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I Don't
By: Susan SquireImprint: Bloomsbury USA
Format: ePub Encrypted (DRM)
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For 10,000 years, marriage - and the idea of marriage -- has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads to paternity (and hence to couplehood), and leading up to the dawn of the modern "love marriage," Squire delves into the many ways men and women have come together and what the state of their unions has meant for history, society, and politics - especially the politics of the home. This book is the product of 13 years of intense research, but even more than the intellectual scope, what sets it apart is Squire's voice and contrarian boldness. Learned, acerbic, opinionated, and funny, she draws on everything from Sumerian mythology to Renaissance theater to Victorian housewife's manuals (sometimes all at the same time) to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic view of the many things marriage has been and has meant. The result is a book that will provoke and fascinate readers of all ideological stripes: feminists, traditionalists, conservatives and progressives alike.
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| Title of History eBook: I Don't | |
| Release Date: 01-15-2011 | |
| Publisher: Bloomsbury USA |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | I Don't |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9781608196562 |
| File size | 2971 |
| Internet Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | ePub, short for electronic publication is one of our favorites and should be yours for a couple of reasons. ePub offers reflowable text giving you flexibility to manipulate how the content is presented. Moreover, lots of cool features are now being developed for the reader like advanced video and audio. ePub is now an industry standard, so all of the "non-propreitary" hardware manufacturers are now supporting it. |
I Don't
Chapter One
Paradise Lost, Just Because He Listened to His Wife
Here's the heart of the matter, the belly of the beast, the big slam-dunk: the first, and until modern times the only, template for marriage in the West. With the consistent backing of church, state, and society, it sets the one-size-fits-all standard of behavior to which husbands and wives must conform (or else), dictates their respective roles, and defines their mutual obligations. It governs the development of Jewish and Christian doctrine as well as secular law. Its impact on marriage and family life has been, to put it mildly, significant. It's the idea that will not die. And it's a marvel of concision, to boot.
One line. Six words. Eight syllables. The book of Genesis, chapter 3, verse 16: Your husband ... shall rule over you. So God commands Eve when he returns to the garden after his seventh-day rest to find her and Adam skulking around, covered in fig leaves and shame. As long as religion holds sway over the West, so will the belief that the Bible is a literal transcription of God's words, and so will the belief that God's commands are final, subject to neither challenge, revision, nor dismissal by humans. So too, then, the belief that when God commands Eve to be ruled by her husband, he commands all wives to be ruled by their husbands-and, by implication, commands all husbands to rule their wives, which will not go unnoticed. And there things stand for umpteen centuries.
The idea of husbands ruling their wives would not be news to most people living in the biblical era. Work on the book of Genesis-
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