"Ah, then, was it all spring weather? Nay! but we were young-and together." SHE had always adored him. From the first moment he came to the house-an overgrown, good-looking schoolboy, and had started to bully and domineer over her, Marie Chester had thought him the most wonderful person in all the world. She waited on him hand and foot, she was his willing bondslave; she did not mind at all when once, in an unusual fit of eloquence, she had confided in him that she thought it was the loveliest thing on earth to have a brother, young Christopher answered almost brutally that she "talked rot, anyway, and that sisters were a bally nuisance!" He looked at her with a sort of contempt for a moment, then added: "Besides, we're not brother and sister, really!" They were not; but their fathers had been lifelong friends, and when George Chester's wife inconsiderately-or so her husband thought-died without presenting him with a son, and almost at the same time young Christopher Lawless was left an orphan, George Chester promptly adopted him.

You've said, "I Do," and you are married. So what's next, and where's happily-ever-after? T.N. Carpenter's humorous tall tales and personal short stories about marriage will assure you that you are not alone when facing the better, the worse, and the inevitably crazy times that married couples can experience throughout their marriage, and especially during the newlywed years. You will see that when there are ups and downs along the way to happily-ever-after, sometimes, you just have to be creative and have a sense of humor.T.N. Carpenter's seriocomic account of her first years of marriage illustrates how despite all the challenges that married couples can face, it is possible to still remain in love and committed to your marriage. And, it is even possible to find happily-ever-after.

Daughter of Good Fortune tells the story of Chen Huiqin and her family through the tumultuous 20th century in China. She witnessed the Japanese occupation during World War II, the Communist Revolution in 1949 and its ensuing Land Reform, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Reform Era. Chen was born into a subsistence farming family, became a factory worker, and lived through her village’s relocation to make way for economic development. Her family’s story of urbanization is representative of hundreds of millions of rural Chinese.

In this engaging new book, Howard Chudacoff describes a special and fascinating world: the urban bachelor life that took shape in the late nineteenth century, when a significant population of single men migrated to American cities. Rejecting the restraints and dependence of the nineteenth-century family, bachelors found sustenance and camaraderie in the boarding houses, saloons, pool halls, cafes, clubs, and other institutions that arose in response to their increasing numbers. Richly illustrated, anecdotal, and including a unique analysis of The National Police Gazette (the most outrageous and popular men's publication of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century), this book is the first to describe a complex subculture that continues to affect the larger meanings of manhood and manliness in American society. The figure of the bachelor--with its emphasis on pleasure, self-indulgence, and public entertainment--was easily converted by the burgeoning consumer culture at the turn of the century into an ambiguously appealing image of masculinity. Finding an easy reception in an atmosphere of insecurity about manhood, that image has outdistanced the circumstances in which it began to flourish and far outlasted the bachelor culture that produced it. Thus, the idea of the bachelor has retained its somewhat negative but alluring connotations throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Chudacoff's concluding chapter discusses the contemporary "singles scene" now developing as the number of single people in urban centers is again increasing. By seeing bachelorhood as a stage in life for many and a permanent status for some, Chudacoff recalls a lifestyle that had a profound impact on society, evoking fear, disdain, repugnance, and at the same time a sense of romance, excitement, and freedom. The book contributes to gender history, family history, urban history, and the study of consumer culture and will appeal to anyone curious about American history and anxious to acquire a new view of a sometimes forgotten but still influential aspect of our national past.

A fascinating exploration of the changing face of social customs and gender politics. Kirkus Reviews Nansamba is married off aged sixteen to young Ggalabuzi from a neighboring village. It is an arranged marriage in 1940s rural Uganda and she works hard to build a prosperous household together with her easy-going and hardworking husband. Twelve years into the marriage, Ggalabuzi exercises his male right to enter into a second marriage without telling his wife; and does so with her younger sister Mucwa. Nansamba navigates this hazardous marital and familial road with extraordinary wisdom, courage and dignity. At twenty-eight, educated, city-born Biiti is considered an old maid. Her anxious relatives find her a rural husband past his prime and with a secret history. He soon destroys their marriage and she abandons it to become a successful businesswoman and anchor of her family. For a quarter of a century relatives, friends and in-laws from Nansamba and Biitis families crisscross each others lives and create much drama and many children, including four sets of twins.