Love marriage is a marriage that is decided by the couple, with or without the consent of their parents.
It is different from an arranged marriage. The term was commonly used during the Victorian era and is still used in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Egypt.
Here are some things to know about love marriages:
Legality
In India, a love marriage is legal if the couple is above the legal age of consent and gives valid consent. The marriage cannot be forced, fraudulent, or coerced.
Advantages
Love marriages can offer several advantages, such as:
Personal choice: Couples can choose their partner based on compatibility and shared values.
Emotional connection: Love marriages can often lead to a deeper understanding and connection between partners.
Court marriage
To get married in a court, the couple must appear before a marriage officer with three witnesses and submit a declaration. The marriage officer will issue a marriage certificate that both parties and the witnesses must sign.
The first recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting one woman and one man dates from about 2350 B.C., in Mesopotamia. Over the next several hundred years, marriage evolved into a widespread institution embraced by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans.
Marriage’s primary purpose was to bind women to men, and thus guarantee that a man’s children were truly his biological heirs. Through marriage, a woman became a man’s property. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: “I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring.”
Among the ancient Hebrews, men were free to take several wives; married Greeks and Romans were free to satisfy their sexual urges with concubines, prostitutes and even teenage male lovers, while their wives were required to stay home and tend to the household. If wives failed to produce offspring, their husbands could give them back and marry someone else.
Naturally, many scholars believe the concept of romantic spousal love was “invented” by the French. The model was the knight who felt intense love for someone else’s wife, as in the case of Sir Lancelot and King Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere. Twelfth-century advice literature told men to woo the object of their desire by praising her eyes, hair and lips. In the 13th century, Richard de Fournival, physician to the king of France