. . . and its effects:
This was a good read. Thank you.
seems to make sense, but aren’t they comparing apples to oranges? Back in the day, marriages were made for reasons other than love, but women were also viewed as property. It doesn’t seem like two people with 100% legal status were deciding to get into a marriage for all the non-love reasons listed in the article. Rather, their parents told them who to marry and that was that.
If I can extrapolate (without actually having read her work, of course), she seems to be saying marriage evolves along with culture. Which seems obvious, given that marriage is a social instititution. The definition of marriage is changing, and has changed, according to social pressure.
An aside: My wife and i celebrated our 5th anniversary today. When we were married she kept her last name (and none of this hyphenating nonsense). My parents still address birthday/xmas/anniversary cards to Jason and Jamie Curtis, despite the fact her name is not now and has never been Jamie Curtis. It’s weird, but my conservative Christian parents cannot except that Jamie and I don’t share a last name.
Tom, thanks for the link. Interesting read.
Marraige for love may be with it’s faults, but I’ll take it over arranged marraige any day.
You’re married to Jamie Curtis? Wow–you are one lucky guy! Can you post some pics of her on the Hottie Thread? I really liked her work in “True Lies.”
It doesn’t seem like two people with 100% legal status were deciding to get into a marriage for all the non-love reasons listed in the article. Rather, their parents told them who to marry and that was that.
I don’t know that that was always true, but in any case, I don’t think she claims otherwise. I don’t think she’s saying that before, two people decided to marry each other for political/economic/etc reasons, and that now people decide to get married out of love. She’s saying that whoever decided who married who, the purpose of marriage was viewed very differently previously.
she seems to be saying marriage evolves along with culture. Which seems obvious, given that marriage is a social instititution.
I didn’t get that from the article, actually. She seems to be saying that marriage changed rather radically about 200 years ago.
I was more going for the part about ‘no wonder 50% of marriages fail, they’re based on love rather than the older arrangement of political/whatever reasons.’ The article seems to be gone, so I can’t see exactly what she said.
As did Western culture, at about the same time. ie Industrialism, spread of democracy, etc.
“You’re married to Jamie Curtis?”
I’m actually married to Dr. Jamie Bush … big difference ;). She denies it adamantly, but I suspect that’s one reason she opted not to change her name.
**As did Western culture, at about the same time. ie Industrialism, spread of democracy, etc. **
Yes, but so what?
So what?
Forest for the trees, wouldn’t you say? Evaluating a social institution – marriage, crime, birth/death rates, whatever – without viewing the hegemonic cultural changes and larger social factors at play is like a snapshot at the start of an ironman.
it may be an interesting picture. but it sure ain’t the whole story.