MARRIAGE? Is it essential or optional?

what is the ancient civilized custom (sanskara) that is binding the social spectrum of humanity?

• MARRIAGE.  The institution of a family is dependent on that of marriage. Hence, the social laws influence the  marriage,which is one of the important of 16 sanskaras. 

How many types of marriage are there in Hindu civilization?

• three types of marriages as per Hindu scriptures. 

Panigrahan: The groom should hold the bride’s hand, to accept her as his wife. 

Upayam: Going close to the bride or accepting her.

Parinay: Holding the bride’s hand and circumambulating the fire.

What are  the main functions of marriage system? why  one should marry?

• Marriages  liberate oneself from the debt to God and one’s ancestors.  Rituals in marriage are associated with procreation which is essential to achieve liberation from these debts.
• Marriage controls the impetuous behaviour of women and men, which is detrimental to society.
• Marriage defines the responsibilities towards family, relatives & society and so, the man&wife  cannot behave erratically according to their selfish needs.
• marriage regulates and controls  sexual erratic behavior  of humans. man is social animal. mankind  has basic instincts. taming and regulating the instincts with wisdom is for the welfare of humanity. marriage facilitates gradual conversion of  physical attachment   into emotional attachment and  then in to  love without expectation, that is, spiritual love (priti)  and at the end instinctual behavior including sexual desire markedly reduces. 
  At what age should a marriage be arranged? 
• as per spiritual science, for men, twenty-five to thirty years was the age group considered best for marriage.   In case of a girl too, the age range of twenty to twenty-five was considered as appropriate.   
• as per physiology, as  girls matures faster than a boys in both physical and psychological aspects. the boy should be older than the girl by four or five years.
• as per sociology, The ability to procreate is the highest in the age group of sixteen to eighteen years in a girl and eighteen to twenty-one years in a boy. To avoid over population, the law permits marriage of a woman  only after the age of eighteen and for a man  after twenty-one years of age. so, according to all the three sciences - Spirituality, psychology ,sociology and physiology, child marriage is absolutely wrong.

what is the The gotra (Lineage), pravar (Ancestral lineage) and the pinda? is there any importance of these to marriage system?

Gotra is the term used to denote the descendants of the eight Sages - Vishvamitra, Jamadagni, Bharadvaj, Goutam, Atri, Vasishtha, Kashyap and Agastya. There are millions of such gotras.

These gotras were divided into gans and the gans subdivided again into pakshas (groups), for example from Vasishtha gan were derived fourpakshas - Upamanyu, Parashar, Koundiny and Vasishtha. They have innumerable further subdivisions. Marriage within the gotra was prohibited.

 the word gotra represents learning (vidya), pravar is associated with a sect of karma. 

Pravar refers to the ancestors of the gotras. They are one, two, three or five in number.there are specific pravar sages for specific gotras. for example , Vasishtha, Maitravarun and Koundinya for Kundin gotra and Vasishtha, Bharadvasu and Indrapramad for Upamanyu gotra.

Pinda: ‘In order to avoid sexual promiscuity  in man who is generally  sexually oriented, the Vedic scriptures created the four classes (varnashramdharma) based on the qualities (gunas) and actions (karma) and later established the code of marriage to prevent the generation of interclass progeny (varnasankar). 

It was decided that with the exclusion of the fifth and the seventh generation, a man should accept as a bride (Panigrahan) a girl of the same class but of a different gotra  and different lineage (asapinda). As the term sapinda is extremely important in the scriptures its description is essential.

so,one should marry in same class but in different gotra and different  lineage(asapinda).

• Deciding upon a suitable match by matching the horoscope is only a popular custom, and is not prescribed by the scriptures.

• An identical sub-division of the lunar asterism (nadi) is prohibited: as  their ability to procreate is reduced.

• Consanguineous marriage is  prohibited  by the scriptures.