Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn't get any louder, along comes this book to ask, "What tradition?" Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is -- and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This book brings historical perspective to today's marital debate.

Originally published: New York : Viking, 2005.

The radical idea of marrying for love -- The many meanings of marriage -- The invention of marriage -- Soap operas of the ancient world -- Something borrowed: the marital legacy of the classical world and early Christianity -- Playing the bishop, capturing the queen: aristocratic marriages in early medieval Europe -- How the other 95 percent wed: marriage among the common folk of the middle ages -- Something old, something new: Western European marriage at the dawn of the modern age -- From yoke mates to soul mates: emergence of the love match and the male provider marriage -- "Two birds within one nest": sentimental marriage in nineteenth-century Europe and North America -- "A heaving volcano": beneath the surface of Victorian marriage -- "The time when mountains move has come": from sentimental to sexual marriage -- Making do, then making babies: marriage in the Great Depression and World War II -- The era of Ozzie and Harriet: the long decade of "traditional" marriage -- Winds of change: marriage in the 1960s and 1970s -- The perfect storm: the transformation of marriage at the end of the twentieth century -- Uncharted territory: how the transformation of marriage is changing our lives -- Conclusion: Better or worse? The future of marriage.