 The global variety of marriage practices and law is difficult to encapsulate: notable variations in law include recognition of same-sex marriage, polygamy, and ‘common-law’ marriage, restrictions on marriages between members of the same family or of different social castes, the existence of civil marriage, practices of arranged, forced, or child marriage, and women’s rights within marriage (see Moses 2018 for an entry into the literature on these differences), as well as cultural and religious practices of temporary marriage (Shrage 2013, Nolan 2016) or polyamorous marriage (Brake 2018). Religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions also shape ideals of marriage. For instance, Xiaorong Li writes that “Confucian ideals of family, society, and women’s role” influence expectations of marriage in China (Li 1995, 413). However, scholarship on such differences must be careful to avoid misrepresentation (see for example discussion of misleading Western accounts of ‘sati’ and dowry-murder in India in Narayan 1997).