Marriage is a topic familiar to us all.  It is something we associate
with adulthood and maturity, with love, and, in some cases, with
family.  Scholars have studied marriage as one of the major building
blocks of human society, intrigued by its variation in form and
content across cultures.  This course will examine marriage as a
political institution, one that facilitates alliances between groups,
produces systems of inequality between men and women and among
different classes of people, and creates exclusionary boundaries
through political and legal regulation.  The course will introduce
students to various feminist and anthropological theories of marriage
and will apply those theories to specific case studies from around the
world and across time periods.  We will discuss such topics as
evolutionary theories of marriage, arranged marriage, marriage and
racial politics, marriage and welfare reform, and current legal
struggles over same-sex marriage.