A Very Brief Discussion On Modern Marriage

2.1 A brief discussion on modern marriage and wedding

Marriage means joining two people and two families legally in equal status relationship, it refer to the joint coupledom created from the wedding and the new relation and family role of parent-in-law and children-in-law. Through marriage, a new interdependence family was formed and instead of making decisions as individual person, the couples make decisions as a family unit (Young & Willmott, 1974; Tso, 2012). To couple with high level of interdependence, marriage is fulfillment and stability while for low interdependence couple, it help to achieve fair exchange and equitable balance (Young, 1995). Marriage creates a safe setting to promote further growth and to rework unresolved issues

After the marriage, the couple is expected to set up a separate household unit to run a separate monetary account. When performing the wedding consumption, they were still tied to their family role and relationship as son/daughter and not fully separated family. While the bigger we describe family network who were relationally and emotionally connected to the couple yet independent from each other.

Marriage in modern society often involve holding of wedding ceremony. Based on contemporary research literature, wedding ceremony often presented with emphasis on modernity: consumerism, celebration of romance and the experience of a unique and individual occasion (Castren & Maillochon, 2009). Historical studies had focus on the transition and consolidation on traditional ritual and modern trends of marriage and family. While social studies focus on transformation of intimacy in modernity and function of marriage in social cohesion (Ma, 2006).

It is precept by public that wedding was owned by the couple to publicly display their independent coupledom in a romantic, stylistic and lavish way (Bourdieu, 1984; Ma, 2006; Tso,

Simplify traditional ritual, e.g. minimizing downy, substitute some of the equipment, and adding new practice, e.g. bridesmaids play games to groom and groomsmen before allowing the groom to see the bride, glamorous bridal photography and wedding video recording, stated the change of wedding meaning to modern couples and romanticize the concept. These new rituals help the couple to create connection to social class, present to others the type of couple they want to be, in order to achieve the ideal life they visualized (Castren & Maillochon, 2009; Cheung, 2006).

Modern couples and parents both have expectation on how the wedding to be like. Although wedding being a big family event, social theorists raise phenomena that the value of family has a tendency in losing its affect in control family decisions (Beck & E., 2002; Gillette, n.d.; Cherlin, 2004; Tso, 2012). As there are more forms of family in current society, instability of intimacy of relationship within family gradually drop, especially for younger generations which have high individualism mindset, high acceptance to new cultures and less commit to family (Tso,