Inside the American Couple

New Thinking, New Challenges

Marilyn Yalom, Laura Carstensen, Estelle Freedman, Barbara Gulpi, Marilyn Yalom, Laura Carstensen, Estelle Freedman, Barbara Gulpi

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520219755
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520927315
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

One of the most fundamental human urges is to form a pair. Despite many tendencies that threaten traditional marriage and even make committed cohabitation problematic, very few people live through adulthood without at least one lengthy relationship, and up to ninety percent of Americans marry at least once in their lives. This pioneering volume draws attention to issues that question the unspoken traditional practices underlying coupling in America. In it, some of today's most innovative feminist scholars consider the dramatic changes couples have experienced over the past fifty years, such as the proliferation of divorce, the increase in ethnically-mixed relationships, the preponderance of older couples, and the new visibility of same-sex unions.

Approaching their subject from a range of disciplines, the authors explore the couple as an enduring paradigm for human relationships, despite the changes in ideology and practice that couples have experienced over time. The essays delve into such subjects as the historical roots of modern marriage, the recent phenomenon of lesbian and gay commitment ceremonies, the home as a workplace and a place of refuge, and the stresses that turn a happy marriage into an unhappy one. One chapter explodes the myth that feminists are responsible for the high incidence of divorce, while another focuses on the financial worth of the wife after the demise of a long-standing marriage.

Taken together, these essays impart a deep and complex picture of the challenges facing couples in our time. The vital and engaging narratives show that however anxious our society may be in the face of dissolving marriages and dysfunctional families, couples will continue to form the bedrock of American society in the twenty-first century.


One of the most fundamental human urges is to form a pair. Despite many tendencies that threaten traditional marriage and even make committed cohabitation problematic, very few people live through adulthood without at least one lengthy relationship, and u

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1 Biblical Models From Adam and Eve to the Bride of Christ
• CHAPTER 2 Dearest Friend The Marriage of Abigail and John Adams
• CHAPTER 3 “The Thing Bartered” Love, Economics, and the Victorian Couple
• CHAPTER 4 “Boston Marriage” among Lesbians Are We a Couple If We're Not Having Sex?
• CHAPTER 5 “You’ll Never Walk Alone” Lesbian and Gay Weddings and the Authenticity of the Same-Sex Couple
• CHAPTER 6 The Couple at Home Education’s Contribution
• CHAPTER 7 When One of Us Is Ill Scenes from a Partnership
• CHAPTER 8 Wives and Husbands Working Together Law Partners and Marital Partners
• CHAPTER 9 Grounds for Marriage Reflections and Research on an Institution in Transition
• CHAPTER 10 Divorce, American Style
• CHAPTER 11 What’s a Wife Worth?
• CHAPTER 12 Toward an Understanding of Asian American Interracial Marriage and Dating
• CHAPTER 13 Arranged Marriages What’s Love Got to Do with It?
• CHAPTER 14 Marriage in Old Age
• Contributors
• Index