"Marriage, A History"
This book is by Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia WA. The crucial ideas in the book are effectively summarized in her subtitle, which is "From obedience to intimacy, or how love conquered marriage."
The book says that prior to the 18th century, marriage was generally something which was arranged between two families rather than between two individuals. Marriage had two essential social purposes -- it was an indication of adulthood and independence, and it was intended to create a suitable environment for raising children. However, since the beginning of the Romantic era, society has generally accepted the view that marriage should occur because two individuals love each other, and that any other basis for marriage is unacceptably trivial or mercenary.
None of this is at all radical. Coontz acknowledges when she was in graduate school, it was generally believed that love-based marriages only began in the 19th century, but that she now believes that such marriages started to happen during the 18th century. She dismisses, without much discussion, the views of other scholars that love-based marriages might have begun much earlier, perhaps in the 16th century or even back in medieval times.
Coontz says that in the US, most people's views of "marriage" are still strongly based on the 1950s, when the social expectation was that a man would work while his wife would stay home with the kids. But she notes that such a pattern was quite unusual historically -- even in the US prior to the 1950s and subsequently, it would not have been possible for a family to be supported by a single male worker.
Nevertheless, she comments that the idea of a "male breadwinner" and a "female homemaker" has been powerfully attractive, and many of the arguments and disagreements about marriage are based on the idea that the 1950s represented some kind of social ideal. Many of the social and political arguments about "how marriage should work" are based on a very specific period, and analysis of a longer period of history suggests that the 1950s were a very strange and anomalous period which is unlikely to recur.
Coontz ends the book with some thoughts about how marriage is likely to develop in the future. She notes that most people continue to want to marry for love, and mentions the current debates about whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, as an indication of the continuing desire to have a socially accepted indication that people are committed to life together. But she also notes that more and more marriages end in divorce, because people aren't as willing to accept an imperfect relationship as they would have been in the past. Consequently, marriage continues to be socially desirable, but each individual marriage has a much greater chance of failure than in the past.
So overall, the book provides a competent synthesis of what seems to be generally known and believed. It focuses mainly on Europe and North America, though the first few chapters have some interesting comments on marriage customs in different ancient societies. Given the scope of her research, it's entirely understandable that she is relying on secondary and tertiary sources -- this is intended to be a synthesis rather than a monograph. And it's quite nicely written in terms of style.
I thought the book was interesting, but in my view it has four important weaknesses.
Firstly, the book really doesn't talk at all about marriage in the modern world outside the US and Western Europe. Globally, there are still plenty of societies where young people have marriages arranged by their parents or families. But young people in these societies are well aware that their counterparts in the West are mostly marrying for love, and at least some of them would like to be able to do the same.
I personally know several people from other countries who have been educated in the US, and who would like to be able to choose their own spouse, but whose parents want to pick out a partner for them. In some cases these people have tried to resist, but it's very difficult to do so when their local culture treats unmarried people as being little better than children. What is going to happen in those societies in the future? Will they become more like the US?
Secondly, the book doesn't really explain why politicians decided to make divorce easier, in the US and in many other countries. Even after the idea of love-based marriage was generally accepted, during the 19th century, most people found it very hard to get a divorce. The idea seemed to be that people should marry for love, and that love should be forever, and that if love wasn't forever then the couple who had married for love should stay married anyway.
But then during the 1960s and 1970s, politicians in many countries seem to have decided that no-fault divorce could be considered as a logical corollary to love-based marriage. Why?
Thirdly, the book notes that ordinary people and politicians in the US (and the rest of the western world) generally consider that the 1950s is a reasonable baseline for how marriages should be structured. However, the book doesn't provide any explanation for why this might have happened.
I think one possible explanation is television. The 1950s was the decade in which large numbers of Americans started watching TV, and the plots and characters from 1950s television shows have been endlessly recycled subsequently -- though with minor variations over time. Hence, the social conventions underlying television shows from the 1950s have become widely accepted as "how people behave."
