ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the historical roots of contemporary romantic partnership practices in the United States. Fortunately, since the late 1980s several notable historical works have been published including D’Emilio and Freedman’s Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (1988), Takaki’s A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) and Coontz’s Marriage: A History (2005). These works, along with feminist analyses of gender and sexuality, have created new models for situating our current customs, behaviors, and ideas about romantic partnering within the larger context of history, including the legal, structural, and social supports/constraints surrounding intimate behavior. Additionally, they point out the myriad ways in which race, class, gender and sexuality are simultaneously regulated (Andersen & Witham, 2011).
