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More copies of this ISBNeBook editionsMarriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriageby Stephanie Coontz
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In this surprising landmark book, family historian Stephanie Coontz explodes every cherished assumption about marriage, starting with the notion of the traditional marriage. Forget Ozzie and Harriet. Coontz reveals that through most of history, marriage was not a relationship based on mutual love between a breadwinner husband and an at-home wife but an institution devoted to acquiring in-laws and improving the family labor force. How did marriage evolve from the loveless, arranged unions that have endured from the dawn of civilization into the sexualized, volatile relationships of today? Coontz argues that the Victorians, with their radical emphasis on marital intimacy and celebration of the individual, simultaneously made marriage more satisfying and paved the way for alternative lifestyles to thrive: divorce, gay marriage, living together, single parenting. The diminished role of heterosexual marriage in our society is not an aberration, insists Coontz, but the consequence of centuries of irrevocable social change. Marriage, A History is an engaging narrative of astonishing scope and depth that will stand as a milestone of social history and provoke debate for years to come. Synopsis:Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn’t get any louder, along comes this groundbreaking book to ask, "What tradition?" In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is—and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This enlightening and hugely entertaining book brings intelligence, perspective, and wit to today’s marital debate. About the AuthorStephanie Coontz is the Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families and teaches history and family studies at The Evergeen State College in Olympia, Washington. She divides her time between Makaha, Hawaii, and Washington. The author of the award-winning The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, she writes about marriage and family issues in many national journals including The Washington Post, Harper’s, Chicago Tribune, and Vogue. Her work has been translated into Japanese, German, French, and Spanish. On the web: http://www.stephaniecoontz.com Table of ContentsPart One: In Search of Traditional Marriage
Chapter 1: The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love Chapter 2: The Many Meanings of Marriage Chapter 3: The Invention of Marriage
Part Two: The Era of Political Marriage
Chapter 4: Soap Operas of the Ancient World Chapter 5: Something Borrowed: The Marital Legacy of the Classical World and Early Christianity Chapter 6: Playing the Bishop, Capturing the Queen: Aristocratic Marriages in Early Medieval Europe Chapter 7: How the Other 95 Percent Wed: Marriage Among the Common Folk of the Middle Ages Chapter 8: Something Old, Something New: Western European Marriage at the Dawn of the Modern Age
Part Three: The Love Revolution
Chapter 9: From Yoke Mates to Soul Mates: Emergence of the Love Match and the Male Provider Marriage Chapter 10: "Two Birds Within One Nest": Sentimental Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Europe and North America Chapter 11: "A Heaving Volcano": Beneath the Surface of Victorian Marriage Chapter 12: "The Time When Mountains Move Has Come": From Sentimental to Sexual Marriage Chapter 13: Making Do, Then Making Babies: Marriage in the Great Depression and World War II Chapter 14: The Era of Ozzie and Harriet: The Long Decade of "Traditional" Marriage
Part Four: Courting Disaster? The Collapse of Universal and Lifelong Marriage
Chapter 15: Winds of Change: Marriage in the 1960s and 1970s Chapter 16: The Perfect Storm: The Transformation of Marriage at the End of the Twentieth Century Chapter 17: Uncharted Territory: How the Transformation of Marriage Is Changing Our Lives
Conclusion: Better or Worse? The Future of Marriage
Conclusion Notes What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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