But I admit that I'm not completely satisfied with my own hypothesis. After all, even before the introduction of television, people were receiving ideas about social conventions from other sources -- from their own families, of course, but also from plays, poetry, novels, radio, and the movies. In particular, I wonder what is the difference between television as a medium versus radio and the movies, which were also mass media, and which were also subject to pressures from politicians and opinion leaders to promote respect for the institution of marriage -- see, for instance, the Wikipedia discussion of the Hays Code.
Thinking about this a bit more, it seems possible that television has characteristics which would have caused it to be more influential in setting social conventions than either radio or the movies. For most people, going to the movies was probably the sort of activity which would be done once a week or less, but television could be watched every day at home. And for most people, radio is far less "immersive" than television, because it's possible to do something else while listening to the radio, but much more difficult to combine television watching with any other activity. But I'm not fully convinced by these suggestions.
And finally, I think that the book relies too heavily on what is currently accepted within the historical canon, and that Coontz gives too little attention to the importance of culture and specifically to literature.
For instance, just looking at Shakespeare's romance plays, there seems to be clear acceptance that love and intellectual compatibility are a necessary -- and perhaps even sufficient? -- basis for marriage. Were those plays only intended to be amusements, rather than indications of how people should behave?
And similarly, with regard to poetry, there are centuries of poems which celebrate love, and which indicate that romantic attachment is genuine and valid and a source of joy. Were those poems also intended purely as a sort of fantasy world, with no reference to how real people would behave?
Now admittedly, Shakespeare doesn't provide many examples of love after marriage, and I don't know enough about pre-19th century poetry to be able to cite examples of poems which talk about love-based marriage.
But to me, it seems that Coontz is just ignoring all of these other potential sources of information, in favor of secondary and tertiary analysis which is mainly based on sources such as "marriage manuals" whose explicit intent was normative. After all, what sort of picture of modern American society would emerge from a study which focused solely on the self-help section of the average bookstore?
(For another critique of the book, which makes additional comments about Coontz's particular views and sources, see www.slate.com/id/2118816/)
The book says that prior to the 18th century, marriage was generally something which was arranged between two families rather than between two individuals. Marriage had two essential social purposes -- it was an indication of adulthood and independence, and it was intended to create a suitable environment for raising children. However, since the beginning of the Romantic era, society has generally accepted the view that marriage should occur because two individuals love each other, and that any other basis for marriage is unacceptably trivial or mercenary.
None of this is at all radical. Coontz acknowledges when she was in graduate school, it was generally believed that love-based marriages only began in the 19th century, but that she now believes that such marriages started to happen during the 18th century. She dismisses, without much discussion, the views of other scholars that love-based marriages might have begun much earlier, perhaps in the 16th century or even back in medieval times.
Coontz says that in the US, most people's views of "marriage" are still strongly based on the 1950s, when the social expectation was that a man would work while his wife would stay home with the kids. But she notes that such a pattern was quite unusual historically -- even in the US prior to the 1950s and subsequently, it would not have been possible for a family to be supported by a single male worker.
Nevertheless, she comments that the idea of a "male breadwinner" and a "female homemaker" has been powerfully attractive, and many of the arguments and disagreements about marriage are based on the idea that the 1950s represented some kind of social ideal. Many of the social and political arguments about "how marriage should work" are based on a very specific period, and analysis of a longer period of history suggests that the 1950s were a very strange and anomalous period which is unlikely to recur.
Coontz ends the book with some thoughts about how marriage is likely to develop in the future. She notes that most people continue to want to marry for love, and mentions the current debates about whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, as an indication of the continuing desire to have a socially accepted indication that people are committed to life together. But she also notes that more and more marriages end in divorce, because people aren't as willing to accept an imperfect relationship as they would have been in the past. Consequently, marriage continues to be socially desirable, but each individual marriage has a much greater chance of failure than in the past.
