A History of the Wife

New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001. 441 pages, illustrations; 25 cm. Tight, clean copy. A near-fine copy of the first printing, with a minor printing imperfection (top edge of pages 15 to 50 trimmed too much, text unaffected). Remainder mark/tail edge. Stated First Edition. Fine DJ. "How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now? Combining 'a scholar's rigor and a storyteller's craft' (San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed. For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation. / Marilyn Yalom is a senior scholar at the Institute for Women and Gender at Stanford University. She is the author of A History of the Wife; A History of the Breast; Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory; and Maternity, Mortality, and the Literature of Madness. She lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband, psychiatrist and writer Irvin Yalom." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Fine. 8vo.