Recognizing Ourselves - Hardcover

Lewin, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231103921 ISBN 13: 9780231103923

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1998

Synopsis

In April 1993, as part of the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, hundreds of couples participated in "the Wedding," a symbolic commitment ceremony held in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. Part protest and part affirmation of devotion, the event was a reminder that marriage rights have become a major issue among lesbians and gay men, who cannot marry legally and can only claim domestic partner rights in a few locations in the United States. Yet despite official lack of recognition, same-sex wedding ceremonies have been increasing in frequency over the past decade.

Ellen Lewin, who has consecrated her own lesbian relationship with a commitment ceremony, decided to explore the myriad ways in which lesbians and gay men create meaningful ceremonies for themselves. She offers the first comprehensive account of lesbian and gay weddings in modern America. A series of richly detailed profiles―the result of extensive interviews and participation in the planning and realization of many of these commitment rituals―is woven together to show how new traditions, and ultimately new families, are emerging within contemporary America.

Just as the book is a moving portrait of same-sex couples today, it is also a significant political document on a new arena in the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. In a larger sense, Lewin's work is about the politics surrounding same-sex marriages and the ramifications for central dimensions of American culture such as kinship, community, morality, and love.

Lewin explores the ceremonies themselves, which range from traditional church weddings to Wicca rituals in the countryside, with portraits of the planning, the joys, and the anxieties that led up to the weddings. She introduces Bob and Mark, a leather fetishist couple who sanctified their love by legally changing their last names and exchanging vows in tuxedos, leather bow ties, and knee-high police boots. In an equally absorbing profile, Lewin describes Khadija, from a working-class black family deeply suspicious of whites (and especially Jews) and Shulamith, raised in a Zionist household. She tells of how the two women struggled to reconcile their widely disparate upbringings and how they ultimately combined elements of African and Jewish traditions in their wedding. These, among many other stories, make Recognizing Ourselves a vivid tapestry of lesbian and gay life in post-Stonewall United States.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Lewin is professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture, coeditor, with William Leap, of Out in the Field: Reflections of Gay and Lesbian Anthropologists, and editor of Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America.

From the Back Cover

Ellen Lewin, who has consecrated her own lesbian relationship with a commitment ceremony, decided to explore the myriad ways in which lesbians and gay men create meaningful ceremonies for themselves. She offers the first comprehensive account of lesbian and gay weddings in modern America. A series of richly detailed profiles - the result of extensive interviews and participation in the planning and realization of many of these commitment rituals - is woven together to show how new traditions, and ultimately new families, are emerging within contemporary America. Lewin explores the ceremonies themselves, which range from traditional church weddings to Wicca rituals in the countryside, with portraits of the planning, the joys, and the anxieties that led up to the weddings.

Reviews

Lewin (Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, Beacon, 1996), who describes herself as a "married lesbian," seeks to "fashion a cultural understanding of lesbian and gay weddings as powerful and complex ritual occasions." Her book opens with a discussion of the current legal and political status of same-sex marriage but focuses mostly on individual commitment ceremonies and the analysis of how these rituals relate to the themes of tradition, family, community, authenticity, and resistance. As opposed to many recent books, e.g., Becky Butler's Ceremonies of the Heart: Celebrating Lesbian Unions (Seal Pr.-Feminist, 1997), meant to help couples design their own ceremonies, this work is a scholarly, anthropological analysis of the ceremonies themselves. As legalizing same-sex marriage is currently being hotly debated, this work provides an important look at the meaning of the ceremonies for those involved. Recommended for academic libraries.?Debra Moore, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231103921
• ISBN 13: 9780231103923
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288