Marriage, A History: From Obedience To Intimacy Or How Love Conquered Marriage (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
What a stimulating and worthwhile read. It took me a while, but I'm glad I stayed with it. The writing, though dense and detailed, is accessible and engaging. And I think this is a great topic.In this ambitious book, Stephanie Coontz takes us through the history of marriage from early days until today. In early times marriage was an entirely practical decision. It was a necessary way to organize the sharing of labor, since survival necessitated more than one person's efforts. As societies became more economically heterogeneous with "haves" and "have-nots" as opposed to everybody simply wandering and living day-to-day, marriage also became a way to link up with the right set of in-laws and expand one's resources that way. This was particularly true among ancient royal families, as any student of the histories of Egypt and Rome will tell you. In medieval times marriage continued to be a largely economic decision, influenced by neighbors and entire communities as well as the families of the couple. Marriage was often a business partnership, with the wife assisting her husband with the family livelihood and the husband assisting his wife with housework. Egalitarian though that was in some respects, wives were still clearly subordinate to their husbands who ruled the roost. Love may have developed between some couples, but it was hardly the driving force in a marital relationship. In fact, excessively loving one's wife or expecting too much love in marriage was frowned upon.Several factors contributed to the evolution of the "love match." The decline of feudalism led to a rise in individual wage-earning, so that married couples became an economic unit rather than part of an interdependent community of serfs. The Protestant Reformation led to challenges to Catholic idealization of celibacy and a new emphasis on the marital relationship. The Enlightenment led to more secularism and ideals of personal happiness for individuals, which influenced goals and priorities in choosing a spouse. By the 1800s, the marital relationship became idealized as a source of fulfillment rather than being viewed as a business partnership.Prudish mores of the 1800s began to decline in the early 1900s, and by the 1920s sexual experimentation and acknowledgement of feminine sexuality became the norm, further affecting people's ideas and expectations of personal happiness and fulfillment in marriage. Not surprisingly divorce rates rose, but were then tempered by two crises -- the Great Depression and World War II. Women joined the workforce in large numbers, although the 1950s brought a backlash as postwar optimism, new technology, and economic growth led to what we see as "traditional" marriage -- male breadwinner and female doing domestic chores. Ironically, this "traditional" marriage was actually a new and very short-lived development; prior to the 1950s, even if women didn't work outside the home (and many did), their financial contribution to the household was significant as they sewed their own clothes, shopped in multiple stores to save ten cents (which made a real difference at that time), etc. Men may have worked more outside the home, but being a housewife meant a lot more than it did in the later Donna Reed days. My personal theory is that our tendency to assume Donna Reed represents "traditional" marriage comes from the advent of television. Before the 1950s, visual images and information about what other marriages looked like was far less widespread; television brought images of "typical" families into lots of people's homes and had a ubiquitous influence on the way we envision marriage. My theory is that, had television been invented fifty years earlier, our views of what "traditional" marriage may have looked like would have been far more complex and multifaceted. Just my two cents.Anyway, then came the 1960s and the pill, which meant that sex, marriage, and reproduction could now be distinct. Additionally, marriages began to collapse under the weight of people's expectations of fulfillment and marital bliss, expectations that were far more tempered earlier when marriage was a more economic arrangement and sex was less idealized. Women began to work more and to achieve more financial independence. The desire to conform to others' expectations gave way to an emphasis on autonomy and voluntary choice. Economic changes in the 1970s meant that women's working was more of a necessity. Gender tensions and divorce increased as both men and women struggled to adjust to the new norms. All of which led, gradually, to what we have today, a situation where marriage seems increasingly optional and less desirable or necessary than it once was.Overall, Coontz tells us, marriage is now both more fulfilling (when it works) and more fragile these days than it ever was. Women are better able to advocate for having their needs met in marriage, and the knowledge that either party can leave if they feel dissatisfied influences people's willingness to make changes. It also influences the longevity of marriage, though, since it's easier to walk away than it ever was before. These trends actually have their roots in the 1790s, but were held back by factors such as the strong societal need to conform, unreliable birth control, and women's dependence on men, factors which only truly gave way in the 1960s.Of course, this review, long though it is, is a vast oversimplification. The book contains a wealth of fascinating information and illustrative anecdotes, and makes many more interesting points than I could possibly make in this review. I guess this review may serve as a litmus test -- if you've reached the end and are saying, yes! I want to read more! Run out and grab this book. If you abandoned the review several paragraphs ago or are thinking, thank God I've reached the end of this longwinded diatribe, then the book is not for you. From me, though, it gets five stars. Just realize -- it's a commitment.
