ABSTRACT

In Getting Married, Carrie Yodanis and Sean Lauer examine the social rules and expectations that shape our most personal relationships. How do couples get together? How do people act when they’re married? What happens when they’re not? Public factors influence our private relationships. From getting engaged to breaking up, social rules and expectations shape and constrain whom we select as a spouse, when and why we decide to get married, and how we arrange our relationships day to day.

While this book is about marriage, it is also about sociology. Yodanis and Lauer use the case of marriage to explore a sociological perspective. Getting Married will bring together students’ academic and social worlds by applying sociology to the things they are thinking about and experiencing outside of the classroom. This book is a useful tool for many sociology courses, including those on family, gender, and introduction to sociology.

chapter 1|5 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|8 pages

Picking a Partner

chapter 3|8 pages

I Do, You Do, We All Do

chapter 4|6 pages

Why Marry at All?

chapter 5|4 pages

What About Love?

chapter 6|6 pages

Hooking Up

chapter 7|5 pages

Dating

chapter 8|5 pages

Th e Proposal and the Wedding

chapter 9|7 pages

Sleeping, Spending Time, and Having Sex

chapter 10|7 pages

Sharing Children, the Work, and a Name

chapter 11|5 pages

Love, Abuse, and Calling It Quits

chapter 12|5 pages

Th inking About Change

chapter 13|9 pages

Th inking About “Radical” Change

chapter 14|4 pages

Th inking About the Rules

chapter 15|8 pages

Th inking About Other Explanations

chapter 16|6 pages

Conclusion