The encyclopedia Britannica defines it as "a legally sanctioned union between a man and a woman and is thus viewed as a contractual agreement subject to legal process. The bible describes it as a coveted union between a man and a woman that God has sanctioned as a way to fulfill one of our purposes, to be fruitful and multiply. In, 2003 marriage is thought of as something semi-permanent, something with constraints and boundaries and more recently something that can be shared with the same sex. It is also an ordeal filled with prenuptials, separations, and most commonly of all divorces, somehow in America we have gotten the impression that marriage was easy and that if it was not all happy that it wasn't worth it! .
Other people throughout history have thought differently, in fact President Roosevelt felt so strongly about the subject that he said this to members of Congress concerning legislation in January of 1905, "Intelligent and prudent action in that direction will be greatly promoted by securing reliable and trustworthy statistics upon marriage and divorce. I deem the matter of sufficient general importance to recommend that the director of the Census be authorized to collect and publish statistics pertaining to that subject covering the period from 1886 to the present"(Coulter 398). He opens he article with this statement in 1906 and obviously they were still reaping the benefits of the government taking such a substantial stand on the subject of marriage. In this article Coulter discusses how things are in North Dakota at that point in time and they are very different from the way things are now. He discusses the number of marriages and the frequency that they occur and even states that people were marrying as early as 16 years of age. At this point and time in America it is unheard of for teens to be marrying that young, and most of the time if they do get married that young it's because of pregnancy.
