Explore marriage rites, laws, and customs from around the world.
This authoritative survey compiles legal frameworks, social norms, and cultural practices that shaped unions across nations. It presents a broad, historical view of how marriages were formed, recorded, and regulated in different eras and places, highlighting contrasts and common threads.
This edition draws on a wide range of sources to illuminate how marriage influenced family life, property, inheritance, and personal liberty. It contrasts religious and civil approaches, from early church reforms to modern legal codes, and shows how cultures debated consent, age, and the accountability of partners. Readers gain a clearer sense of how law and custom intersect with daily life in intimate matters.
- Clear explanations of consent, age, and parental roles in marriage across societies.
- Descriptions of civil and religious ceremonies, dowries, and wedding customs.
- Notes on divorce, bigamy, and the social consequences of marital norms.
- Global snapshots that connect legal theory with everyday practice in families.
Ideal for readers of historical social customs and comparative law, this edition offers a broad, accessible look at how marriages have been governed across cultures.