History of the Wife

A History of the Wife is a provocative and comprehensive study of how marriage has affected the lives of women from the earliest days of civilization to the 21st century. Using the modern marriage as a focal point, the distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of this institution in the Judeo-Christian world and discusses the role it will play in the future.

Drawing extensively from diaries, memoirs, letters, legal statutes, and religious practices dating back to Biblical times, this lucid, rich narrative highlights the turning points in the history of the wife: from Ancient Greece, where daughters were given by fathers to husbands as property arrangements to medieval Europe, where marriage was infused with religious meaning; from the ideals of companionate marriage of the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment to the sexual revolution in America, when a new, international model of spousal relationships emerged.

About the Author:
Marilyn Yalom is a senior scholar at the Institute for Women and Gender at Stanford University. In 1992 she was decorated by the French government as an Officer des Palmes Academiques, She lives with her husband, the author Irvin D. Yalom, in Palo Alto CA.