so many human beings. The tide is and will continue to shift for everyone to love who they want and be happy and that is the important lesson. Another critical difference in marriage in the 1900s was the acceptable age at which humans were experiencing this holy sacrament of marriage. Back then, it was common to see very young girls, some at the age of 13 getting married to much older men. Today, there are now laws in place and morals that frown upon marriage at such a young, vulnerable, and experimental age. A great article from the CPR has strong facts to back this stating, “A 2011 study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that about 9 percent of contemporary American women were married before they turned eighteen. Many of those women are now older, having married in the 1950s or 1960s, but they are not women of the distant past; they live among us today. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the probability of marrying by age eighteen in the contemporary United States is 6 percent for women and 2 percent for men” (Dukakis 9). It is clearly shown here from reports coming out of the CDC that a large handful of women in the 1900s were going through the sacrament of marriage before the age of eighteen. It shows a lot about the laws and especially men in this time as to how they viewed this tradition and respected it. Although, these are not the only aspects that can be compared and contrasted between the two centuries as there is also conflict and argument in inter-family marriage along with waiting for the right time and person to go through the tradition of marriage with.

On the other hand, this holy tradition that has continued to evolve and develop in the 2000s has become significantly more inclusive and respected. In today’s day in age, it is more likely than not to see humans waiting to get married up to any age they want and remaining solo until the right person comes along at the right moment rather than rushing into the scary and young unknowns. Unlike in the 1900s, people today realize they need to find themselves, learn themselves fully, and help themselves out before getting tied up in such a beautiful tradition that is not meaningful or long-lasting. First-hand accounts on websites such as Qara, contain beautiful quotes and words many need to hear. One account states, “It is written that the eyes of the Lord search the earth for someone to do his will. When we make a decision that we will not settle for ordinary and we ask God to take what we have consecrated to him and do something with it that goes beyond the normal and expected – this is his playground. You’ve just given the all-powerful God from whom all of the creativity flows permission to get creative in your life. He promises that when we ask, he will do exceedingly and abundantly above what we can ask, think, or imagine...Don’t be discouraged by waiting. The biggest trees need the deepest roots. You have waited a long time because God has rooted you deeply so that he can far exceed your expectations” (D’Allesandro 5). Love that is waited for and given as a gift is the love everyone should strive for, compared to the rushed, unholy, and non-meaningful marriages that labeled the 1900s. Another important point comes straight from the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, where it is read that Ethan is married to his cousin, Zeena. This brings up another controversy that has differed between the two centuries is the marriage of two in the same family. This type of marriage was more commonly seen in the 1900s compared to the 2000s as it is commonly known that incest is against the law in the United States today. Although in the novel, we learn the reasoning behind the marriage of Ethan and Zeena. In chapter IV it is stated, “After the mortal silence of his long imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his ears. He felt that he might have "gone like his mother" if the sound of a new voice had not come to steady him. Zeena seemed to understand his case at a glance. She laughed at him for not knowing the simplest sick-bed duties and told him to "go right along out" and leave her to see to things. The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him” (Wharton 5). Zeena was all Ethan could comfortably fall back on following his mother, and this was common reasoning into the specifics of marrying within the family. The problems of such a marriage have been learned and researched causing the regulations on this type of marriage today. The novel brilliantly describes this marriage and shows off many aspects of the marriage a century ago. 

To sum up, similar to almost all of the pieces in this world, the aspects of marriage have continuously shifted over the past century and will most likely continue to until the end. Marriage in the 1900s is proven to be easy to compare and contrast as a century has gone by. The age at which humans are being bonded, the rules and regulations of who can be married, and the reasons and circumstances at which this sacrament has been carried out are the main few factors out of the many that have shaped marriages in the past hundred years. It can only be strived for and hoped that only positive changes continue to be pushed through the system and help shape a better and healthier world.

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