Why marry? The personal question is timeless. Yet the highly emotional desires of men and women during the period between 1450 and 1650 were also circumscribed

Spanning cultures across the 20th century, this volume explores how marriage, especially in the West, was disestablished as the primary institution organizing s

Could an institution as sacred and traditional as marriage undergo a revolution? Some people living during the so-called Age of Enlightenment thought so. By mar