Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
We commonly think of marriage as a private matter between two people, a personal expression of love and commitment. In this pioneering history, Nancy F. Cott demonstrates that marriage is and always has been a public institution.
From the founding of the United States to the present day, imperatives about the necessity of marriage and its proper form have been deeply embedded in national policy, law, and political rhetoric. Legislators and judges have envisioned and enforced their preferred model of consensual, lifelong monogamy--a model derived from Christian tenets and the English common law that posits the husband as provider and the wife as dependent.In early confrontations with Native Americans, emancipated slaves, Mormon polygamists, and immigrant spouses, through the invention of the New Deal, federal income tax, and welfare programs, the federal government consistently influenced the shape of marriages. And even the immense social and legal changes of the last third of the twentieth century have not unraveled official reliance on marriage as a "pillar of the state."
By excluding some kinds of marriages and encouraging others, marital policies have helped to sculpt the nation's citizenry, as well as its moral and social standards, and have directly affected national understandings of gender roles and racial difference. Public Vows is a panoramic view of marriage's political history, revealing the national government's profound role in our most private of choices. No one who reads this book will think of marriage in the same way again.
Related to Public Vows
Related ebooks
Familiar Perversions: The Racial, Sexual, and Economic Politics of LGBT Families Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod is Black, but Obama Ain't Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuilding Up a New World: Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUp from Slavery - An Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlinded by Sight: Seeing Race Through the Eyes of the Blind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Path to Freedom: Black Families in New Jersey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnswering the Call: An Autobiography of the Modern Struggle to End Racial Discrimination in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law, and Repair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCorporate Tribalism: White Men/White Women and Cultural Diversity at Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVeil and Vow: Marriage Matters in Contemporary African American Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEve Isn't Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnprotected Labor: Household Workers, Politics, and Middle-Class Reform in New York, 1870-1940 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf a Piece of Cloth: The Courage of Africa's Countless Widows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod was African Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhite Women, Rape, and the Power of Race in Virginia, 1900-1960 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two Parts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of The Trauma of Caste By Thenmozhi Soundararajan: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gender of Piety: Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Underground Railroad, A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLicense to Harass: Law, Hierarchy, and Offensive Public Speech Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slaves in the Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Public Vows
16 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An intersting book about a womans role in the institution of marriage and how the said institution is delicately tied to political ideology. The book was stale at some points and the word 'repitition' comes to mind. Of particular intrest to me throughout the book was the female role in the marriage and how she deprived of a political role after marriage.