Thoughts About Marriage

It would seem to be difficult to give a singular, cross-cultural definition of marriage. What I mean is, I have found that marriage is much like the color red. There is a story about a tribe in Indonesia who didn’t have the color “red” in their vocabulary, and what they saw when someone like me see’s red is merely a different shade of another color. Marriage is much like this. I have gotten my personal definition of marriage from my parents, marriage is between one man, and one woman, and this union is meant to be forever; no divorce. This personal definition was reinforced by the Christian cultural influence I grew up under. My beliefs in Christianity lead me to believe that marriage; that is, true marriage is exactly how the Bible describes it: between one man and one woman. I understand that a person’s understanding of marriage is heavily impacted on their own personal religion or world-view or culture. What I am saying is if I am to believe in Christianity then I must believe that marriage was itself conceived and created as the Bible describes it in Genesis with Adam and Eve. This train of thought leads me to say that all other additions or variations to what other cultures may say marriage is, are tweakings of what marriage was meant to be.
Now that my personal convictions are laid to bear, I believe some people like anthropologist Gary Ferraro would have me believe that marriage is a union (legal, implied, understood etc) between two or more organisms (usually involving a man and a woman or some combination of one or more of these) for the benefit of both parties, and the parties-parties (or family’s etc). Somehow this definition weakens the potential and the substance of what marriage truly is.