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Handcuff cuffed around wedding ring

“Marital Rape” Was Legal Longer Than You Think

In 1984, only 18 American states denied that wives were the sexual property of their husbands.
by Eleanor Johnson via Dame Magazine on December 20, 2024
The First Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, 1848.

What American Divorces Tell Us About American Marriages

On the inseparable histories of matrimony and disunion in the United States.
by Lyz Lenz via Literary Hub on February 22, 2024
"Choosing the Ring" painting by Jean Carolus (1814–1897).

How Diamond Rings Became a Symbol of Love

While engagement or wedding rings are certainly not a new idea, the prevalence of diamonds is a more recent phenomenon.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via The Saturday Evening Post on February 13, 2024
Sister Rosetta Tharpe holding a guitar

Amazing Base: A Singer Wed in a D.C. Ballpark, and 19,000 Paid to Attend

Attendees packed D.C.’s Griffith Stadium in 1951 for the wedding spectacular of gospel singer Rosetta Tharpe, who’s now the subject of a show at Ford's Theatre.
by Terence McArdle via Retropolis on May 7, 2023
Good Housekeeping cover with girl looking at wedding cake topper

Wedding Cake Toppers: Miniatures, Excess, and Fantasy

Tying frilly white doves and normative bride-and-groom couples to feminist art and DIY craft practices that offer opportunities for creativity and fantasy.
by Kendall DeBoer via Dilettante Army on May 1, 2023
Nineteenth century nuclear family.

How Government Helped Create the “Traditional” Family

Since the mid-nineteenth century, many labor regulations in the US have been crafted with the express purpose of strengthening the male-breadwinner family.
by Livia Gershon, Arianne Renan Barzilay via JSTOR Daily on April 12, 2023
Edith Wharton.

Why Do Women Want?: Edith Wharton’s Present Tense

"The Custom of the Country" and its unique relationship with ideas of feminism and the culture of the early 20th century elite.
by Sarah Blackwood via The Paris Review on November 1, 2022
A drawing of Blanche Chesebrough with her husband standing out of frame, his hand on her shoulder.

Escape From the Gilded Cage

Even if her husband was a murderer, a woman in a bad marriage once had few options. Unless she fled to South Dakota.
by April White via Smithsonian on May 24, 2022
Painting of a bride cutting cake surrounded by guests at 19th century wedding

A Brief History of the New York Times Wedding Announcements

Cate Doty on the evolution of a society mainstay.
by Cate Doty via Literary Hub on May 14, 2021
James Dobson speaking at a Focus on the Family event

The Eugenics Roots of Evangelical Family Values

Although they have different beliefs, eugenicists and evangelicals have historically worked together to further a joint agenda.
by Audrey Clare Farley via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on May 12, 2021
A family poses outside their homestead, somewhere out west, in the late 19th century.

How Personal Ads Helped Conquer the American West

That tradition of finding partners in the face of social isolation persists today.
by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie via Atlas Obscura on April 29, 2021
Lithograph of Native Americans, 1870.

Polygamy, Native Societies, and Spanish Colonists

Having more than one wife was an established part of life for some Native peoples before Europeans tried to end the practice.
by Livia Gershon, Sarah M. S. Pearsall via JSTOR Daily on April 19, 2021
A walk-up customer at the door of a minister's marriage license booth in Elkton, Md. during the 1920-30s.

How Elkton Became the Marriage Capital of the East Coast

The story of one small Maryland town that became the Marriage Capital of the East Coast in the 20th century.
by Melissa August via TIME on February 11, 2021
Painting of a couple kissing under a broomstick

Broomstick Weddings and the History of the Atlantic World

From Kentucky to Wales and all across the Atlantic, the enslaved and downtrodden got married – by leaping over a broom. Why?
by Tyler D. Parry via Aeon on December 14, 2020
A family poses for a photo outdoors.

Queering Postwar Marriage in the U.S.

In the post-WWII era, American lesbians negotiated lives between straight marriages and homosexual affairs.
by Lauren Gutterman via Not Even Past on February 1, 2020

What the Reconstruction Meant for Women

Southern legal codes included parallel language pairing “master and slave” and “husband and wife.”
by Livia Gershon, Amy Dru Stanley via JSTOR Daily on November 6, 2019

A Bureaucratic Prologue to Same-Sex Marriage

The weddings made possible by local government and broad legal language.
by Michael Waters via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 24, 2019

Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century

During and after slavery, some whites considered legal marriage too sacred an institution to be offered to black Americans.
by Vanessa M. Holden via Black Perspectives on September 19, 2018

Enslaved People and Divorce in the African Diaspora

Restoring agency to enslaved people means acknowledging not only that they created marriages, but that they ended them, too.
by Tyler D. Parry via Black Perspectives on March 31, 2018
Mural of a wedding on a plantation, while African Americans working in fields.

'Until Death or Distance Do You Part'

African American marriages before and after the Civil War.
by Alexis Coe, Tera W. Hunter via Lenny Letter on February 13, 2018

‘Thanks Are Due Above All to My Wife’

When it comes to intellectual partnerships, sometimes an acknowledgment is enough.
by Allison Miller via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 11, 2018
Oneida Community members outside their mansion house, ca. 1865-1875.
partner

When We Say “Share Everything,” We Mean Everything

On the Oneida Community, a radical religious organization practicing “Bible communism,” and eventually, manufacturing silverware.
via BackStory on November 17, 2016
View of Boston in 1730.

Civil Unions in the City on a Hill: The Real Legacy of "Boston Judges"

For the English Puritans who founded Massachusetts in 1630, marriage was a civil union, a contract, not a sacred rite.
by Mark A. Peterson via Commonplace on April 2, 2004
Inez Milholland with her dog.

Let Us Mate

Proposal advice from Inez Milholland, originally published in the Chicago Day Book, 1916.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 3, 1916
A hand holds a US flag and a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court building in a crowd celebrating the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
partner

How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, their home state refused to recognize same-sex marriages.
by Kit R. Roane via Retro Report on June 18, 2025
The letters Q and A having a conversation.

The History of Advice Columns Is a History of Eavesdropping and Judging

How an Ovid-quoting London broadsheet from the late seventeenth century spawned “Dear Abby,” Dan Savage, and Reddit’s Am I the Asshole.
by Merve Emre via The New Yorker on June 16, 2025
Woman in prayer looks up to an angel holding a pen for advice.

What Kind of Questions Did 17th-Century Daters Have?

A 17th-century column shows that dating has always been an anxiety-riddled endeavor.
by Sophia Stewart via The Atlantic on May 7, 2025
Coretta Scott King sitting in front of a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.

America Has Gotten Coretta Scott King Wrong

Her ghostwritten autobiography diminishes her, and I found out why.
by Jeanne Theoharis via The Atlantic on April 7, 2025
Women working at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Maryland, 1937.

Women’s Work: Section 213 and the Women Fired from the Federal Government

In 1932, married women were among the first targets in a campaign to reduce federal spending and balance the budget.
by Tanya L. Roth via The Saturday Evening Post on March 24, 2025
Jesus blessing two men who are kneeling in prayer.

Lusting for Zion

A new book questions what we think we know about heterosexuality and Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.
by John G. Turner via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 23, 2025
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