Marriage Ring by Christian Petersen

When getting married one should expect luxurious honeymoons, magic carpet rides, sharing a plate of spaghetti and living happily ever after…

Oh, hold on.  I think I am mixing animated Disney films with reality.  What does one expect when getting married?  Today, the United State’s divorce rate is declining as many individuals wait or choose not to marry.  As a country with a high percentage of marriages ending in divorce, I feel as though the 21st century American marriage is nothing but a romantic idea, a disposable form of affection.

Looking back, early Western Civilizations often used marriage as a form of business.  The two families would arrange the marriage of their son and daughter in order to prosper in their own family relations or solidify their political stance.  Marriage was not of love and care but of collaboration and reproduction.   As seen in Ancient Greece and Rome, marriage was something practical and expected of each man.  A man was often looked down upon if he did not marry a woman or produce child.

In Medieval Europe, Christianity began to spread and transform the idea of marriage.  Highly influenced by the church, marriage could no longer be broken or separated by divorce.  This is also a time in history where the representation of a marriage ring came into play again (as some believe the marriage ring first originated in ancient Egyptian civilizations).  This ring was a symbol of everlasting love, an unbroken unity between man and woman.

Protestant Martin Luther believed marriage was something mature and sophisticated, something only fit for the government’s control.  At the same time, Modern European and American Catholics believed marriage was to be performed in a church, by a priest, with two witnesses.

Today, marriage, as well as divorce, has been liberated from religious laws.  Individuals may marry in any form of presentation they see fit or choose to divorce their spouse at any time they see fit. 

It is clear that marriage has been, and still is to this day, highly influenced by society.  Originally created in 1942 and later reproduced in concrete, Christian Petersen’s Marriage Ring suggests a symbol of marriage from Iowa in the 1940s.  Christian Petersen has a long-standing history at Iowa State University.  He was not only Iowa State’s, as well as the Nation’s, first permanent Artist-in-Residence but also a teacher in the Department of Home Economics at Iowa State.  The Marriage Ring is made of terra cotta and is a sculpture of three children sitting beside a round pool.  The  pool represents the band of a marriage ring, where the children represent the gems or diamonds of the ring.  By making the children the gems it is clear that Petersen valued the unity of  marriage for its creation of family.  In comparing this concept of marriage to the marriages we see today, I value this sculpture, not for its religious beliefs, but for its idea of unity.  It is important to remember that the person one chooses to marry will be the person they spend the rest of their lives with, the person they will consider family and the person they will, possibly, create their own family with. 

By Molly Larson

Sources:

Haeberle, Erwin J. "The Sex Atlas." Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology. 1981.
        Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/index.html>.

Jayson, Sharon. "Divorce Declining, but so Is Marriage." USA Today. 18 July 2005.
        Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-18-cohabit-divorce_x.htm>.

"Worldwide Divorce Statistics." Divorce.Com. 2011. Web. 31 May 2011.
         <http://www.divorce.com/article/divorce-statistics.>