Public Vows

A Book Review by Molly McCary

If you type in “marriage quotes” in your Internet’s search engine, you will find thousands of pages filled with witty quotes and even some humorous jokes. But very seldom will you stumble upon a quote that reveres marriage as a beautiful step in two people’s lives. Nowadays, the divorce rate is at its highest point, citizens are at their lowest tolerance, and many are questioning if this thing called ‘marriage’ is really all that it’s cracked up to be. But has marriage always been such an ill-fated tyrant? In Public Vows: A history of marriage and the nation, Author Nancy Cott elaborates on America’s marriage dilemma, delving deeper into the root of many ethnical views on marriage as well as smaller categories of this binding agreement. While this book may not provide much marriage advice, it does provide a thorough background filled with rich controversial history to help fill its pages.

While during America’s early beginnings Monogamy was considered superior to all other forms of marriage, it had yet to prove its grand stature among many other nations. It was agreed among many that because marriage benefitted social order and indulged the natural need for sexual desire, it therefore had very much a political reason for being. Marriage was viewed not only as political and monogamous, it was also seen as civilized and Christian-like. Slavery has played a major role in America’s history and integrating marriage into the situation was only natural. In an effort to formally civilize and Christianize, slaves were pushed to marry, which was one more aspect of their lives that was controlled.

In Public Vows, Nancy Cott does not shy away from addressing the more unconventional forms of love. If it’s in America’s history, she’ll address it. “Free love,” she explains emerged in the 1850s (or at least that’s when it surfaced to the public’s view). Though the idea of free love may trigger visions of hippies and marijuana, it’s humble beginnings spawned from the disapproval of the traditional marriage system. They argued that it was wrong for individuals to remain in love-less marriages and argued that marriage was in its own weird way a form of slavery. Although these “free lovers” were usually seen as “freely lusting,” they stood firm in their tracks, bonding together to grow more strong. Though very individualistic, these citizens formed groups based on common interests, and worked together to provide a sustainable, somewhat secluded living for all inhabitants.

The advocates of free love were harshly awoken when the industrial revolution found its way to America. Cott explains that while the rich got richer, the free lovers got poorer. Major factories began to replace the humble local farms and markets, pushing those with little into even more communal societies.

While the term “free love” applied to anyone who believed in more liberal views on marriage, such as divorce, as well as people who were literally free lovers, it soon adopted another group of people—polygamists. Their name did not originate as polygamists but rather from “free love” to “complex marriage” to finally the formal name of “polygamy.” Their exercise of polygamy blended what America donned as a marriage, but also incorporated the essential aspect of free love, meaning a man can love and marry as many women as he chooses. Polygamy hit the fan quickly if not quicker than free love had. The individual at the forefront of polygamy and later leader of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Joseph Smith, was supposedly instructed from God to advise in the practice of “plural marriage.” Cott explains, though, that this group kept their private lives on the down low. Not surprising considering all the scrutiny seen from their predecessors—the free lovers.

While America is usually perceived as the land of the free and the home of the brave, freedom and bravery were neither achieved nor rewarded. Like every nation before it, America was not a nation that accepted all kinds. Slavery, women’s rights, and marriage practices have all been put on the chopping block. But the brutality and hostility American’s can show is displayed both through words as well as actions, and many (or should I say most) Americans were not pleased with this new thing called plural marriage. It was not long before the polygamy secret was out, Joseph Smith was murdered, and the polygamist group was packing up and moving to find safer lands out west. While the polygamy battle between Congress and the Mormon Church eventually settled with the Church agreeing to cease the support of the polygamist lifestyle, their actions did not match up with their words. Still today, polygamy exists, proving the individuality of humanity.

The Mormons view of marriage, just like the diverse views existing from many different races and cultures displayed in Public Vows, is interesting because when individuals are denied something as encompassing as marriage, they are also denied a place in the social order of society. Our nation has, from inception, been one founded on the principles of freedom, yet, we are not a free nation. While freedom is displayed most prominently through private choices, it is ironically through those choices that most freedom is extinguished. While Nancy Cott may not side on one path or another, she displays the fact in the best historical context possible, letting the reader not only evaluate where marriage has come from, but also glimpse into the future of where it might be heading.