Customer Reviews

Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Stephanie Coontz has devoted her career to waging war on ahistorical understandings of the family. She first came to national notice with her now classic book THE WAY WE NEVER WERE: AMERICAN FAMILIES AND THE NOSTALGIA TRAP, which attacked naive attempts to make what she termed the Ozzie and Harriett marriage as somehow normative, a family in which the father worked, the mother stayed at home, both stayed married for a lifetime, and their two lovely children completed an ideal, caring unit. Though massive sifting of historical and statistical materials she was able to show that this picture of the family--a picture that determines even today a vast amount of political debate about "family values"--was even in the fifties largely a myth. Nostalgia, a phenomenon that has long driven right-wing movements, is by its very nature ahistorical, referring to a past that never existed and would be undesirable today even if possible.

In MARRIAGE, A HISTORY: FROM OBEDIENCE TO INTIMACY OR HOW LOVE CONQUERED MARRIAGE Coontz fights nostalgia further by a fascinating and far-ranging study of the history of marriage in Western civilization. What is shocking is learning that so far from being a static, traditional relationship with a fundamental shape and form, marriage is instead a constantly evolving institution that has altered numerous times in the past thousand or so years in response to various social needs or pressures. Changing societal values, alterations in the material conditions at a particular point in time, or even changing ideas about romance have all exerted enormous influence on the understanding and practice of marriage at any particular time. Her discussion essentially renders virtually all right wing rhetoric about the need to protect "family values" or "marriage" utter nonsense. One almost needs to ask, "Of what decade?" The changes wrought in our understanding of marriage over the course of the past two hundred years alone are simply stunning. And the Ozzie and Harriett or male breadwinner marriage alluded to above really only thrived during the economic boom following WW II until its demise in the 1960s. Unless one is willing to ignore completely the lessons of history, any rational, sane individual is going to have to concede that any narrow understanding of what form marriage "must" take is inevitably going to be mistaken.

An enumeration of the interesting bits and pieces found in this book could fill several reviews the length of this one. The book always radiates a mastery of a vast range of facts but never ceases to be thoroughly insightful and even entertaining. This book isn't merely informative: it is fun.

The book also raises some disturbing questions. The book largely refutes the passion for nostalgia and a misguided frenzy to defend "traditional" marriage, but neither does the book revel in the alternatives. In fact, frequently Coontz notes features of modern marriage that makes one wonder if we aren't putting pressure on the institution that it should never have been asked to support. As she points out, while people in recent centuries married for reasons other than love, a marriage was a practical arrangement that met certain very specific needs for people. One discerns a certain reasonableness in their expectations. One sought a coworker, a person to help make a household successful economically, a companion, and a sexual partner for producing children. But today a marriage partner is expected to meet virtually impossible expectations. A wife or husband is supposed to be gorgeous, a best friend, a superb financial contributor to the relationship, sexy, and a marvelous parent. The marriage partnership is viewed as the single most important relationship a modern individual can experience. At no other point in history, as Coontz points out, has a marriage been expected to meet such extraordinary expectations. In the end, one is left wondering if the intense pressures of modern marriage might not lead to some new variant more realistic than the Disney version currently in place.

I'd place this in a short list of the "must read" books of 2005. Because marriage is at the heart of almost every human institution, this book is relevant to virtually every subject. And though it should prove relevant in future decades as well, it is especially important reading in the present, where all kind of cant is being spewed about what marriage "really means." No one should attempt to say what marriage really is or has been without reading this exceptional book.

This is an extremely well researched investigation of the institution of marriage from earliest times to the present. It may prove shocking to some readers to discover how recent our concept of "traditional marriage" may be. But information such as this book provides is essential for those concerned about marital values. History provides us with immensely important lessons regarding the attitudes and feelings of human beings over the centuries; and we must not shrink from the observations made here as we seek to understand the social and economic and even religious crises of our times. The scope of the book is incredibly ambitious yet it is clearly and at times entertainingly written, and always inviting. It can point the way for further research in many areas. On all counts, a fine and important book.

I can't add much more to the customer review above, except to note that one should keep an open mind while reading...I made the mistake of reading aloud a few passages on the early Christian views of marriage to a Christian friend, and she was very, very insulted and angry, snapping that the author was clearly wrong, as THIS is the way that passage in the Bible should be interpreted, and how dare she write something so blasphemous. I didn't press the matter.

