The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions (Religion, Marriage, and Family) - Hardcover

9780802838964: The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions (Religion, Marriage, and Family)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802838960 ISBN 13: 9780802838964

Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co, 2001

Couples spend an enormous amount of time and energy planning for the perfect wedding. But what about planning for the perfect marriage? In these times of rampant divorce and “relationship” crises, it makes sense to think seriously about the many challenges of married life that loom so large today.

The Book of Marriage offers a treasury of marital wisdom from across the ages. Intellectually engaging, morally responsible, and ideologically balanced, this anthology gathers some of the deepest, wittiest, and most edifying perspectives on the big questions of married life: Why get married at all? Can love last a lifetime? How do we handle money? Who’s the boss? What about children? Conflict? Growing old? Illness and death? There is even a chapter on divorce — one calculated to save a few marriages.

To date there has been no single comprehensive book of source readings on marriage and family life. Assembled with the aid of noted scholars from various fields, this volume treats marriage as more than just a relationship — as an institution, a vocation, and a source of great spiritual and emotional rewards. Each chapter introduces a different quandary of marriage and then culls the best from ancient and modern writings on the theme. The compendium of cultural wisdom on marriage ranges from the Bible and Eastern wisdom to Aristotle, St. Augustine, Maimonides, and Judith Wallerstein; from Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Jane Austen to Edward Albee, Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, and Bill Cosby.

An important resource for young adults, college students, engaged and married couples, educators, marriage counselors, therapists, pastors, and other family professionals, The Book of Marriage celebrates the diversity and essential humanity of the marital experience in a way that is accessible, entertaining, and eminently useful.

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About the Author:

Dana Mack is the author of The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family (Simon & Schuster, 1997), newly released in paperback from Encounter Books. Her articles on education, culture, cultural history, the arts and the American family have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The New Criterion, Commentary, the Christian Science Monitor, the Oesterreichischer Musikzeitschrift, First Things, the City Journal and many other publications. / Trained as a classical pianist, Mack received her B.A. in Music from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975. A scholar of East Central Europe, she obtained an M.A. and M. Phil. from Columbia University (in 1981 and 1982, respectively) with an emphasis on cultural history. / She is a gubernatorial appointee to the Connecticut Humanities Council, on whose board she is now serving her second term. She serves also as panel member for the Connecticut Collaborations for Teaching The Arts & Humanities Grant Program (sponsored jointly by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Connecticut Department of Higher Education Eisenhower Program). She is also the publicity and public relations director for Candlelight Concerts, a fifty-two year old, non-profit Fairfield County chamber music series that has featured such world-class ensembles and artists as the Tokyo Quartet, the Beaux Arts Trio, Benny Goodman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and the Waverly Consort. / Mack is married, and lives with her husband and daughter in Wilton, Connecticut.

From Publishers Weekly:

Writings on marriage from sources both ancient and modern, secular and religious, aesthetic and utilitarian have been collected in a single volume by editors Dana Mack (The Assault on Parenthood) and David Blankenhorn (Fatherless America), both with the Institute for American Values. Intended for students and general readers as well as marriage and family professionals, The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions includes cross-cultural sources (e.g., the Bible, the Koran, works of Western and Eastern philosophy, literature from around the world) that not only look at marriage in the past but that also offer projections for its future.

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