ABSTRACT
Marriage is one of the few institutions that exist in all human societies. The recognition of marriage as an institution implies that it is a culturally patterned adaptation of individual and group needs within the context of particular environments and technologies. Where marriage may be an instrument of family strategy in its external power relationships, the stability of the conjugal tie becomes a vital family concern. The current culture has introduced the view that marriage's emotional value should not be limited by heterosexuality. What remains exclusively to heterosexual couples is the procreative function of marriage. Cross-cultural comparison suggests that the normative pattern for marriage in the United States is unusual in the degree to which it emphasizes happiness as an individual 'right' and equates this state with emotional attachment between spouses. As numbers of women follow ambitious, job-oriented husbands into new communities and attempt to raise children in unfamiliar, if not alien, surroundings, the crisis of motherhood will mount.
