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 societally recognized and to some degree societally regulated. Laws and customs and traditions and cultural assumptions are intrinsically involved in defining what is and is not a marriage. Furthermore, married couples must always come to terms in some way with the societal expectations of marriage. This does not mean that they always have to conform to societal norms. Even rebellious couples, however, confront choices that are shaped by the expectations of their times-the expectations held by the people around them and the expectations that they have internalized while growing up in their society.

Second, marriage has a history and a trajectory. The form of marriage did not simply appear out of nowhere, given to human beings by God or nature. Instead, marriage is a cultural creation, an

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).

Without a strict separation between women's work and men's work, practical necessity no longer impels men and women towards marriage rather than towards other forms of mutual support between adults.

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