I've listened to a lot of church teaching about marraige over the years and not once did they hint that what marraige is to us is only remotely like what marriage was in years past. I mentioned to my sister that people have only married for love the last 200 years and she immediately said ya. She reads a lot of historical romance novels. I find it interesting that I was talking in Bible college that the historical-gramatical method was the way to view the Bible. Now I find that James Dobson doesn't even come close to using that method when he quotes the Bible.
I found I can now understand the Bible much more than I could before I read this book.
I'd say read this book.

Stephanie Coontz, "scholar" at prestigious Evergreen State College, has delivered yet one more broadside against reason and intellectual honesty. One need not spend time dismantling the arguments of those who find her work fair and balanced - propagandists have always had their supporters. Suffice it to say that this is characteristic of what passes for "scholarship" at today's college, which is to say, it is simply awful. Coontz relies entirely on whatever meager evidence she can muster supporting her premise, while totally ignoring any and all evidence to the contrary. In this case, that contrary evidence is massively overwhelming - but no matter - the end justifies the means. Tripe.

I was excited when i heard that Coontz was coming out with another book because I found her books The Way We Never Were and The Way We Really Are to be incredibly informative and eye-opening.

I really enjoyed this particular book because she looks at the phenomenon of marriage from an objective, historical point of view. People who are interested in history, interested in the social development of relationships and interested in womens studies would really enjoy this book.

However I found that some of the information that was displayed in this book was done in more depth in previous books on the subject. Coontz pulls together a very basic history of marriage and pieces it together from her sociological historical perspective. Other books that go into more depth on the details of the history of such things would definitely be: Hands and Hearts, Public Vows, The History of the Wife, All Dressed In White, From Front Porch to Backseat. Also, getting in touch with old etiquette books as well as getting a hold of the books Pink Think and Feminine Mystique would be very useful as well in terms of understanding the development of romantic relationships the way that they are. She uses her previous books as a springing point for some of the stuff displayed in this book as well. However a lot of the books that I previously mentioned are appropietely used in the bibliography for this particular book. As a result, i think that her work is well researched. Its probably not the most definitive book in the field, however people who are interested in the history of marriage and family will probably this resource. Fans of Coontz will more than likely enjoy being exposed to another aspect of family studies as well.

What Coontz does best is finding ways to address these issues in a way that both the casual and academic reader would be interested in. It is easy enough for people who may not have been to college to understand and substantial enough for the more academic reader to find further areas of research.