Non-fiction book by Elizabeth Abbott
 Book cover, first edition | |
| Author | Elizabeth Abbott |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Penguin Canada |
| Publication date | 29 December 2009 |
| ISBN | 978-0143017141 |
A History of Marriage, published by Penguin Canada in 2009, is a non-fiction book by Elizabeth Abbott, the Canadian author of A History of Celibacy (1999) and A History of Mistresses (2003) that combines general history and personal histories of marriage. The book is a study of mostly North American rituals of courting, nuptials, marriage, sex, child-raising and divorce. Some topics covered are relative ages at which various societies from Chinese to Mormon married off their girls; details of the satisfying marriage of Martin Luther and former nun Katharina von Bora; the ruptured family units of Native American children removed to residential schools; the popularity of so-called Boston marriages (depicted by Henry James in The Bostonians) between like-minded women who resisted conventional marriage but weren't necessarily lesbian; and the scarcity of sponges used for contraception by Northern women during the Civil War because of the cut-off in supply from Florida. A History of Marriage was a finalist for the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction.
References
- Kirkus Reviews March 1st, 2011
- Canada Council for the Arts. "The Canada Council for the Arts - GGLA 2010 English Language Books". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2011-04-22.
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