Customer Reviews

Peer Marriage

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This book is one of my favorite ones. It's written in an accessible tone and has some ideas that challenged my, what I thought were, progressive views of marital relationships. I particularly found the examples of near peer relationships and the father as provider discussion enlightening. Although the other reviewer thought the book contained too much class bias, my personal experiences with this type of arrangement are from working class folks who elected to take jobs on different shifts so they could both work full time and share child-rearing responsibilities and a couple who chose to rough it out financially for a few years so the mom could get a degree in dental hygiene to increase the family money instead of focusing on the father as the provider. While the couples have had tough times working out their work/family situation, I am glad we have books like this that give us hope of creating a better family unit through principles and practices of equality instead of relying on the easier, more gender-stereotyped, traditional way of doing things.

This sociological study explores a marriage without a dominating partner where both spouses are best friends. True love. The main flaw is that it doesn't delve into how these people found each other. Beyond that it focuses on power sharing which comes down to sharing the household chores and working less hours for the husband. The question is, how many people out there can afford to work part time to in a quality relationship and still earn a full time income? It seems that peer marriage is an upper class phenomenon, but the author takes this bias for granted, nver mind that only 2% or so can and do engage in an arrangement of the type discussed in the book. This book would have been much more relevant if it analysed equality and friendship as it manifests itself in working and blue collar families who have to worry about bills and daycare and are not facing a danger of becoming an advertising executive at the peak of their career.