which developed to protect offspring until they were able to fend for themselves, thus ensuring the replication and propagation of DNA? Or is it a holy union of two souls, sacred in the eyes of God?
Marriage is an odd thing. There are many species that mate for life, and many that don’t. Monogamy (not necessarily marriage per se) does have advantages. Protection from venerial disease, for example. (If everyone in the world were monogamous, there would be no vanereal disease.)
There are cultures that don’t practice marriage at all. I recall reading about some tribes in (I think) South America, that get together every week and have big, fun orgies. The children are raised and provided for by the entire community, and don’t have any special connection to their biological parents. Indeed, the identity of the father is unkowable, as most women would enjoy several partners per orgy. (We’re assuming that these savages don’t have a DNA lab. 
)
It (again monogamy, not marriage) is an evolutionary trade-off for both males and females. Males lose (at least some ;)) opportunities to spread their seed, but have a greater likelihood of actually having children (the old “hidden estrus” thing) and having those children reach sexual maturity and reproduce themselves (additional physical protection and resources).
Women lost (at least some ;)) opportunities to mate with a more genetically desireable male, but have a greater likelihood of their children reaching sexual maturity - the resource and protection thing again.
Given that there is at least some evidence that the “natural” condition for humans is serial monogamy, it is likely that serial monogamy provides greater evolutionary advantages than promiscuity (that’s not quite the right word. What is the antonym for monogamy?)
Sua
amonogomy? It’s certainly not polygamy, that’s something else entirely.
But the OP’s question really can’t be answered unless somebody knows whether or not marriages were performed before Judaism was on the scene. Presumably they were, so there was some cultural bias, if not an evolutionary one, to marriage.
And I, for one, think socially condoned serial monogamy is a better idea than “til death do us part” marriages, as long as any children created by a given union are provided for by both responsible parties. 
**friedo wrote:
There are cultures that don’t practice marriage at all. I recall reading about some tribes in (I think) South America, that get together every week and have big, fun orgies. The children are raised and provided for by the entire community, and don’t have any special connection to their biological parents. Indeed, the identity of the father is unkowable, as most women would enjoy several partners per orgy.**
Could you provide a site for this? I’d never heard or read of a culture that doesn’t have some form of marriage.
I think the opposite of monomagy would be polygamy (marriage with ONE; marriage with MANY).
I think marriage was a way of dividing up house-work as well as providing for children. One of the couple stays in the cave/hut/house providing for the children, repairing clothes, cooking food while the other is out hunting game, gathering fruits/veggies, doing trade, etc. Rather than one person trying to do it all, you have two to share the load of work.
The idea of two souls, united in love and consecrated in marriage is a nice idea that has it’s roots back in mideval France (so claimes one of my cultural anthro professors back in school).
We can pretty well rule out the second option. Marriage exists almost everywhere on Earth, but only in Judeo-Christian cultures is it considered a holy or religious ceremony, (what God has joined, let no man put asunder and all that). Maybe the Muslims consider marriage a sacred rite too, I’m not sure about that. But elsewhere, marriage is a purely secular institution.
Evolutionary adaptation? I’m not sure about that either. Our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, have no “marriage” that I’m aware of; my understanding is that pretty well anything goes in their sexual relations, and a father is not considered a family provider. So if marriage is an evolutionary adaptation it would have to be a fairly recent one. Another thing that makes me doubt an evolutionary explanation is the wide variation between polygamy and monogamy in world marriage customs, and the many different arrangements of power between husband and wife, all amongst humans whose genetic codes differ trivially at best. I’m betting it’s a social construct, not any inherited evolutionary trait.
Just heard an interesting interview with a woman who wrote a book about the benefits of marriage, wish I could remember her name or the name of the book, darn it. But she did research to find out if there are benefits, and in fact found that both men and women live longer if married (bigger difference for men), and both are “happier”. Now I don’t know her background/motivation/slant on the subject, but she had quite a bit of data (included in the book), which showed that behaviour for both men and women changes quite a bit to include healthier lifestyle, and fewer “dangerous” activities.
So maybe it is evolution - doing that which preserves one self. The interview was short, but very info-packed. I’ll try to get the name of author or book, and post back here.
From http://www.king.igs.net/~rogersk/mono.htm:
“The good news is that human beings are designed to fall in love. The bad news is that they aren’t designed to stay there. According to evolutionary psychology, it is ‘natural’ for both men and women at some times, under some circumstances — to commit adultery or to sour on a mate, to suddenly find a spouse unattractive, irritating, wholly unreasonable. (It may even be natural to become irritating and wholly unreasonable, and thus hasten the departure of a mate you’ve soured on.) It is similarly natural to find some attractive colleague superior on all counts to the sorry wreck of a spouse you’re saddled with. When we see a couple celebrate a golden anniversary, an apt reaction is the famous remark about a dog walking on two legs: the point is not that the feat was done well but that it was done at all.”
I’m not saying you are right or wrong - in this regard, however, chimps, bonobos, and humans are not validly comparable. The reason is an evolutionary adaptation in human females - hidden estrus. In chimps and bonobos, when the female is fertile, there are amazingly obvious visual and olfactory cues. No such signs exist in human females. Therefore, in order to successfully mate, human males gotta, well, keep trying. Whether this leads to monogamy is not certain, but it certainly makes sexual relationships and mating between humans qualititatively different than that of chimps.
