Marriage A History Stephanie Coontz Summary

Book Summary For this book summary, I chose to read Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy. In this book, author Stephanie Coontz discusses the how and why roles of marriage have changed over the years. The book starts by discussing how the idea of marrying for love is a relatively new concept practiced in today’s society, or more specifically it has risen in the last two centuries. In fact, in ancient Greece, the idea of a man being in love with his wife was actually considered morally wrong. Entering into a marriage based on love or passion was considered wrong because it was a distraction from the relationship that a person should have with God. Today it is more common for two people to enter a marriage because of love, however

We discussed the fact that today there are so many marriages that end in divorce, and how often that happens as compared to traditional non-love marriages. We collectively agreed that with an arranged marriage, a person does not know the person they are about to marry, and so a majority of the marriage is spent on getting to know each other. In comparison, a marriage based on love usually starts after the couple has spent copious amounts of time getting to know each other, then falling in love, then finally getting married. Although I do not think I would enjoy being placed in an arranged marriage, it is something I have thought about recently because in ancient times, a woman my age would not only be married, but she would have been married for several years and would have had several children by now. I feel as though in today’s society, the ideals of marriage have progressed even further into views of the man and women being equal in income and leadership, and even an acceptance of marriage between two people of the same gender. Although I am a female in support of women having their own jobs and being equal with a man, I do support the idea of marriage being between a man and women in which the man is the main provider and leader of the marriage, home, and family. I do believe in love based marriages, but after reading about the traditional non-love based marriages, I can see the certain advantages that they brought. I do not think that our culture should shift back in to the traditional marriage because we have been taught all of our lives that a man and woman should fall in love and get married, but I do believe that there are still several cultures that practice arranged marriages and should keep those practices because not only do they seem to work historically, but it is what is culturally