I, however, being rather agnostic, enjoyed it immensely, and learned QUITE a lot! The various views on family structure and what defined a marriage over the centuries was illuminating, and I found myself quoting it to anyone in reach (hence my problem above). It's tilted toward Western culture in the last part of the book, being focused on the American history of marriage, but it's still an excellent read for anyone wanting to see how marriage was looked at in the past.

After reading this book, it is abundantly clear that for almost the entire history of mankind, marriages have not been based on love, let alone equality. Marriage was basically a necessity, serving both political and economic purposes, in contrast to the many choices for living arrangments that have appeared in the last fifty years or so. In addition, marriage in the past was all about male domination, a wife having no legal standing whatsoever. Divorce in most settings was nearly impossible. But the introduction of love into forming marriages has been transforming in many ways.

In the absence of formal legal rules and governments, powerful families or tribes generally ruled over territories. Marriages were used to forge alliances among rulers. In the lower classes marriage was an economic necessity - a solitary individual found it almost impossible to survive. Marriages were not formally sanctioned, though the Church in the Middle Ages attempted to impose some control. Fundamentally, the intent of two consenting adults established a marriage. With the rise of constitutional governments and individual rights, women gained some ability to withstand forced marriages, but were still seen as subservient to husbands - not equals. Women because of their "differences" were seen as being suited to the domestic sphere only, but many women chafed at that arrangement.

There is no doubt that the twentieth century saw more changes in marriages and other living arrangements among adults than in all previous eras combined. The changes were uneven, often depending on the state of the economy. The changes of the 1920s, in which potential partners followed their feelings, somewhat regressed during the Great Depression of the 30s. Also, the long decade of the 1950s was somewhat of an anomaly, as the "male breadwinner" marriage predominated featuring the happy housewife surrounded by all her appliances. But that was short-lived.

The 1960s was a time of social unrest and the assertion of rights, and the institution of marriage was not spared examination. The author points to the huge increase of economic opportunity and the entry of women into the workforce and the development of reliable birth control as the primary factors in altering the acceptance of traditional marriage and its limitations and compromises, opening up the possibilities of finding true capatibility and love. However, that idealization of marriage certainly fueled a rise in the divorce rate.

The book because of its breadth, can seem to be a bit jumbled as snippets of information and incidents from many different times, not necessarily strictly chronological, are included. On the other hand, the subtle differences of various eras are quite interesting including the exceptions to women's subservience. Also, in modern times developments in marriage, divorce, workforce participation, etc have been very uneven, which makes for ambiguous statistics and explanations. Despite huge changes in perceptions of marriage, older notions still endure in no small way.

The author is not anti-marriage, claiming that, at its best, it still represents the best living arrangement for two people. But it is evident, that more options exist for those dissatisfied with marriage, which by a large majority are women. The book is a very useful look at the history of marriage, but is hardly the last word on the evolution of marriage, alternatives, relationships, etc.

A history of how marriage has changed over the course of civilization, from a business or political partnership to the modern quest for a soulmate, this book introduces ideas I view as relevant to my own life and times. Coontz addresses questions such as how contraception and legal rights for illegitimate offspring changed marriage and why among poor people marriage is declining while birth rates are on the rise. I find Coontz's writing to be clear, easy to read, and thankfully devoid of fluff. Fully 40% of this book are her notes and references.

Contents:

Antiquity:
Reasons to marry:
Political (for elites): "Marriage spoke to the needs of the larger group. It converted strangers into relatives... Marriage had become the way most wealth and land changed hands... also the main vehicle by which leading families expanded their social networks and political influence... sealed military alliances and peace treaties. Elites jockeyed to acquire powerful in-laws... Only very recently have parents and other relatives ceased to have substantial material stakes in whether individuals get or stay married."
Social: Not ok to have illegitimate kids, not marrying seen as immoral or perverse.
Economical: "Marriage became a way through which elites could hoard or accumulate resources... The dowry a wife brought with her at marriage was often the biggest infusion of cash, goods, or land a man would ever acquire."
For non-elites: "Farms or businesses could rarely be run by just a single person... Most people had a two-person, married-couple career that neither could conduct alone." (reminds me of "The Good Earth")
Reasons not to marry:
Women have no rights, abused by husbands, people don't like the person they married.

