Marriage

The essays in Marriage Proposals envision a variety of scenarios in which adults would continue to join themselves together seeking permanent companionship and sustenance, linking sexual intimacy to a long commitment, usually caring for each other, and building new families. What would disappear are the legal consequences associated with marriage. No joint income tax return; no immigration privileges like the “fiancée visa” or the right to bring in a husband or wife; no special statuses for prison visits or hospital decisions; no prerogative to remain silent in court by claiming “confidential marital communications”; no pension entitlements; no marital benefits and detriments regarding criminal or civil liability. The anthology makes a unique contribution amid the two marriage furors of the day: same-sex marriage and the Bush Administration's “marriage movement” (that marrying is good and more marriages would be better for society). Abolishing the legal category of marriage is the only policy suggestion in current American discourse that speaks to both causes. Activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage fight, along with marriage movement partisans, all seek improvement through law reform. Marriage Proposals gives them a viable reform—abolition of marriage as a legal status—for fighting battles in the courtroom and the streets. Contributors include Anita Bernstein, Peggy Cooper Davis, Martha Albertson Fineman, Linda C. McClain, Marshall Miller, Lawrence Rosen, Mary Lyndon Shanley, and Dorian Solot.

This book provides an in-depth exploration and analysis of marriages between Japanese nationals and migrants from three broad ethnic/cultural groups - spouses from the former Soviet Union countries, the Philippines, and Western countries. It reveals how the marriage migrants navigate the intricacies and trajectories of their marriages with Japanese people while living in Japan. Seen from the lens of ‘gendered geographies of power’, the book explores how state-level politics and policies towards marriage, migration, and gender affect the personal power politics in operation within the relationships of these international couples. Overall, the book discusses how ethnic identity intersects with gender in the negotiation of spaces and power relations between and amongst couples; and the role states and structural inequalities play in these processes, resulting in a reconfiguration of our notions of what international marriages are and how powerful gender and the state are in understanding the power relations in these unions.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family" by Ch. Letourneau is one of the first examples of a family and relationship book for the "modern" age. It shows how the marriage dynamic has changed over time, starting at the first historic examples of the union. If you're interested in learning about psychology and family dynamics, this is an excellent place to start.

The Hebrew Bible offers a metaphor of marriage that portrays men and women as complementary, each with their distinct and 'natural' roles. Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible draws on contemporary scholarship to critique this hetero-normativity. The book examines the methodological issues involved in the application of queer theory to biblical texts and draws on the concept of gender performativity - the construction of gender through action and behaviour - to argue for the potential of queer theory in political readings of the Bible. The central role of metaphor in reinforcing gender performativity is examined in relation to the books of Jeremiah, Hosea and Ezekiel. The book offers a radical reassessment of the relationship between biblical language and gender identity.

First published in 2002. This fascinating collection of essays examines the politics of gender and desire in premodern Iberia. Eukene Lacarra Lanz brings together a group of noted specialists in Arabic, as well as Castilian, Catalan and other Romance languages, to investigate the changes that affected marriage and sexuality over the course of the millennium, from approximately 650 to 1650 A.D. The contributors utilise a variety of literary and philosophical texts, legal documents, and medical treatises to explore a broad range of topics, such as shrew-taming, wedding rituals, wet-nursing, cross-dressing, sodomy and moral pornography. The volume's interdisciplinary approach traces the origins and genealogies of the predominant discourses on these subjects that engaged the minds of medieval and premodern writers, moralists, politicians and scientists alike. Marriage and sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia offers a rich history and insightful analysis of some of the central themes of Hispanic literary and cultural life.

Marriage, Performance, and Politics at the Jacobean Court constitutes the first full-length study of Jacobean nuptial performance, a hitherto unexplored branch of early modern theater consisting of masques and entertainments performed for high-profile weddings. Scripted by such writers as Ben Jonson, Thomas Campion, George Chapman, and Francis Beaumont, these entertainments were mounted for some of the most significant political events of James's English reign. Here Kevin Curran analyzes all six of the elite weddings celebrated at the Jacobean court, reading the masques and entertainments that headlined these events alongside contemporaneously produced panegyrics, festival books, sermons, parliamentary speeches, and other sources. The study shows how, collectively, wedding entertainments turned the idea of union into a politically versatile category of national representation and offered new ways of imagining a specifically Jacobean form of national identity by doing so.

From across the years, Shri Mataji's advice on marriage, including topic such as auspiciousness, trust, sharing, respect, humility, blessing, balance, sweetness, children, ascent and love. "The marriage is not for individuals in Sahaja Yoga," Shri Mataji told us. "It is two communities. It can be two nations. It can be completely two universes." The magazine also includes a guide to five essential talks on marriage and some Sahaj wedding vows.