Law Legal History

Conjugal Misconduct: Defying Marriage Law in the Twentieth-Century United States

By William Kuby
Cambridge University Press September 2019

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781316613368
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication
September 2019
Format
Paperback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

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Details

Conjugal Misconduct reveals the hidden history of controversial and legally contested marital arrangements in twentieth-century America. William Kuby examines the experiences of couples in unconventional unions and the legal and cultural backlash generated by a wide array of 'alternative' marriages. These include marriages established through personal advertisements and matchmaking bureaus, marriages that defied state eugenic regulations, hasty marriages between divorced persons, provisional and temporary unions referred to as 'trial marriages', racial intermarriages, and a host of other unions that challenged sexual and marital norms.

In illuminating the tensions between those who set marriage policies and those who defied them, Kuby offers a fresh account of marriage's contested history, arguing that although marital nonconformists composed only a small minority of the population, their atypical arrangements nonetheless shifted popular understandings of marriage and consistently refashioned the legal parameters of the institution.

  • Links a wide array of unconventional marriage practices, offering many colorful examples of marital nonconformity
  • Shows the diverse cast of characters involved in the creation and recreation of marriage law
  • Challenges readers' assumptions about what makes a proper family, and of what role the law should play in this designation

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Matrimonial advertisements, matchmaking bureaus, and the threat of commercialized courtship
2. Hasty remarriage, out-of-state elopement, and the battle against 'progressive polygamy'
3. Eugenic marriage laws and the continuing crisis of out-of-state elopement
4. Trial marriage and the laws of the home
5. Black-white intermarriage, the backlash against miscegenation, and the push for racial amalgamation
6. Averting the crisis: the birth of the marriage education movement
Epilogue
Index
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