Did you know that...The "contemporary" fashion of living together before marriage is far from new, and was frequently practiced in earlier days...Self-divorce, although never legal, was once a commonplace occurrence...Marriage is more popular today than in the Victorian era...Marriage in church was not compulsory in England and Wales until the mid-18th century. These are just a few of the fascinating, and often surprising, revelations in For Better, For Worse, the most comprehensive treatment to date of the history of marriage in a major Western society. Using fresh evidence from popular courtship and wedding rituals over four centuries, Gillis challenges the widely held belief that marriage has evolved from a cold, impersonal arrangement to a more affectionate, egalitarian form of companionship. The truth, argues Gillis, lies somewhere in between: conjugal love was never wholly absent in preindustrial times, while today's marriages are less companionate than is commonly believed. Gillis also illustrates, in rich detail, the perpetual tension between marital ideals and actual practices. This social history of the behavior and emotions of ordinary men and women radically revises our perspective on love and marriage in the past--and the present.

The bestselling author of A Wrinkle in Time contemplates the true meaning of faith in the third installment of her series of memoirs. Upon her death, the New York Times hailed Madeleine L’Engle as “an author whose childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation.” L’Engle has long captivated and provoked readers by exploring the intersection of science and religion in her work. In this intimate memoir, the award-winning author uncovers how her spiritual convictions inform and enrich the everyday. The Irrational Season follows the liturgical year from one Advent to the next, with L’Engle reflecting on the changing seasons in her own life as a writer, wife, mother, and global citizen. Unafraid to discuss controversial topics and address challenging questions, L’Engle writes from the heart in this compelling chronicle of her spiritual quest to renew and refresh her faith in an ever-changing world and her ever-changing personhood. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L’Engle including rare images from the author’s estate.

For many Egyptians in the early twentieth century, the biggest national problem was not British domination or the Great Depression but a "marriage crisis" heralded in the press as a devastating rise in the number of middle-class men refraining from marriage. Voicing anxieties over a presumed increase in bachelorhood, Egyptians also used the failings of Egyptian marriage to criticize British rule, unemployment, the disintegration of female seclusion, the influx of women into schools, middle-class materialism, and Islamic laws they deemed incompatible with modernity. For Better, For Worse explores how marriage became the lens through which Egyptians critiqued larger socioeconomic and political concerns. Delving into the vastly different portrayals and practices of marriage in both the press and the Islamic court records, this innovative look at how Egyptians understood marital and civil rights and duties during the early twentieth century offers fresh insights into ongoing debates about nationalism, colonialism, gender, and the family.

When a woman takes justice into her own hands, her husband suddenly finds himself accomplice to murder in this tense psychological thriller. On their first date back in law school, Natalie and Will Clarke bonded over drinks, dinner—and whether they could get away with murder. Now married, they’ll put the latter to the test when an unchecked danger in their community places their son in jeopardy. Working as a criminal defense attorney, Nat refuses to rely on the broken legal system to keep her family safe. She knows that if you want justice . . . you have to get it yourself. Shocked to discover Nat’s taken matters into her own hands, Will has no choice but to dirty his, also. His family is in way too deep to back down now. He’s just not sure he recognizes the woman he married. Nat’s always been fiercely protective, but never this ruthless or calculating. With the police poking holes in their airtight plan, what will be the first to fall apart: their scandalous secret—or their marriage?

“After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Eli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed, they are the best marriages the world has ever known. He presents his findings here for the first time in this lucid, inspiring guide to modern marital bliss. The All-or-Nothing Marriage reverse engineers fulfilling marriages—from the “traditional” to the utterly nontraditional—and shows how any marriage can be better. The primary function of marriage from 1620 to 1850 was food, shelter, and protection from violence; from 1850 to 1965, the purpose revolved around love and companionship. But today, a new kind of marriage has emerged, one oriented toward self-discover, self-esteem, and personal growth. Finkel combines cutting-edge scientific research with practical advice; he considers paths to better communication and responsiveness; he offers guidance on when to recalibrate our expectations; and he even introduces a set of must-try “lovehacks.” This is a book for the newlywed to the empty nester, for those thinking about getting married or remarried, and for anyone looking for illuminating advice that will make a real difference to getting the most out of marriage today.

"Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse? is the first book to present empirical evidence about the effects of same-sex marriage, based on almost two decades' worth of data and experience from the Nordic countries. Darren R. Spedale and William N. Eskridge, Jr. look at how same-sex marriage (in the form of registered partnerships) came to be in Scandinavia; who is getting married and why they are tying the knot; the Church's reception to same-sex unions; and how same-sex marriage has affected the couples, their families, their children, and their greater communities, both nationally and internationally."--BOOK JACKET.

"This is a much needed guide to the psychological aspects of retirementand how to make your retirement relationship happy, fruitful, loving, and successful ... drawing from actual accounts of retired couples this book: helps you prepare emotionally for the dramatic life changes during retirement; coaches you to find new purposes to your life beyond work; nurtures the relationship with your companion to strengthen your friendship and love; explores sexuality after retirement and how you can enjoy each other as much as you did as a younger couple; recommends strategies to successfully deal with differences around money, time together versus apart, housework, and family relationships. It is crucial that couples prepare themselves and their marriages psychologically for what could very well comprise a quarter of their lives."--Back cover.

Life Is Never Mainly About Love and Marriage. So Learn to Live and Date for More. Many of you grew up assuming that marriage would meet all of your needs and unlock God's purposes for you. But God has far more planned for you than your future marriage. Not Yet Married is not about waiting quietly in the corner of the world for God to bring you "the one," but about inspiring you to live and date for more now. If you follow Jesus, the search for a spouse is no longer a pursuit of the perfect person, but a pursuit of more of God. He will likely write a love story for you different than the one you would write for yourself, but that's because he loves you and knows how to write a better story. This book was written to help you find real hope, happiness, and purpose in your not-yet-married life.

We are the ultimate social animal. Our intimate relationships are the most important thing in our life, often, more important than life itself--insofar as we would die for those we love. This book should help you to navigate the storms and doldrums that lie ahead, and, more important still, to question the very purpose and value of your journey.

We marry to be happy and have our companions with whom to live the rest of our lives in harmony. We get loved, have fun, children but at times things get bitter, we fail to cope with our partners’ behaviors who are drunkard, quarrelsome, abusive, fighting, and violent, only to hold on because we promised ourselves better and worse. A person meets the other having been from different places with different walks of life, it’s not easy to learn each other very fast especially when love is much at first sight. Couples met, and they, unlike their ancestors, married for love. Men and women were transformed into husbands and wives. Husbands assumed they were legally and culturally assigned the role of provider and protector. In exchange for providing shelter and putting food on the table, they exacted obedience and sexual submission and expected their wives to give birth and nurture children cheerfully. Wives willingly assumed their place in the domestic sphere, submitted to their husbands' rule in exchange for their protection, and ceased having an independent legal identity. But despite these rigid roles, they placed high expectations on the relationship: Wives hoped for a romantic, communicative, and fair-minded protector; husbands for a supportive, gentle, and loving companion. Marriages were fundamentally stable, but as the century progressed, expectations rose, and marital instability increased as those expectations went unfulfilled.