Product Description

We commonly think of marriage as a private matter between two people, a personal expression of love and commitment. In this pioneering history, Nancy F. Cott demonstrates that marriage is and always has been a public institution. From the founding of the United States to the present day, imperatives about the necessity of marriage and its proper form have been deeply embedded in national policy, law, and political rhetoric. Legislators and judges have envisioned and enforced their preferred model of consensual, lifelong monogamy--a model derived from Christian tenets and the English common law that posits the husband as provider and the wife as dependent. In early confrontations with Native Americans, emancipated slaves, Mormon polygamists, and immigrant spouses, through the invention of the New Deal, federal income tax, and welfare programs, the federal government consistently influenced the shape of marriages. And even the immense social and legal changes of the last third of the twentieth century have not unraveled official reliance on marriage as a "pillar of the state." By excluding some kinds of marriages and encouraging others, marital policies have helped to sculpt the nation's citizenry, as well as its moral and social standards, and have directly affected national understandings of gender roles and racial difference. Public Vows is a panoramic view of marriage's political history, revealing the national government's profound role in our most private of choices. No one who reads this book will think of marriage in the same way again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217346 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Marriage, both as a private contract and a public institution, has profoundly affected national policy since the earliest days of the republic. In this exhaustively researched study (reference notes occupy 80 of its 288 pages), Cott, the Stanley Woodward professor of history and American studies at Yale, posits a monolithic Christian monogamous marriage, formed by the mutual consent of a man and a woman, as American colonists' model. This model, she argues, was congruent with the political ideal of representative government: the Constitution's "more perfect union" was likened to the domestic ideal of marital union. Entry to marriage, Cott observes, has been regulated by the states, which have also used their power to limit this civil right. Before the Civil War, in slaveholding states, slaves had no access to legal marriage, while long after the war, mixed marriages between whites and African-Americans, or whites and Asians, were prohibited in many states. The U.S. government's (losing) legal battle against the Mormon practice of polygamy has been another continuing saga in U.S. social history. Cott cites the current prevalence of divorce, same sex couples seeking legally recognized unions, and new interpretations of the roles of husband and wife as factors that portend further changes in the social landscape. Though her subject is a fascinating one, and Cott has a sterling reputation that will draw women's studies devot es, her densely packed prose and lengthy paragraphs make this book most appropriate for serious students of U.S. social history. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this fascinating study, Cott (history and American studies, Yale) examines the evolution and impact of marriage law on the American social structure. Applying Christian tradition and English common law, Colonial marriage statutes regarded the union as a contract of mutual consent and obligations, with the dominant husband having protector/provider responsibilities and the dependent wife, nurturer/child bearer duties. The author contends that over time this concept shaped public views of gender roles and limited women's civic identity and independence. In addition, marriage law has been used to define and restrict political participation by minorities, immigrants, and non-Christian groups; it has also influenced legislation concerning property rights, the income tax, social security, and naturalization. Today, despite cultural changes, the legal constraints of marriage remain a cornerstone of the status quo, withstanding pressure for acceptance of same-sex unions and improved status for single parents. Presented in a clear, chronological fashion, this work provides a wealth of thought-provoking information. Highly recommended.DRose Cichy, Osterhout Free Lib., Wilkes-Barre, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Christian monogamy and property rights have been crucial to state and federal policies on marriage ever since the American republic was born, and how Americans have felt about marriage has affected much larger developments than the joining of one man and one woman in matrimony. A major objection to slavery was that, since slave marriages were extralegal, serial monogamy and, worse, bigamy were as rife among slaves as polygamy among Mormons, and as abominable to good Christians. Meanwhile, the women's rights movement whittled at husbands' prerogatives by successfully lobbying for wives' and especially widows' needs. White-Indian intermarriage was proposed to bring the country's original, pagan inhabitants into the Christian fold, and solicitude for Christian marriage, laced with xenophobia, affected immigration policy, usually to keep Asians out. The twentieth century has seen increased equalization of marital rights but decreased emphasis on Christian understandings of marriage. Marriage is now much less a matter of public policy--an institution--than one of private accommodation--a contract. Cott's cool, intelligent overview is sometimes demanding but always absorbing. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

This is a great book!
This book is a clearly-written, informative and provocative history of the institution of marriage. Nancy Cott beautifully traces the development of marriage and the political and legal framework in which it has developed since the founding of the American Republic. Only an expert historian could so concisely explain the complex phenomena undergirding this institution with such grace and ease. A must-read for all those interested in legal, social and women's history in America.

Strong, Detailed Historical Discussion
Although the institution of "marriage" among humans is generally considered to be thousands of years old, it has a much shorter history as a public insitution in the United States. Nancy Cott's book dives straight into the history of marriage in the U.S., from early societal attitudes and government regulation during the push westward to later government attempts to reign in those with differing sexual mores throughout the 18th century. Her discusison of the state of marriage in the 20th century is equally revealing.

Nancy weaves a tale with many facts that few people are probably aware of: that marriage was frequently unregulated in early America, that divorce was relatively common (but frowned upon), and that religious and utopian communities were challenging the status quo of marriage and state control of the institution from very early on in our nation's history. She makes the best case I've ever heard for proving that marriage is a public institution subject to the will of the state and men in power, transformed and changed over decades by government, often for purposes of exercising control over the population (especially women) and for imposing on the nation the perceived natural order of things.

Marriage may be ancient in origin, but Nancy Cott does an excellent job in the end of showing that "marriage" in the U.S. did not simply grow organically from these ancient traditions, and that government is capable of altering the institution for its own purposes as it sees fit, regardless of what might truly best for society or the individuals in it. While Cott does not explore the impact of her findings on same-sex marriage in great detail, it is very enlightening to understand that debate in light of the changes in marital law over the past 200 years that Cott cleverly elucidates for the reader. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand the evolution of the institution of civil marriage in the United States.

An Eye Opener
A detailed history of how legal, lifelong, heterosexual monogamous marriage has been actively promoted, mandated, and enforced by various means throughout the history of the USA, with little or no tolerance for those who espouse nontraditonal relationship forms. Well researched and well written. Highly recommended.