Marriage is a social union or legal contract between a male and a female having intimate interpersonal relationships. It has been the greatest and most important of all social institutions in the human society. People marry for many reasons such as legal, social, libidinal, emotional, economic, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged marriages, family obligations, legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, legal protection of children, and public declaration of commitment.
The relationship between marriage and mental illness is very complicated and this issue commonly arises in psychotic illnesses. Psychosis is usually diagnosed at late adolescent and early adulthood. Being a disease of the age at which decision of marriage is taken,
the question of whether to marry or not and whether marriage will lead to improvement or deterioration in psychoses is equally faced by patients, their family members, and treating psychiatrists. Mental disorders and problems in marriage are closely linked though there is a controversy about the sequence.
