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 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

"mail order" and arranged marriages, the racial politics of
marriage, marriage and welfare reform, global wedding industries,
and current legal

struggles over same-sex marriage.