Change in marriage leading up to 1950s:
"In the older definition of housekeeping, women's labor was recognized as a vital contribution to the family's economic survival... as housekeeping became 'homemaking,' it came to be seen as an act of love rather than a contribution to survival... Homemakers, now cut off from the sphere of the cash economy, became more dependent on their husbands financially... While the new division of labor stripped many women of their identities as economic producers and family co-providers, it also freed them from the strict hierarchy that had governed the old household workplace... shifted the basis of marriage from sharing tasks to sharing feelings. The older view that wives and husbands were work mates gave way to the idea that they were soul mates... Many men and women came to believe that wives should remain at home, not because men had the right to dominate them, but because home was a sanctuary in which women could be sheltered... The new theory of gender difference divided humanity into two distinct sets of traits. The male sphere encompassed the rational and active ideal, while females represented the humanitarian and compassionate aspects of life. Women had long been urged to hold men's 'baser instincts' in check... 'sex appeal' replaced submission as a wife's first responsibility to her husband. In the nineteenth century, most Europeans and Americans came to accept a new view of husbands as providers and of women as nurturing home-bodies. Only in the mid-twentieth century, however, could a majority of families in Western Europe and North America actually survive on the earnings of a single breadwinner."

Golden age of marriage:
"Policy makers recognized that single male workers and all female workers were being overtaxed to support married couples. But this was seen as a good thing because it increased a man's incentive to marry and decreased his wife's incentive to take paid work... As people married younger, life spans lengthened, and divorce rates fell or held steady, individuals were spending much more of their lives in marriage than ever before or since... Marriage provided the context for just about every piece of most peoples' lives. .. No longer did people postpone marriage until they could establish their economic independence, as had been the case for the middle classes in Western Europe and North America up to the late nineteenth century. Nor was marriage, as had been the case in so many peasant villages, something you entered only after a woman had gotten pregnant and showed that she could produce children to work on the family farm. Certainly it was not something you entered to set a joint business enterprise, as had been the case for many craftsmen and artisans in the past. Nor was it an informal arrangement scarcely distinguishable from just living together, as it had been among many lower- class individuals of earlier days, of whom their neighbors often said they were 'married, but not churched.' Marriage of the long decade of the 1950s was simply the be-all and end-all of life. In a remarkable reversal of the past, it even became a stepping-off point for adulthood rather than a sign that adulthood had already been established."

Change in marriage after 1950s:
More jobs and the war allowed more women to work, inflation forced wives to also work, better technology made homemaking easier for wives and bachelors so wives had more time to do work outside the home, everyone started marrying later in life, women enjoyed working outside the home and turned from the homemaker model.
Birth control allowed sex outside of marriage: "Effective contraception allowed wives to commit more of their lives to work, but it altered the relationships between husbands and wives... weakened the connection between marriage and parenthood, eroding some of the traditional justifications for elevating marriage over all other relationships and limiting it to heterosexual couples."
"Breaking down the distinction between legitimacy and illegitimacy ... weakened [marriage's] hold on peoples' political and economic rights and obligations."

Modern marriage:
"Marriage as a relationship between two individuals is taken more seriously and comes with higher emotional expectations than ever before. But marriage as an institution exerts less power over people's lives than it once did... The fact that individuals now lead productive lives outside marriage means that partners need to be more "intentional" than in the past about finding reasons and rituals to help them stay together....
A woman who marries a man with few job prospects may end up having to support him as well as their children... Low income women who marry and divorce later have higher poverty rates than women who never marry at all and their children may suffer more emotionally as well... Their mothers' experiences had convinced them that being a single mother was preferable to entering a bad or unstable marriage...
Today stay-at-home mothers are concentrated at the poorest and richest rungs of the population... Managers and top executives with stay at home wives generally earn more than their counterparts with working wives. The wife's activities free her husband to focus on his job, and she can cultivate the social networks that enhance his status. Most families no longer save money by keeping wives at home. They lose by not having wives in the workplace, where women have more opportunities than in the past to earn decent wages...
Marriage decreases free time for women but not for men, increases health for men but not for women."

