Using the modern marriage as a focal point, a study of how marriage in the Judeo-Christian world has affected the lives of women ranges from the earliest days of civilization to the twenty-first century and speculates about what is to come in the future. Reprint. 50,000 first printing. 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. Acknowledgments ix Introduction Is the Wife an Endangered Species? xi Wives in the Ancient World: Biblical, Greek, and Roman Models 1(44) Wives in Medieval Europe, 1100-1500 45(52) Protestant Wives in Germany England, and America, 1500-1700 97(49) Republican Wives in America and France 146(29) Victorian Wives on Both Sides of the Atlantic 175(51) Victorian Wives on the American Frontier 226(37) The Woman Question and the New Woman 263(31) Sex, Contraception, and Abortion in the United States, 1840-1940 294(23) Wives, War, and Work, 1940-1950 317(35) Toward the New Wife, 1950-2000 352(49) Notes 401(26) Credits and Permissions 427(3) Index 430