The history of marriage and divorce
I found this absolutely brilliant potted history of marriage today, instead of writing my book on parenting... Ten key moments in the history of marriage What I love about this piece is that it is so specific about each era of marriage. In 10 simple steps, it shows the exact evolution from chattel to love match across nearly 2000 years of the institution, via the different edicts and statutes that first accommodated, then enshrined, social change. My sense of history is not nearly specific enough, because I stopped studying history at FOURTEEN. This is because, in my lovely, proper girls' school, we had to choose between history and geography at O level. Woe betide anyone who thought it might possibly be useful to go on studying both — gosh, it might take you over the decreed number of subjects ! Meanwhile the parallel boys' school merrily put its gilded youth in for French and maths early, got them on to O/A level, and let them do as many O levels as they enjoyed. Ah! The dif...