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Article: Marriage
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE
as an institution in America has changed in a variety of ways over the last three centuries. From early colonial days, the differing marital practices and understandings of Native Americans, of africans, of European peasants, and eventually of all the peoples who brought their marriages to North America mixed with the more settled expectations and understandings that church and governmental authorities thought they were bringing from England. By the late eighteenth century, America was already understood as a society in which parental power was notably weak, a society in which children, including daughters, were genuinely free to choose who, when, and whether to ...