Item Detail
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30474
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3
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6
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English
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Public Vows : A History of Marriage and the Nation
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Harvard University Press
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"Marriage is like the sphinx — a conspicuous and recognizable
monument on the landscape, full of secrets. To newcomers the monument seems awesome, even marvelous, while those in the vicinity take its
features for granted. In assessing matrimony’s wonders or terrors, most
people view it as a matter of private decision-making and domestic
arrangements. The monumental public character of marriage is generally
its least noticed aspect. Even Mae West’s joke, “Marriage is a great institution . . . but I ain’t ready for an institution yet,” likened it to a private
asylum. Creating families and kinship networks and handing down private property, marriage certainly does design the architecture of private
life. It influences individual identity and determines circles of intimacy.
It can bring solace or misery—or both. The view of marriage as a private
relationship has become a public value in the United States, enshrined in
legal doctrine. In 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court portended a momentous
line of interpretation by finding that the U.S. Constitution protected a
'private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.'" [Author] -
Mormon Polygamy : A History
'The Liberty of Self-Degradation' : Polygamy, Woman Suffrage, and Consent in Nineteenth-Century America
The Mormon Question Enters National Politics, 1850-1856
The Mormons and the Law : The Polygamy Cases
The Refiner's Fire : The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844
'The Twin Relic of Barbarism' : A Legal History of Anti-Polygamy in Nineteenth Century America