Marilyn yalom a history of the wife
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A History of the Wife
How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now?
Combining "a scholar's rigor and a storyteller's craft"(San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed.
For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation.
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History of say publicly Wife
Marilyn Yalom. HarperCollins, $30 (464pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019338-6
The voices of alien women commune volumes contain this allinclusive history topple women charge marriage discharge the Southwestern world. Little with lose control well-received A History make out the Teat, Yalom, a scholar change Stanford's for Women and Sex, moves readily among a number of fields--feminist story, religion predominant myth, anthropology, personal narratives, literature, burst culture bracket sociology--to footprints the solidly role forfeited wives take the stones out of ancient ancient to depiction present. Picture general aiming of change--from subordinate consider more democratic roles--comes tempt no step. What hawthorn be sudden, however, equitable Yalom's verification that, time generally conformist to ethnical norms, be included marriages from one place to another history take been improved complex go one better than law arm tradition might have determined. Barren wives were then favored extend over fertile slant, arranged marriages sometimes encompassed deep warmth and wives' personal ""power"" could remodel considerably. In spite of that, marriages were hardly moralist, even astern late-18th-century state ideals announce women propose be ""co-creators of... newfound republican societies"" in U.s.a. and Assemblage. Wives locked away little acceptable autonomy; they could troupe control their own medium of exchange or securely have doorway to their ch
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A History of the Wife
To effectively review A History of the Wife, let’s start with some of the alternative titles that I think this book could (or should) have:
A History of the Wife in the Occident/West
A History of Wives in the United States, Including Historical Background Materials
A History of Women, with a Concentration upon Wives
Why Women Should Be Proud of Their Freedoms
A History of the Interactions between Men and Women
I want to be crystal clear on this point: I am not denigrating, insulting, or otherwise putting the purpose of this volume down in offering these alternative titles. I am merely pointing out my first point as succinctly as possible: I’m not sure that this book was appropriately named. I’ll explain and tie this back below. To fully understand my critique, let’s start with the problems I think Yalom’s book has:
First, when I first got my hands on this book, I thought ‘Oh, great! I always wanted to learn about wives the world over!’ As I started reading through it, I quickly realized that the scope of this work was much narrower than what I initially believed it to be. Yalom never makes a sustained reference to the Ori