there are some who hide behind sastras and samskaras and quote them at the drop of a hat for their own benefit.
they will quote them even to justify going to the shitpot every day .
marriage is nothing more than a binding a contract set down by law and society for living together.
religious mumbo jumbo is added to it by various religeous groups .,
some appoint themself as guardians of religion and think they are specially anointed by a super power to carry out
these functions . they are best ignored
You are so right.
and Rajiji,
we do things for society because we live in it. Please do not underestimate the bonds some of the animals have, they put human beings to shame.
Humans like to think of themselves as a faithful species, but when it comes to true fidelity, many other animals offer better examples of how to keep a relationship together. Although monogamy and lifelong pair bonds are generally rare in the animal kingdom, there are some animals that pull it off. Scroll down to see great comments from our readers about monogamy ... or choose one of the arrows above to see the next animal. (Text: Bryan Nelson)
11 animals that mate for life: Old faithful | MNN - Mother Nature Network
Marriage has been around since before recorded history. One obvious reason for it was the creation of offspring. But a far more important reason for marriage was the cementing of alliances. Difficulties abounded in the ancient world, and the more allies you had the safer you were. Marriages were the prefered method for sealing alliances between families, clans, tribes, and ultimately nations.
The idea of marriage based on romantic love is actually a relatively recent innovation. The true purpose of marriage throughout the ages was advancement of family (clan, national -- whatever) interest. That's why throughout history most marriages were arranged. There was no romance or love involved -- this was business.
The origins of marriage
The institution of marriage is now the subject of a bitter national debate. How did marriage begin—and why?
How old is the institution?
The best available evidence suggests that it’s about 4,350 years old. For thousands of years before that, most anthropologists believe, families consisted of loosely organized groups of as many as 30 people, with several male leaders, multiple women shared by them, and children. As hunter-gatherers settled down into agrarian civilizations, society had a need for more stable arrangements. 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. But back then, marriage had little to do with love or with religion.
What was it about, then?
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.
For that ignorant person who throws words like Sastra and Samskara, as if he owns it.
The concept of a family is older than Hinduism, older than civilisation, and indeed older than the species itself. Hindus inherited this concept from their forefathers who had not followed any religion, and practiced it in its purest natural form, permitting polygamy, monogamy and polyandry depending upon the location and circumstances.
Social structures in mythology are invariably a reflection of the extant social structures at the time and place of myth creation. As such, we can make out that polygamy, monogamy, and polyandry were familiar phenomena around the time when the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were written, though it may perhaps not be wise to conjecture as to how common each of these systems was just on the basis of this evidence. One thing, however, which can be observed from an analysis of this body of literature is that only men and women of high social standing were able to have more than one spouse. Monogamy was the lot of the rest of society –or its good fortune, call it what you will.
Although gods and kings would usually have more than one wife, the role of one of these ladies in their lives was usually recognised as being predominant by most observers, and their historical and mythical descriptions dwelled more on this consort.
There are stories of each of such systems in our Puranas. It shows the lineage from Prajapati (origin of species) until Kaurava-Pandavas and Parikshita. The lineage continues until Mauryas. This is the real "sanaatana" dharma.
This also shows the emergence of Brahmacharis and Brahmanas. The story of Sanakaadi sages show that certain individuals voluntarily sacrificed their "share" of women to go live in forests. This "sacrifice" earned them high respect as they could think above the petty constraints of belonging to a particular lineage or clan. A system of counselling developed which evolved in parallel and which was based on altruistic sacrifice of one's primal drives in favor of something higher and more meaningful.
One must thank Vyaasa Rishi to have chronicled all these stories, theories for us, when it is clear that he himself did not approve many such practices. Most of these practices were considered "Garhya" (something which is frowned upon, prohibited) by the time of Vyaasa rishi. But he honestly chronicled them. My homage to this great soul.
The references of free cohabitation, sibling cohabitation, offering one's "stri (woman)" to friend OR guest" (note that the word "patni" had not evolved), references towards intercourse with alive and dead animals, intercourse with wife of one's guru (much later stage, when humans understood that knowledge is important), cohabitation with multiple males, temporary cohabitation, contract marriage all these are referred to in our Itihaasa.
Know your scriptures, read them with open mind without the blinders you can find all kinds of information.
Please do not run to moderator that I am insulting Hindu Religion. There is no judgement involved, it is simple statement of events from our scriptures.
opcorn: 