This book is filled to the brim with seemengly every possible form of marriage ever recorded in history, most being unlike you would expect from such a prevailing common custom. According to Coontz, the institution of marriage is many faceted, and has been through a lot of changes in a relatively short time. Each page is packed with so much information one could be easily overwhelmed within the first chapter to realize that the history you thought existed is a total fabrication of our society, and Coontz is out to prove it. Not a good bridal shower gift unless she is an intellectual of the most curious sort. Great fodder for debates about sexism, marriage and federal policy, and whether or not one should tie the knot in the modern way.

Marriage: it's like the weather, it's been around forever, has a great effect on everyone's lives, and is about as well understood. Or at least, until this extremely readable, higly detailed and well documented book on the history of marriage was written. Marriage hasn't always been the way it is today; in fact today it's not the way (we think ) it is. Over the ages, marriage has varied from a simple exchange of promises to a potent political force to a structured process to a romaticized illusion to a political football in today's acrid environment. Sooner or later, almost everyone either marries or come close to marrying, so what's all the fuss about?

Stripped of unessentials, marriage is an exchange of promises, or vows, between two consenting people. Therein is the source of the problems. Who or what, if any, defines who can and who can't be a consenting person? For the early Greeks, it could be two males, two females, or a male and a female. In the Middle Ages, childern six months old were married off by their parents or guardians, usually to form political alliances. IN some societies, and one time or another, it could be one male and several females, or one female and several males. In some countries, and in some religions, neither of the participants had any say as to who their partner was to be. This still exists today in some parts of the world. Over time, control over the process shifted from the two individuals involved to their tribes of families, to the church or religious leaders to the state. What is happening today in the United STates is an attempt by some churches to wrest control of the process from the state, and dictate the terms and conditions.

In today's world, there are two types of marriage ceremonies: a civil ceremony, taxed by the state by requiring a marriage license, and recorded in state controlled archives. and an ecclesiastical ceremony, sanctioned by the church, and requiring certain things to happen and certains conditions to be met. In the United States and in Canada, religious weddings combine these two ceremonies. But not so in parts of South America, where a civil ceremony proceeds by a week the church ceremony.

It's useful to sort out the terms: marriage, which occurs between two people; matrimony, a blessing bestowed by the partipants on each other and usually scantioned and administered by a church; and wedding, which is the event at which the marriage usually takes place. But since marriage is in fact an exchange of promises between two people, this exchange can take place and has over the eons taken anywhere: in a church, in the office of a justice of the peace, sixty feet underwater, hanging in the sky from parachutes, in a pile of hay in the loft of a barn, literally anywhere. And until extremely recently, any of these locations and ceremonies would have been accepted as valid and legitimate.

If you want to know about the sociatial state most of us participate in, this is the book for you. If you'r spring loaded to a closed minded position and think you have all the answers, then watch the Simpsons.

My personal opinion: this book should be read by every person over twelve, and should be in every person's library, for reference from time to time.

If you ever want to know if theres such a thing as traditional marriage, then the answer is contained herein. marriage is always influx and reflex societal values and conventions. Although dry in parts and somewhat redundant, I studied this book and even took notes on it because i wanted to understand it deeply. It's a book a will read again and again.

A great, informative, insightful, and easy to read book. Considering the worldwide institution of Marriage, and considering the 50% divorce rate in the U.S. this should absolutely be read by a wide audience. The contents of this book are extremely relevant to anyone considering Marriage. People who think that love has always been a driving force, and that Marriage has essentially been the same for a long time need to read this. Sometimes "history" books can be a bit dull. This book was far from dull and well researched.

After my second divorce, I read perhaps a hundred or more books and thousands of articles, researching human relationships, trying to understand why marriage is so difficult to sustain. I did so with the intention of eventually writing a book on the subject. I sincerely hope I can produce a manuscript that approaches the quality of this book by Stephanie Coontz. From an academic standpoint, her book is exhaustively researched and well documented. It is valuable as a reference work. From a personal standpoint, it leaves me with a much better understanding of myself and my two marriages and divorces. I will be a better person for having read it. From a literature standpoint, it is well written, entertaining, and engaging. I plan to give copies of it to friends as gifts.