"How I wish this had been available when I was performing weddings! I would have given a copy to each couple, knowing I could give nothing better." - John A. Taylor, Chaplain Emeritus, Cornell University
". . . a breath of fresh air . . . pulls aside marriage's white veil to look at the misunderstood institution." - Dorian Solot, author of Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple
"Don't even think about marriage without reading this book." - Ray Martin, Ph.D., Chair, Philosophy Department, Union College
Based on numerous interviews with people from both good and failed marriages, his own experience, and years of thinking about the subject, philosopher/marriage counselor Richard Taylor has developed a set of compelling proposals for reforming marriage.
Taylor argues that marriage should not be thought of as a status created by the one-time event of a wedding, but rather as a long-term process. The idea that a legal ceremony can create a marriage is a legal fiction, he says. In reality, couples become married through years of mutual regard and caring, based upon the mutual fulfillment of needs.
By the same token, relationships that don't work should be dissolved by mediation rather than by adversarial legal proceedings, which make today's divorces so bitter and costly.
In a culture that produces marital unhappiness by fostering unrealistic romantic fantasies about love and marriage, Taylor's radical prescription for reforming our attitudes toward matrimony makes eminently good sense.
:Richard Taylor (Interlaken, NY) has held professorships in philosophy at Brown University, the graduate faculty of Columbia University, and the University of Rochester. He is the author of Restoring Pride; Love Affairs: Marriage & Infidelity; and Freedom, Anarchy, and the Law.
