The Making of Modern American Marriage" The purpose of this talk is to outline a way of thinking about the history of the institution of marriage in the United States. When I describe marriage as an institution, there are two things I mean to imply. First, marriage is a social structure. Two individuals do not simply come together and create a marriage anew. Instead, when couples get married they enter into a relationship that is …showed first 75 words of 7552 total…

…showed last 75 words of 7552 total…Courtship in America (New York, 1984). Rotundo, E. Anthony, American Manhood: Transformation in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993). Ryan, Mary P., Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll, Disorderly Conduct (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750 (New York: Vintage Books, 1980, 1991).