Man and Wife in America -- Book Review

Man & Wife in America :  A History

By Hendrik Hartog.   Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2002

This is an outstanding legal history of marriage in the United States from its beginnings through "the long 19th century" as Hartog puts it, which lasted "until sometime after World War II."   It will be especially interesting to people who have some legal training or background.  The casual reader may find it a bit of a challenge.  The prose tends toward the legalistic, full of legal terms and definitions.  Defining these terms through the details and decisions of specific cases is indeed the bulk of the book.  But these definitions and their legal and extra-legal underpinnings are the heart of marriage law through the 19th century – and our heritage today. 

The main point that I took away from this was a realization of how imposing a factor property, money, and wealth are in the institution of marriage.  From the legal point of view, marriage is largely a property contract.  It is a very peculiar one, to be sure, with many catches and clauses, but when a marriage comes before the law, at least in the time frame covered by this book, the issues are ones of property and financial support.  However romantic you might have been when you began the marriage, when you come before the courts you are talking about money and property.  You don't sue your partner because you are unhappy, because you are sexually dissatisfied, because you don't feel loved, or you can’t get along on a personal level.  The emotional issues, the interpersonal issues, the dreams and expectations that usually provide the impetus for marriage on a personal level, are not the issues with which courts are concerned.  The courts are concerned by and large with dividing up property, settling estates, seeing to it that financial obligations are met.  Marriage in the courts is very unromantic.  After reading this book, it seems to me that it would do people well to consider this aspect of it carefully before entering into marriage. 

 Another factor that has heavily influenced marriage both legally and interpersonally in this country is geography:  the vast size of the country, the mobility of the population, the differing jurisdictions with their differing laws and conventions concerning marriage.  All played a role in shaping and complicating the institution and its legal manifestations.  In the 19th century people didn't divorce as much as today; they simply left, separated,  disappeared.  Communication was not what it is today.  Bureaucracies were not as extensive in their reach and control over people.  Marriage was not any stronger an institution in the 19th century than it is today.  People just dealt with its unhappiness differently.  Hartog shows again and again how people made use of the geographical realities of the country to escape an unhappy marriage or a disadvantageous legal environment.   Geography gave people an escape route that the law often did not.  But it also created bewildering complications for judges who were faced with untangling the consequences of these maneuvers. 

Hartog clearly knows the material.  He seems to have a vast knowledge of the cases and legal culture of this time period.  He carries us up to about the mid-1950s and then finishes with a cursory summary bringing us forward to the present.  The book is mainly about the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, but he presents a solid foundation.  Anyone who thinks seriously about marriage, either philosophically or on a personal level would benefit from reading it.