Marriage in Culture


Book Description

This text presents an ethnographic study of marriage practices in four cultures: !Kung San; Chinese; Iroquois; and Tibetan.




Marriage In A Culture Of Divorce


Book Description

The experience of married life in different eras.




Veil and Vow


Book Description

In Veil and Vow, Aneeka Ayanna Henderson places familiar, often politicized questions about the crisis of African American marriage in conversation with a rich cultural archive that includes fiction by Terry McMillan and Sister Souljah, music by Anita Baker, and films such as The Best Man. Seeking to move beyond simple assessments of marriage as "good" or "bad" for African Americans, Henderson critically examines popular and influential late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century texts alongside legislation such as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which masked true sources of inequality with crisis-laden myths about African American family formation. Using an interdisciplinary approach to highlight the influence of law, politics, and culture on marriage representations and practices, Henderson reveals how their kinship veils and unveils the fiction in political policy as well as the complicated political stakes of fictional and cultural texts. Providing a new opportunity to grapple with old questions, including who can be a citizen, a "wife," and "marriageable," Veil and Vow makes clear just how deeply marriage still matters in African American culture.




Marriage, a History


Book Description

Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn't get any louder, along comes this groundbreaking book to ask, "What tradition?" In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is - and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This enlightening and hugely entertaining book brings intelligence, perspective, and wit to today's marital debate.




The Psychology of Marriage


Book Description

From their location in the heart of Detroit, Michigan, the Weisfelds’ lab has reached out for thirty years to couples in long-term partnerships around the world. In living rooms of Detroit, London, Moscow, Beijing, and beyond, couples of all types and ages have shared their insights into adult romantic relationships. This book, The Psychology of Marriage, is a distillation of these findings, which have appeared in dozens of book chapters, journal articles, and conference presentations. The book also provides new systematic comparisons that offer insights into the mysteries of marriage and other committed relationships. Scholars, professional counselors, and family therapists will find a helpful framework for thinking about cultural similarities and differences in marital dynamics. Researchers will be introduced to a robust new instrument, the Marriage and Relationship Questionnaire (MARQ), which can be used in heterosexual and same-sex couples in virtually any cultural setting, along with ethical guidelines for conducting this research. Anyone who is interested in why committed relationships work (or do not work) will find the book filled with compelling new insights.




The Meaning of Marriage


Book Description

Describes what marriage should be according to the Bible, arguing that marriage is a tool to bring individuals closer to God, and provides meaningful instruction on how to have a successful marriage.




Cross-Cultural Marriage


Book Description

As societies world-wide become increasingly multicultural, so the issues of identity, belonging, tolerance and racism become imperative to understand in their various forms. This book adds to the discussion by examining the interface between the lived, personal experiences of people in cross-cultural marriages and wider socio-political issues. One major contribution this book offers is that the marriages discussed are from a very broad range of cultures and classes. Amongst other issues, contributors examine: the legal and social factors influencing cross-cultural marriages; the personality factors and positive or negative stereotypes of otherness that influence spouse choice; notions of identity, gender and personhood, and definitions of difference, and how these are often tied up in emotive stereotypes; how all these factors affect the ongoing process of living together and the ability to cope; and how the children of such marriages come to terms with identity choices. This book should be highly relevant to the growing number of people in cross-cultural marriages, as well as to professionals in the fields of marriage guidance, child welfare and academics interested in ethnicity and kinship.




In Love But Worlds Apart


Book Description

This is a simple saga of the twists and turns in the life of a farm boy. Depicted through his eyes are such world disturbing events as the "great depression" and World War II. It tells of that farm boy's disappointments through the journey of life and reveals how the "Higher Power" overshadowing him turned those disappointments into blessings. Through the author's eyes we get glimpses of how life was lived on a farm in the early part of the twentieth century. It tells of the simple joys experienced by those living the rural way of life. It tells about life in a one-room school with one's mother as the teacher. It tells of the struggles of young people in their effort to get an education. Through the eyes of that farm boy one gets a close view of the horrors encountered on the battlefield. It tells of a marriage that "could not work" but did. It tells of life in the minister's manse and the view of church life from the other side of the pulpit. Also, it tells of the joy of encountering the different cultures experienced through travel in other parts of the world. It speaks of how life at the end of the trail can be the most difficult of all of life's encounters.




Clandestine Marriage


Book Description

Botany in the romantic era played a role in debates about life, nature, and knowledge, as evidenced in this ambitious, beautifully illustrated study. Winner, 2012 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize Romanticism was a cultural and intellectual movement characterized by discovery, revolution, and the poetic as well as by the philosophical relationship between people and nature. Botany sits at the intersection where romantic scientific and literary discourses meet. Clandestine Marriage explores the meaning and methods of how plants were represented and reproduced in scientific, literary, artistic, and material cultures of the period. Theresa M. Kelley synthesizes romantic debates about taxonomy and morphology, the contemporary interest in books and magazines devoted to plant study and images, and writings by such authors as Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Letitia Barbauld. Period botanical paintings of flowers are reproduced in vibrant color, bringing her argument and the romantics' passion for plants to life. In addition to exploring botanic thought and practice in the context of British romanticism, Kelley also looks to the German philosophical traditions of Kant, Hegel, and Goethe and to Charles Darwin’s reflections on orchids and plant pollination. Her interdisciplinary approach allows a deeper understanding of a time when exploration of the natural world was a culture-wide enchantment.




Marriage, a History


Book Description

Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn’t get any louder, along comes this groundbreaking book to ask, "What tradition?" In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is—and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This enlightening and hugely entertaining book brings intelligence, perspective, and wit to today’s marital debate.