I borrowed this book from our local library. It wasn't recommended or out on display, and I honestly am not sure why I picked it up, but I'm glad I did.Jammed packed with interesting tidbits, Coontz has put together a tremendous history of marriage, which in the process examines not only the evolution of marriage and its role in society but also the changing ideas about men and women and their relationship to each other.She starts by talking about how people have this tendency to believe things were better in the past and share a longing for the way things used to be. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to matter what the past is. She discusses the current marriage crisis, this idea that marriage as we know it is under attack. Then she spends 300 plus pages and 100 pages of references describing why "marriage as we know it" is a relative term since the reasons people marry, the accepted norms and tradition, the choice of partners, its function in society, and the laws and societal constraints governing it have changed and evolved to reflect the needs and desires of various times and various peoples.In that sense, marriage is and has always been what society as a whole has decided it should be. From entering into loveless unions designed to expand resources to forming business-like partnerships to maximize your family's output to providing a system whose primary purpose is to establilsh legitimacy to children and ensure suitable heirs to fulfilling the sexual and/or emotional needs of two individuals, the only thing sacred about the institution of marriage is that it has and can be whatever we decide it should be.Coontz does an excellent job of showing how changes in technology coupled with economic, political, and cultural influences have led to changes in marriage. Once a means of protecting and passing down a family's wealth, marriage has slowly evolved into a means of self-fulfillment. In the process, there is an interesting discussion of the feminist/civil rights movement and how ultimately they (along with technology) have freed up both men and women to pursue relationships that are meaningful rather than merely useful. Changing gender roles and women's ability to earn a living and receive equal pay in addition to the invention and proliferation of birth control have absolutely impacted why, with whom, and when people marry or don't marry. I came across a book about the "pill" a year or so ago which has since fallen off the radar but after reading this book, I'm likely to go and pick it up.Some interesting passages (and there were many) that got me thinking (view spoiler)[Decades later a black woman commented that it was really Hitler, not Lincoln, who had freed the slaves! referring to the opportunities that World War II afforded some women who for the first time were not only allowed to work (yes there were some laws/policies that prevented either women or married women from working various jobs) and also get paid a fair wage.There were kids down South being beaten up, even killed, just for trying to go to school. And we grownups were sitting around worry about the immorality of rock and roll. A man commenting in retrospect about attitudes in the '50s and '60s. This kind of thing happens all the time, but I think this passage makes the point rather well.A 1962 Gallup poll reported that American married women were very satisfied with their lives. But only 10 percent of the women in the same poll wanted their daughters to have the same lives that they had. Instead they wanted their daughters to postpone marriage and get more education. This one just made me stop and think. This seems to be an oxymoron on face value. But on deeper thought, I suppose it is possible to be content with what one has and yet still want more for your children.But never before have so many people lived alone. And never before have unmarried people, living alone or in couples, had the same rights as married adults. The spread of solitary living and cohabitation reduces the social weight of marriage in the economy and polity, creating tastes, habits, expectations, and voting blocs that are not tied to the role of wife or husband.In the 1950s married couples represented 80 present all households in the US. By the beginning of the twenty-first century they were less than 51 percent, and married couples with children were just 25 percent of all households. For the first time ever, there were more single-person households than those with a married couple and children. Married persons were still a majority of the workforce and of the home in 2001, but unmarried individuals were gaining fast, accounting for 42 percent of the workforce and 40 percent of home buyers.Bottom line, there are lots of people who are growing up and not getting married. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Marriage, A History: From Obedience To Intimacy Or How Love Conquered Marriage (2005)?
Hmmmm. I just couldn't get very far in this. Firstly, the title bothers me greatly. Has love conquered marriage? I think not. Maybe some people are able to choose whom they marry, but not most. Even in the places/spaces where love has supposedly conquered marriage, I would say marriage is more about societal/familial pressures and expectations. Or the need for health care. Or the desire for that pink Kitchen Aid mixer. I find the history of marriage interesting, but I guess being of the age where it feels as though everyone's getting married or planning a wedding or fretting about not getting married I am tired of thinking about marriage. I'm sorry I'm such a cynical bastard, but I just think marriage is quite a ridiculous institution*, and I'd rather not read about it.*I support and love all my married and engaged friends and family, though!
—Liza
Very well-researched, and written relatively engagingly considering it spans a lot of human history. Some parts more interesting than others, especially the 20th century. It was oddly liberating to know that marriage has changed an insane amount over the years, including the church's and state's stances on it. That there isn't one definition of marriage, or one "best" or "right" kind of marriage. Instead, it's a flexible institution that in many ways can be adapted to what you want it to be. Also made me realize I'm so lucky to be a woman born in today's world, rather than even 60 years ago. Things used to be downright awful for women.I do wish there had been a LITTLE more explanation as to why things changed politically for women and marriage. It just sort of added on that while revolutions were happening within marriage, similar changes were taking place in the wider society and political realm. But overall good book for anyone thinking that they might want to one day join this "illustrious institution." Made me realize how little I know about it.
—Kelly Rincon
And to think I could have taken a course with Stephanie Coontz back in the day when I was a student at The Evergreen State College... Alas, I was not interested in the history of the family then.Now as a Lit prof., how I wish I had. Teaching works like 'Trifles,' 'A Doll House,' 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' stories by Kate Chopin and others which center on marriage, I find myself constantly trying to correct students' notions of marriage in history. Many of them really do believe that marriage as we know it--based on love, like interests and monogamy--is how it's been throughout history.It's nice to find a concise history of marriage in the Western world I can refer to...for myself and my students. On a personal note, I find marriage--the idea of and desire for--increasingly mysterious...but then, I'd made a bad match and my son is 18 now and out of the house...The book is fascinating for its exposure of gender roles and the changing notions of women. For instance:"Throughout the Middle Ages women had been considered the lusty sex, more prey to their passions than men. Even when idealization of female chastity began to mount in the eighteenth century, two recent historians of sexuality say, few of its popularizers assumed that women totally lacked sexual desire. Virtue was thought to 'be attained through self-control; it was not necessarily innate or biologically determined.' (end note: 43) "The beginning of the nineteenth century, however, saw a new emphasis on women's innate sexual purity. The older view that women had to be controlled because they were inherently more passionate and prone to moral and sexual error was replaced by the idea that women were asexual beings, who would not respond to sexual overtones unless they had been drugged or depraved from an early age. This cult of female purity encouraged women to internalize limits on their sexual behavior that sixteenth and seventeenth authorities had imposed by force." (159)No wonder I've long been fascinated by The Middle Ages...
—Jessica
