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MARIAL CENTER COLLOQUIUM Courting Trouble? The World Historic Transformation of Love and Marriage Stephanie Coontz (Author, historian Evergreen State College) Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007 5:00 pm.-7:00 p.m. Room 206 White Hall Marriage has changed more in the past 35 years than the previous 3,500 years, according to noted author and historian Stephanie Coontz. As individuals and as a society, we are still trying to sort out the consequences of these changes and how to cope with them. For thousands of years, marriage was not about love and mutual respect but about property, power, and male dominance. It was only 200 years ago that love began to be central to the definition of marriage, and only 100 years ago that we began the long march to equality between men and women. This talk traces the surprising transformations of marriage through the ages, showing how marriage has become fairer and more fulfilling than in the past, but also more optional and fragile. Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington, and is director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001 to 2004. She is the author of Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage; The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap; The Way WeReally Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families; and The Social Originsof Private Life: A History of American Families. She also edited American Families: AMulticultural Reader. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. Sponsored by the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual (MARIAL) A Sloan Center for Working Families
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