With all the talk being thrown around about “traditional marriage”, I decided to pick up this book and educate myself about it. This book covers the history of marriage from prehistory to today, with a focus on Western Civilization. There is a small section in the beginning about hunter-gatherer peoples. Coontz explores several theories about the original purpose of marriage in society. She contrasts the patriarchal evo-psych view with a radical feminist view. Finally, she comes to the conclusion that neither is correct. Instead, marriage came about in order to unite two families and create webs of interdependence. Of course marriage has changed a lot in the past 200 years. The purpose of modern marriage is love and companionship between individuals.
This book is not about rewilding per se, but reading it from a rewilding perspective raised a lot of questions in my mind. Is the modern version of marriage better or worse than in centuries past? Nowadays in American society, a person doesn’t have true adult status until they move away from their parents and establish their own household with their own source of income. Of course, this makes America (and other countries where this is the norm) less “collapse-proof”. In America, we are all individuals. The extended family no longer has any impact on our lives, so we rely on an impersonal government for any kind of collective action. Is there anything we can do to help transition to a more collective mindset? What role should marriage play in a rewilding society? Is it still necessary since premarital sex is the norm and the stigma against single mothers has lifted?