Dr. Arielle Kuperberg

Sociology

Associate Professor, 2017

Marriage: A History
by Stephanie Coontz

I first read Marriage: A History while studying for comprehensive exams in graduate school. The book covers the history of marriage going back to Hunter-Gatherer times, and how the function and meaning of marriage changed throughout different periods in history. This book has been influential on me in multiple ways. It has influenced my research, some of which looks at the history of premarital cohabitation, and differences between cohabitation and marriage; prior to reading this book I focused on other topics. It has influenced my teaching; I always assign two chapters from this book to my "Marriage and the Family" course, and draw heavily upon it when discussing the history of families and marriage in that course, my course "Population Problems" and my course "Work and Gender." Professionally, I later met Stephanie Coontz, who has become an important mentor to me when it comes to working as a "public sociologist." Finally, this book was recently cited in the supreme court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nation-wide, which demonstrates the important policy impacts that social science research can have!

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