Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage Paperback – February 28, 2006

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.

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.

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.