For better, for worse : British marriages, 1600 to the present
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
For better, for worse : British marriages, 1600 to the present
Oxford University Press, 1985
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. 385-407
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hbk ISBN 9780195036145
Description
Did you know that...The "contemporary" fashion of living together before marriage is far from new, and was frequently practiced in earlier days...Self-divorce, although never legal, was once a commonplace occurrence...Marriage is more popular today than in the Victorian era...Marriage in church was not compulsory in England and Wales until the mid-18th century. These are just a few of the fascinating, and often surprising, revelations in For Better, For
Worse, the most comprehensive treatment to date of the history of marriage in a major Western society. Using fresh evidence from popular courtship and wedding rituals over four centuries, Gillis challenges the widely held belief that marriage has evolved from a cold, impersonal arrangement to a more
affectionate, egalitarian form of companionship. The truth, argues Gillis, lies somewhere in between: conjugal love was never wholly absent in preindustrial times, while today's marriages are less companionate than is commonly believed. Gillis also illustrates, in rich detail, the perpetual tension between marital ideals and actual practices. This social history of the behavior and emotions of ordinary men and women radically revises our perspective on love and marriage in the past-and the
present.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780195045567
Description
This ambitious study presents a comprehensive history of marriage from the seventeenth century to the present day. John Gillis draws on evidence from folk lore and ritual, wedding rites, and the personal accounts of men and women, to illustrate in rich detail the perpetual difference between the ideal of marriage and the actual reality.
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