marriage

Author Name: Stephanie Koontz

Writing a history of marriage over many years is very similar to the process of coming to terms with marriage itself. No matter how much you know your partner before you marry, your first years together will be full of surprises, both about them and you, and the struggle to reevaluate your preconceived notions will take you in directions you never anticipated when you started. This is not the book I thought I was writing! I've been researching family history for 30 years, but it wasn't until the mid-1990s that I became focused on marriage, after being repeatedly asked by reporters and seminar attendees whether the institution of marriage was beginning to crumble. Their questions were apparently based on the assumption that there had been a "golden age of marriage" in the past. So, I initially decided to write a book that would debunk the notion that marriage was currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis, and explain that the institution of marriage has always undergone changes. I quickly changed my approach completely, but the previous premise nevertheless makes sense. People have been claiming that marriage is in crisis for thousands of years, lamenting the good old days. The ancient Greeks bitterly complained about the decline in the morals of wives. The Romans lamented their high divorce rates, comparing them to an earlier era of family stability. European settlers in America, almost as soon as they set foot on dry land, also lamented the decline of the family and complained about the disobedience of wives and children.