So overall, the book provides a competent synthesis of what seems to be generally known and believed. It focuses mainly on Europe and North America, though the first few chapters have some interesting comments on marriage customs in different ancient societies. Given the scope of her research, it's entirely understandable that she is relying on secondary and tertiary sources -- this is intended to be a synthesis rather than a monograph. And it's quite nicely written in terms of style.
I thought the book was interesting, but in my view it has four important weaknesses.
Firstly, the book really doesn't talk at all about marriage in the modern world outside the US and Western Europe. Globally, there are still plenty of societies where young people have marriages arranged by their parents or families. But young people in these societies are well aware that their counterparts in the West are mostly marrying for love, and at least some of them would like to be able to do the same.
I personally know several people from other countries who have been educated in the US, and who would like to be able to choose their own spouse, but whose parents want to pick out a partner for them. In some cases these people have tried to resist, but it's very difficult to do so when their local culture treats unmarried people as being little better than children. What is going to happen in those societies in the future? Will they become more like the US?
Secondly, the book doesn't really explain why politicians decided to make divorce easier, in the US and in many other countries. Even after the idea of love-based marriage was generally accepted, during the 19th century, most people found it very hard to get a divorce. The idea seemed to be that people should marry for love, and that love should be forever, and that if love wasn't forever then the couple who had married for love should stay married anyway.
But then during the 1960s and 1970s, politicians in many countries seem to have decided that no-fault divorce could be considered as a logical corollary to love-based marriage. Why?
Thirdly, the book notes that ordinary people and politicians in the US (and the rest of the western world) generally consider that the 1950s is a reasonable baseline for how marriages should be structured. However, the book doesn't provide any explanation for why this might have happened.
I think one possible explanation is television. The 1950s was the decade in which large numbers of Americans started watching TV, and the plots and characters from 1950s television shows have been endlessly recycled subsequently -- though with minor variations over time. Hence, the social conventions underlying television shows from the 1950s have become widely accepted as "how people behave."
But I admit that I'm not completely satisfied with my own hypothesis. After all, even before the introduction of television, people were receiving ideas about social conventions from other sources -- from their own families, of course, but also from plays, poetry, novels, radio, and the movies. In particular, I wonder what is the difference between television as a medium versus radio and the movies, which were also mass media, and which were also subject to pressures from politicians and opinion leaders to promote respect for the institution of marriage -- see, for instance, the Wikipedia discussion of the Hays Code.
Thinking about this a bit more, it seems possible that television has characteristics which would have caused it to be more influential in setting social conventions than either radio or the movies. For most people, going to the movies was probably the sort of activity which would be done once a week or less, but television could be watched every day at home. And for most people, radio is far less "immersive" than television, because it's possible to do something else while listening to the radio, but much more difficult to combine television watching with any other activity. But I'm not fully convinced by these suggestions.
And finally, I think that the book relies too heavily on what is currently accepted within the historical canon, and that Coontz gives too little attention to the importance of culture and specifically to literature.
For instance, just looking at Shakespeare's romance plays, there seems to be clear acceptance that love and intellectual compatibility are a necessary -- and perhaps even sufficient? -- basis for marriage. Were those plays only intended to be amusements, rather than indications of how people should behave?
And similarly, with regard to poetry, there are centuries of poems which celebrate love, and which indicate that romantic attachment is genuine and valid and a source of joy. Were those poems also intended purely as a sort of fantasy world, with no reference to how real people would behave?
Now admittedly, Shakespeare doesn't provide many examples of love after marriage, and I don't know enough about pre-19th century poetry to be able to cite examples of poems which talk about love-based marriage.
But to me, it seems that Coontz is just ignoring all of these other potential sources of information, in favor of secondary and tertiary analysis which is mainly based on sources such as "marriage manuals" whose explicit intent was normative. After all, what sort of picture of modern American society would emerge from a study which focused solely on the self-help section of the average bookstore?
(For another critique of the book, which makes additional comments about Coontz's particular views and sources, see www.slate.com/id/2118816/)
posted by Chris_G at 8:42 AM
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