Marilyn Yalom is a senior scholar at the Institute for Women and Gender at Stanford University. She is the author
of A History of the Breast; Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory; and Maternity, Mortality, and
the Literature of Madness.
Summary
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.
