1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910457805403321

Autore

Davis Rebecca L (Rebecca Louise), <1975->

Titolo

More perfect unions [[electronic resource] ] : the American search for marital bliss / / Rebecca L. Davis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass., : Harvard University Press, 2010

ISBN

0-674-05625-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (329 p.)

Disciplina

362.82/86

Soggetti

Marriage counseling - United States

Marriage - United States

Divorce - United States

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-302) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Prologue: the pursuit of marital happiness -- Shaken foundations -- Searching for economic and sexual security -- Counseling prosperity -- Quantifying compatibility -- Sacred partnerships -- Marriage under fire -- The state of marriage -- Epilogue: twenty-first-century battlegrounds.

Sommario/riassunto

The American fixation with marriage, so prevalent in today's debates over marriage for same-sex couples, owes much of its intensity to a small group of reformers who introduced Americans to marriage counseling in the 1930's. Today, millions of couples seek help to save their marriages each year. Over the intervening decades, marriage counseling has powerfully promoted the idea that successful marriages are essential to both individuals' and the nation's well-being. Rebecca Davis reveals how couples and counselors transformed the ideal of the perfect marriage as they debated sexuality, childcare, mobility, wage earning, and autonomy, exposing both the fissures and aspirations of American society. From the economic dislocations of the Great Depression to more recent debates over government-funded "Healthy Marriage" programs, counselors have responded to the shifting needs and goals of American couples. Tensions among personal fulfillment, career aims, religious identity, and socioeconomic status have coursed



through the history of marriage and explain why the stakes in the institution are so fraught for the couples involved and for the communities to which they belong. Americans care deeply about marriages-their own and other people's-because they have made enormous investments of time, money, and emotion to improve their own relationships and because they believe that their personal decisions about whom to marry or whether to divorce extend far beyond themselves. This intriguing book tells the uniquely American story of a culture gripped with the hope that, with enough effort and the right guidance, more perfect marital unions are within our reach.

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910966515203321

Autore

Feldman Allen

Titolo

Formations of violence : the narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland / / Allen Feldman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago : , : University of Chicago Press, , 1991

ISBN

9780226240800

0226240800

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (333 pages)

Disciplina

303.6/09416

Soggetti

Political violence - Northern Ireland

Counterinsurgency - Northern Ireland

Political prisoners - Northern Ireland

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-309) and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Artifacts and instruments of agency -- 2. Spatial formations of violence -- 3. Hardmen, gunmen, butchers, doctors, stiffs, ghosts, and black men -- 4. Being done : rites of political passage -- 5. The breaker's yard -- 6. Eschatology.

Sommario/riassunto

"A sophisticated and persuasive late-modernist political analysis that consistently draws the reader into the narratives of the author and those of the people of violence in Northern Ireland to whom he talked. . . . Simply put, this book is a feast for the intellect"-Thomas M. Wilson,



American Anthropologist "One of the best books to have been written on Northern Ireland. . . . A highly imagination and significant book. Formations of Violence is an important addition to the literature on political violence."-David E. Schmitt, American Political Science Review