She devotes one chapter to the growing gap between rich and poor families in North America and another to how racism has affected marriage law in Canada and the United States. Abbott defends no-fault divorce, critiques the consumerism of modern weddings and argues for acceptance of same-sex marriage, correctly noting that no studies have found disadvantages in the functioning or adjustment in children raised by same-sex parents. The book is more a collage of snapshots and interesting observations than a clear historical narrative.Ī History of Marriage is devoted to contemporary trends in marriage. Unfortunately, Abbott seldom stays long enough on a single topic or time period to provide much depth or establish a clear context for her stories. Growing Up Alone in a Crowd, Celine Dion, who also had 13 siblings, emphasized the joy of "being able to count on brothers and sisters and parents." While Stephen Zanichkowsky described his experience of being one of 14 children as
She also mentions briefly the terrors of childbirth, methods of contraception and abortion, differences in childrearing ideals, the history of divorce and the fact that today's high rates of singlehood are not unprecedented.Ī History of Marriage pays attention to variations in family life and marriage practices by region, race and class, and captures the diversity of experiences even among families that superficially seem alike.
She highlights the ambivalence about sex these ideas produced and the contradictions between the view of 19th-century women as delicate angels and the arduous work wives had to do, even in affluent families. After Elizabeth refused to follow her husband's order to shut up, he had her committed to an asylum in 1860.Ībbott describes the tensions surrounding the 19th-century cult of sentimental marriage and female sexual purity. But when Theophilus made the mistake of inviting Elizabeth to address his Bible class, she electrified them by rejecting the doctrine of original sin and defending the equality of women.
She recounts the story of Elizabeth and Theophilus Packard, who were married 21 years and had six children together. Not until the 18th century did love begin to be seen as a good reason for marriage, and, well into the 19th century, the daily experience of married life for most couples was shaped less by mutual love than by the dependence imposed by the laws of coverture, which completely subsumed a wife's legal existence and personal property into her husband's.Ībbott's examples of what the law and church forced wives to put up with up over the ages should give pause to anyone who believes that marriages in the era before divorce were based on greater commitment and fidelity than they are today. Abbott does a good job of conveying the primacy of practical considerations in most marriages of the past. And at this point we are still only 80 pages into a 400-page book.
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