Question How is the sanctity of marriage bond portrayed throughout the narrative?
The sanctity of marriage bond is mostly portrayed as something not highly valued in comparison to today’s standard. Countless times in the story you see characters having many wives. Rama’s father had a numerous amount of wives and so did the demon Ravana. It’s interesting to see when Ravana abducted Sita and told her how none of his wives could compare and how she would be his favorite if she married him. This shows that he could easily give up any of his current wives for her. Also in the beginning of the story Rama’s mother Kausalya states how she was never treated well like how his fathers other wives were. The only true bond seen through the story is with Rama and Sita. They devoted their lives to one another and were in distress when they thought something happened to the other. Based from the text, you also see how Rama had only Sita as his wife. He was monogamous in a society where clearly polygamy was widely accepted.
You pointed out that polygamy was widely accepted in the society in which the Ramayana takes place. However, you could argue that the epic was arguing for opposite. The main characters of the tale were Rama and Sita, both of whom stayed loyal to each other despite the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana. By the end of the epic, both Rama and Sita are reunited while Ravana is killed. You could argue that the positive ending for both Rama and Sita seems to indicate that the author of the Ramayana was in approval of the monogamous and loyal relationship that the two were a part of. Since the epic seems to be indicative of the society of which it was written about, the author might have trying to indicate that proper marriages are those of monogamy and loyalty.
I also agree that Ramayana stresses that monogamy is the most sacred marriage bond. In Ramayana, the marriage between Rama and Sita is portrayed as the ideal marriage. When Sita is rescued from Ravana, her pureness and loyal to Rama is questioned. In order to prove herself, she has to walk into a fire pit swearing that she had no relationship with Ravana during her captivity. In this scene, Sita values her marriage and proving herself faithful to only person, Rama, over her own life. The examples of polygamy in Ramayana perhaps serve more as a cautionary example than as ideal examples to follow.