Sua
OK, here’s who it was:
Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially
I’m questioning Ms. Gallagher’s statement that both women and men benefit from the marital state; I seem to recall another study that indicated that married women either had no appreciable difference in lifespan or that they have slightly shorter lives than their single counterparts.
However, all I have been able to find on my lunch break at work is a series of articles indicating that women who have children later tend to live longer (well, that and a whole bunch of “married women” porn sites…sigh). Which doesn’t bolster my point either way.
I’ll keep digging, though I’m not sure I have the reference anymore. If any Dopers out there can help, I’d sure appreciate it.
I also recall this study - in fact when it came out was when I started advocating censorship 
Harsh as it sounds, though, the lifespan of the human female is irrelevant to evolutionary success - so long as they live long enough to reproduce. I think the better way to address the OP is whether monogamy produces more viable kids (or, more accurately, grandkids).
Sua
Yeah, I want a cite for the “no-marriage” culture too. This doesn’t sound correct. Sure, lots of tribes may not give marriage the weight we put on it, but they all have marriage. I’m sticking to my belief that every human culture has a form of marriage unless you can come up with credible counterevidence.
And I’m also disagreeing with the contention that marriage is only spiritual in Judeo-Christian cultures. So sorry, no. Marriage is sacred in the Hindu religion, in Shinto, it was sacred for the Greeks, Romans, etc, it was a religious observance of the Egyptians, hell, even modern day neopagans have religious marriages. Every religion has a ritual observance of marriage.
Not having a religious ritual surrounding marriage would be like not having a religious ritual surrounding death. The rituals and obligations may be different, the weight given to marriage might be different, but everyone has marriage rituals.
Never trust any anthropological factoid that starts with “there’s this tribe in Africa…”.
There is a very interesting book on this subject, called The Selfish Gene. I think the author’s name is Richard Dawkins. He talks about several “evolutionary strategies” one of which is what (seems to me) marriage is based on. Females play “hard to get” forcing the males to provide resources to share inc childcare. It takes a lot of energy for the females to do this, but apparently it pays off in the long run. Read the book. Dawkins’ arguments are much better by my reductions.
Yeah, I had much the same impression.
Well I’m not argue about “spiritual” that’s too slippery a word for me to wrap my hands around. The distinction I was trying to draw was between cultures where marriage was traditionally administered by a priest or clergyman versus one where it is administered by the couple themselves, their families, or a secular authority. I have never heard that two Buddhists need a lama to marry each other, or that Shintos or Hindus need a priest of their respective religions, or that a marriage between Ovimbundu animists requires a shaman. If you have information to the contrary, I would be glad to look at it.
Of course, even in American culture a purely civil nonreligious marriage ceremony is possible, but that wouldn’t be a fair answer to the OP, since American civil marriage is just a slight revamping of the older Christian marriage rites.
Marriage is a type of human behavior. Behavior affects the path of evolution. QED.
Sua, you keep this up and I’m rescinding my offer of marriage.*
I’m not sure I necessarily agree with this statement: If the female only survives the birth of one child her genes (and those of her mate) are less likely to survive to successive generations, right? Or am I confused again? In which case the fertile lifespan of the human female seems pretty darned relevant to me.
But of course I’d think that.
*[sub]It’s okay, Sua, it was months ago. I don’t really expect you to remember - but you accepted on the condition that I not point a cannon at you.[/sub]
I’m guilty of sloppy wording. What I should have said is that it is essentially irrelevent in evolutionary terms whether a woman lives past menopause. Even that isn’t quite true, as they may have young children to raise after that point.
Another possible goof - “more viable kids” means “greater number”, not “viable-er”
Not remember?!! I have 500 invites in my apartment that need to be addressed still!
Sua
I believe that marriage per se is an artificial construct that developed in civilizations to strengthen the bonds between a mating pair in order to minimize the propensity for shedding crones and acquiring another female/females from the next generation. That practise would just not be acceptable within the confines of the tribe , however the anonymity that civilization affords men would provide little control over such normally selfish behavior, and the impoverished crones would have little political power or other means to survive. Such a situation is just plain intolerable if a civilization is to flourish. Because edicts or laws of the king can easily be dismissed (wife burning in India for example), a better way was to put the fear of the gods into the populace, create the institution of marriage,and thus let the priests look after the problem. Of course the wealthier men could have all the wives they could afford, and concubines,but divorcing a wife without cause was frowned upon. This generally worked for thousands of years in civilizations until Henry VIII came along, and the separation of church and state was suspended. Henry got his divorces with out cause. Since then man has been on a slippery slope so that today 50% of marriages end in divorce, and most of us rely on the state to look after those (men and women and children) who have no apparent marketable skills.
Please don’t ask for cites. I hurriedly made this all up as a running commentary on the history of marriage which may or may not be true. The opinions expressed in this post are not neccessarily those of the poster.
Doesn’t the fact that a majority of societies are polygamous suggest that the question is flawed?