I am being ethnocentric here and asking about the western concept of marriage specifically.
You may be interested in the 'Marriage for love versus arranged marriages' section in the Popular Questions pages.
This is my first time commenting in this subreddit, so apologies for any mistakes either substantive (I am not a trained historian) or procedural (I know this sub has very reasonable but strict rules).
However, I believe that this duality may go at least as far back as Aristophanes's speech from Plato's Symposium. There, he describes how people originally were double (two heads, four legs, etc.). The gods split that creature in two, and we have been seeking our other half ever since. I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but it is thus: "After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one." [...] "Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half." [...] "And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another."
/u/American_Graffiti offers a great outline of the evolution of marriage in Western culture. Can anybody offers any insights about marriage from non-Western, non-European cultural perspective?
I'm curious about how Maoism and the later economic reforms changed ideas of love and marriage in China, how (unequal) interactions with Western culture and modernization affected ideas of marriage in the Indian subcontinent, etc.
Though a lot of the scholarship is dated, C.S Lewis' Allegory of Love is a seminal text in the field.
From a literary perspective, a lot of romantic notions developed in the midst of the tradition of "courtly love" in the High Middle Ages- think French troubadours and Arthurian intrigue.
Here is an excerpt from the first chapter on the courtly love tradition and marriage.
Two things prevented the men of that age from connecting their ideal of romantic and passionate love with marriage. The first is, of course, the actual practice of feudal society. Marriages had nothing to do with love, and no 'nonsense' about marriage was tolerated. (Note: See Fauriel, op. cit., tom. i, pp.497 et seq. Cf. the wooing scene in Chretien's Erec quoted below.) All matches were matches of interest, and, worse still, of an interest that was continually changing. When the alliance which had answered would answer no longer, the husband's object was to get rid of the lady as quickly as possible. Marriages were frequently dissolved. The same woman who was the lady and 'the dearest dread' of her vassals was often little better than a piece of property to her husband. He was master in his own house. So far from being a natural channel for the new kind of love, marriage was rather the drab background against which that love stood out in all the contrast of its new tenderness and delicacy. The situation is indeed a very simple one, and not peculiar to the Middle Ages. Any idealization of sexual love, in a society where marriage is purely utilitarian, must begin by being an idealization of adultery.
The second factor is the medieval theory of marriage - what may be called, by a convenient modern barbarism, the 'sexology' of the medieval church.
Here is an Amazon link to the book. It can be very technical for someone not familiar with the literature of the time. But it also can serve as a great introduction to the periods and genres discussed. It is a work of criticism that is a joy to read in its own right. Lewis' prose is lively and at its scholarly best.
To kinda of piggy back on this question... If I'm a serf in 1500's Russia, based on what qualities do I marry my wife?
I'm just a laborer. I really own nothing. My dad was a laborer and my son will probably be one too.
What about me? Which of the serfettes do I choose to sleep with and marry and make kids with?
It's very culturally relative. According to the classification system of Emmanuel Todd, England was historically characterized by the "absolute nuclear family" and more exogamy. But there are plenty of cultures where cousin marriage is prized, and of course ideas of "love" and courtship are quite different.
Todd divides family systems according to the questions of: who may marry whom? and who inherits what? The main systems per Todd are, quoting Lucassen p. 220ff:
Within Britain, attitudes toward endogamy/exogamy vary widely among different communities, and with them, attitudes toward individual autonomy and ingroup loyalty.
Were marriages for love more common for the lower class or rural areas in ancient times? Seems silly to marry for economic reasons if none of your potential mates have any money/power.
so does love really exist? is there really the possibility of meeting someone you are able to spend the rest of your life with without getting tired of eachother. Is this a biological feeling or something we made up?
Did prehistoric get married? How could we know?