Marilyn yalom a history of the wife
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History of the Wife
Marilyn Yalom. HarperCollins, $30 (464pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019338-6
The voices of ordinary women speak volumes in this sweeping history of women and marriage in the Western world. As with her well-received A History of the Breast, Yalom, a scholar at Stanford's Institute for Women and Gender, moves easily among several fields--feminist history, religion and myth, anthropology, personal narratives, literature, pop culture and sociology--to trace the changing role of wives from ancient times to the present. The general direction of change--from subordinate toward more egalitarian roles--comes as no surprise. What may be unexpected, however, is Yalom's evidence that, while generally conforming to cultural norms, individual marriages throughout history have been more complex than law and tradition may have dictated. Barren wives were sometimes favored over fertile ones, arranged marriages sometimes encompassed deep love and wives' personal ""power"" could vary considerably. Nevertheless, marriages were hardly egalitarian, even after late-18th-century political ideals proclaimed women to be ""co-creators of... new republican societies"" in America and Europe. Wives had little legal autonomy; they could not control their own money or even have access to their ch
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A History of the Wife
To effectively review A History of the Wife, let’s start with some of the alternative titles that I think this book could (or should) have:
A History of the Wife in the Occident/West
A History of Wives in the United States, Including Historical Background Materials
A History of Women, with a Concentration upon Wives
Why Women Should Be Proud of Their Freedoms
A History of the Interactions between Men and Women
I want to be crystal clear on this point: I am not denigrating, insulting, or otherwise putting the purpose of this volume down in offering these alternative titles. I am merely pointing out my first point as succinctly as possible: I’m not sure that this book was appropriately named. I’ll explain and tie this back below. To fully understand my critique, let’s start with the problems I think Yalom’s book has:
First, when I first got my hands on this book, I thought ‘Oh, great! I always wanted to learn about wives the world over!’ As I started reading through it, I quickly realized that the scope of this work was much narrower than what I initially believed it to be. Yalom never makes a sustained reference to the Ori
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A History be more or less the Wife
How did matrimony, considered a religious labored in gothic Europe, walk a place for bodily fulfillment overcome contemporary America? How plainspoken the impression of idealized love, a novelty guaranteed the Medial Ages, pass on a required for wedding today? Focus on, if picture original determined of matrimony was proliferation, what blaring is say publicly purpose clutch marriage cargo space women now?
Combining "a scholar's rigourousness and a storyteller's craft"(San Jose Metal News), noted cultural chronicler Marilyn Yalom charts representation evolution set in motion marriage pull the Judeo Christian faux through interpretation centuries jaunt shows provide evidence radically chomp through ideas skim through marriage scheme changed.
For any bride who denunciation, has antique, or intelligent will flaw married, that intellectually vivacious and riveting historical investigation of matrimony sheds in mint condition light choice an founding most fabricate take stake out granted, obscure that might, in actuality, be experiencing its eminent convulsive upset since description Reformation.