Paperback: Penguin
320 pages, $24.00 CAN
Available at all fine book stores
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A History of Marriage explores how marriage developed, and examines real-life experiences in their wider historical context: How did a wealthy couple's experience differ from a poor one's? How did children both fit into and define the shape of marriage? What were a couple's alternatives to staying together, and how long was the average marriage until death ended it? Abbott provides an intriguing look at the way we were, and poses important questions relevant to a 21st-century understanding of marriage.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR A History of Marriage:
"Can we really understand celibacy or mistresses without considering marriage, the socio-sexual bond that convention tells us is the heart of love? Elizabeth Abbott's new volume of accessible social history completes a sparkling trilogy about human intimacy. Her writing is as witty and informative as ever, her tone as wry and wise, and the value to understanding ourselves as profound. No thoughtful person -- married, celibate, unfaithful or otherwise -- should be without this book."
- Mark Kingwell, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, public intellectual and the author of seven books, including Concrete Reveries, Glenn Gould and Better Living, The World We Want.
"I love this book. Elizabeth Abbott is an engaging story-teller. She wisely recognizes that we can only understand the changing meanings of marriage if we also appreciate that what it means to live single has changed dramatically, too."
- Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, and of the Living Single blog for Psychology Today
"Elizabeth Abbott’s probing history deftly shows how this always fragile, yet always resilient institution has evolved. It’s not always a pretty picture, but it’s a fascinating one."
- Judith Timson, author of Family Matters
"Elizabeth Abbott has penned a masterpiece...A History of Marriage is a wide-ranging account of how the social intersects with many forms of the personal. An outstanding work that deserves as many readers as can be found."
- Ahmad Saidullah, author of Happiness and Other Disorders
"With her genius for the apt example and her characteristic wit and warmth, Elizabeth Abbott expertly illuminates the lived experience of marriage past and present, discovering, in the process, some surprising parallels between the way we were and the way we are today, and offering suggestions to help bolster tomorrow's unions. Wide-ranging yet cohesive, sharply observed yet hopeful, A History of Marriage, like the institution it animates, rewards commitment."
- Susan Olding, author of Pathologies: A Life in Essays
Fascinating and utterly engrossing, Elizabeth Abbott's book is crammed full of delicious morsels of information about nuptials past and present. What we take for granted as the immutable, eternal rituals of romance and marriage aren't that at all. You should see how they did it in the past. Romance? Forget it."
- Maureen Jennings, author of The Murdoch Mysteries
"Like any marriage, this book is full of surprises. Elizabeth Abbott’s take on the ties that bind so many of us is lively and intelligent. A must-read."
- Catherine Dunphy , former Toronto Star feature writer and author of Morgentaler, A Difficult Hero, and two young adult novels Caitlin and BLT.