Conjugality

1. Introduction
2. Theorizing Conjugality
3. Making Marriage
4. Sex Magic
5. Marriage Beyond the Pale
6. Fault
7. No-Fault
8. Cohabitation
9. Same-sex Marriage
10. Conclusion

"Women's studies scholar Brook . . . critically interrogates marriage and the regulation of conjugal relationships. Aptly using theoretical insights from Foucault and Butler, she offers a sharp critique of feminist discussions of marriage as a stable social institution and proposes new ways of conceptualizing marriage as a dynamic arena of regulation based on governmentality, corporeality, and performativity. Basing her study on the analysis of legal and social discourse in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Brook applies her framework in discussing historical and contemporary issues around marriage including same-sex marriage, cohabitation, and divorce . . . Overall, this is an important contribution to the field of women's studies and feminist theory, and will also be widely accessible for readers who want to learn more about changing meanings of marriage and intimate relationships. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries." - CHOICE

Heather Brook is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Policy Studies at Flinders University, Australia.

Conjugality explores the legal shape of marriage as it has been determined by countless decisions concerning entry and exit into the ancient rite. Heather Brook examines the countless rules and protocols governing marriage that make it valid in the eyes of the law. She argues that the various sexual performatives associated with marriage can establish, reinforce, or rupture conjugal unity while exploring the historical and politcal regulations and prohibitions marriage has faced. Brook unites past and present, public and private, to investigate the changing meanings and effects of conjugality, and challenge the way we think about sex, gender and relationships.

Samesex marriage is a topic receiving a huge amount of attention in this country right now, and will not disappear from the agenda anytime soon Will appeal to scholars and students in both sociology and women's studies, and possibly a small subsection of politics and law Brook looks at the similarities and differences in a wide variety of intimate relationships (marriage, same sex partnerships, de facto relationships, domestic relationships), something which has not been done before