Don Bosco Degree College Golaghat

Social institutions are the basic ingredients for the survival of a society. Likewise, the norms, customs or values associated with the institutions are also essential. The social construction of such rules in marriage as a primary social institution plays a vital role in every marital relationship. The changes in the cultural elements of society have been articulated in the moral codes of diverse social institutions. With this, the extra-marital relationships are not uncommon in today’s society. Globally, the rate of extra-marital relations is increasing during the last decades. Such increase cases have been a challenge to the traditional norms of marriage as social institution.This has affected the marital relationships as well as the society as a whole. Hence, this paper has been made to investigate such relationships among married couples from sociological lens. The paper has also been connecting to show the reasons behind raising extra-marital relationships as a social problem in contradiction to the traditional norms of marriage in contemporary society.

Keywords: extra-marital relation, traditional norm, marriage, social institution.