Description
Book SynopsisExploring the phenomenon of divorce in American society, this book looks at divorce as a legal action, as an individual experience, and as a cultural symbol in its era of institutionalization. It analyzes the legal and legislative aspects of divorce and the public response to them.
Trade Review"Anyone who imagines social lament over divorce to be a very recent phenomenon should read Norma Basch's book, which tells a fascinating set of stories about law and about culture in the United States, from the forging of divorce provision in the Revolutionary era to the moral ambiguities and acknowledged hypocrisies it caused a century later. Tacking between the social facts of rising divorce and the alarmed or enthusiastic commentary on it, Framing American Divorce guides us through the social landscape of nineteenth-century America, a tour of shifting hierarchies in which anxieties about increasing personal freedom were as powerful as desires for it." - Nancy Cott, author of The Grounding of Modern Feminism
