Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn't get any louder, along comes this book to ask, "What tradition? " In Marriage, a History, Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is -- and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This book brings historical perspective to today's marital debate.