Marriage: A Brief Defense of Society's Most Important Institution » (1st Edition)

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941–2007) was the Eléonore Raoul Professor of History at Emory University, where she was also the founding director of the Institute for Women’s Studies. She received the National Humanities Medal from President Bush in 2003, was a member of the Governing Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was a recipient of the Cardinal Wright Award from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Her books include Women and the Future of the Family; Reconstructing History: The Emergence of a Historical Society (coedited with Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn); and “Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life”: How the Elite Women’s Movement Has Lost Touch with Women’s Real Concerns.

Nearly everywhere and at all times, marriage has enjoyed a privileged status as the primary social unit—the essential bond that created alliances between families and a bridge between the sexes. In joining a man and woman, marriage attempted to hold men to collective social standards, including responsibility for the women they impregnated and the children they fathered, while also stringently hedging in women’s sexuality. In short, marriage has always demanded that both men and women sacrifice a considerable measure of individual freedom. In marriage, “I” becomes “we,” and “we” frequently extends beyond the couple to extended family, clan, and society. For these reasons, both political and religious authorities typically have taken great care to present marriage as an institution to which individual interests must be subordinated.

At the time of her death in January 2007, the celebrated historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was worried that these attitudes were in the process of being reversed. In this book, which she was in the midst of preparing for publication at the time of her passing, she argues that marriage is disintegrating under the rising demands that it serve not the good of the whole but the desires of the individual. A union that at one point was used to limit individual “rights” is now claimed as one right among many. The sexual liberation movements of the last forty years have seriously undermined marriage, argues Fox-Genovese, so much so that the institution seems to face the threat of extinction.

Even so, she writes, “Marriage for love—the promise of an enduring and engulfing bondbetween a man and a woman—is a dream that refuses to die. . . . It still promises that we will finally be loved as we long to be loved.” That dream is the ultimate theme of this book, a fitting coda to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’s distinguished career.

ElizabethMorris - Library Journal

Based on lectures given by Fox-Genovese (Within the Plantation Household), the Emory University historian who died in 2007, Marriage has the strong sense of a passionate and personal speech. Fox-Genovese was firmly pro-marriage, and here she is unabashedly frank in her advocacy. Her broad, measured tone attempts to encompass a wide sweep of human experience and cultures and is just as concerned with modern marriage as its historical context. Fox-Genovese examines marriage as a societal question rather than simply a question of individual preference and comments on divorce, same-sex unions, the sexual revolution, and other issues affecting modern marriage. Her concern is especially for the current state of marriage in American society and the tension between individual rights and responsibilities in such an institution.

Squire (The Slender Balance) begins with Genesis and works through biblical and secular history through Martin Luther, deconstructing marriage with a vengeance. Like Fox-Genovese, Squire does not pretend to be unbiased in her negative view of historical marriage, especially in terms of Christian history. The subtitle describes the book as "contrarian," but that is almost too mild a term to describe Squire's sarcastic yet breezy style, which while very amusing, is sure to offend many readers as she gleefully surveys Western history. Squire is mainly concerned with the subjugation of women within the strictures of marriage as a social and religious convention. Both works are passionate intellectual manifestos, with completely different tones and aims, and both are recommended for sociology and women's history collections.

Introduction Sheila O'Connor-Ambrose O'Connor-Ambrose, Sheila

Pt. l Marriage: From Personal Bond to Social Choice

1 Male and Female He Created Them 3

2 Different or Equal? The Compromise of Separate Spheres 23

3 Marriage on Trial 43

Pt. II History; the Family; and the Human Person

4 Women and the Family 65

5 Thoughts on the History of the Family 109

6 The Legal Status of Families as Institutions 129

7 Historical Perspectives on the Human Person 137

8 The Family and John Paul II 157

Afterword Robert P. George George, Robert P. 165

A Short List of Good Books on Marriage 171

Notes 175

Index 189