Description
This book explores the history of marriage and marriage-like relationships across five continents from the seventeenth century to the present day. Across fourteen chapters, leading marriage scholars examine how the methodologies from the new history of emotions contribute to our understanding of marriage, seeking to uncover not only personal feeling but also the political and social implications of emotion. They highlight how marriage as an institution has been shaped not just by law and society but also by individual and community choices, desires and emotional values. Importantly, they also emphasize how the history of non-traditional and same-sex relationships and their emotions have long played an important role in determining the nature of marriage as an institution and emotional union. In doing so, this collection allows us to rethink both the past and present of marriage, destabilizing a story of a stable institution and opening it up as a site of contest, debate and feeling.
Table of Contents
1. Marriage and Emotion in Historical Context 2. Affection and Passion in Early Modern Spanish Separations 3. "He Asked Her Why She Was Crying": Young People’s Intimate Relationships, Emotions, and the Making of Marriage in Early Modern France 4. Illicit Relations in a Multiethnic City: Emotions, Fidelity, and Economic Obligations in Colonial Mexico 5. Mobile Emotions: Bigamy and Community in Scotland, 1660-1830 6. "Companions in Labor": Same-Sex Marriage and the Romantic Ideal in the Early United States 7. "Bigamy", "Marriage Fraud" and Colonial Patriarchy in Kayes, French Sudan (1905-1925) 8. From Foreign Bride to "Korean" Mother: Managing Feelings in Modern, South Korean Marriages 9. "The Best of Both Worlds’?: Young Women, Family and Marriage in 1970s Scotland 10. "He Isn’t Affectionate at All": African-American Wives in the 1940s and the Problem of "Cool" 11. Trust, Authenticity and Bigamy in Twentieth-Century England 12. "It Seemed the Right Thing to Do!": Mixed-Orientation Marriages and Emotions in Post-War Scotland 13. Marriage in India: A Web of Intimacies 14. To Have and to Hold?: The Relationality of Emotions and Couples’ Relationships in Twenty-First-Century Britain
