Not just a critique of marriage but one of the best books EVER on romantic relationships and how they really work. What do people want from love? How do they think marriage will help them, and what does it really give them? Marriage is all about love, right? Actually, it's more about money. Behind the romantic language, marriage is primarily a financial agreement merging the assets and liabilities of two individuals into a single corporate entity. After your wedding, the money you earn and debts you incur are no longer legally yours; they belong to the marital "community"-a common pot that both of you contribute to and draw from. It's a lot like Communism: an idealistic sharing of resources and risks supposedly for the common good. What could go wrong with this plan? Pretty much the same things that brought down political Communism in the late 20th Century: It slows growth, suppresses initiative, dilutes responsibility and mires decisions in bureaucracy. Healthy relationships need clear boundaries, and marriage erases too many of them at once. Marriage was designed for medieval times. Back then, life was hard and short; most marriages were arranged, and a woman was essentially the property of her husband. Marriage was a sort of licensing system for sex and childbirth. Once the relationship was officially approved and the religious ceremony concluded, the couple's overriding goal was to produce as many children as possible, knowing that many would die. Times have changed. Birth control, longer life spans, sexual freedom and women's rights have rewritten the rules of matrimony. Under the laws of most Western countries, marriage is no longer a sex license or child-rearing contract, only a contract to merge financial resources. "It's only money," couples may say, but Glenn Campbell argues that love and money are separate issues that should be kept that way. In modern Western society, unmarried people can legally have sex, live together, raise children, buy property together and do nearly everything else associated with a committed relationship, so why do they need to marry at all? What are you really getting when you walk down the aisle? Is marriage merely a public announcement to make your relationship "official," or does it fundamentally change the relationship? With simple, powerful and accessible arguments, The Case Against Marriage explains why, if you truly love someone, marriage may not be the wisest way to show it.

In Two Volumes. Volume 1, General Bibliographies And Reference Books; Volume 2, History, Auxiliary Historical Sciences, Ethnography, And Geography.

An Annotated Bibliography Of Selected Materials In The Chinese Collection Of The Hoover Institution On War, Revolution, And Peace. Hoover Institute Bibliographical Series No. 8.

The twenty-one essays in this book provide an overview of the contributions of Nobel laureate and Hoover Institution honorary fellow Friedrich A. von Hayek to the fields of economics, political theory, history, and philosophy.

The essays in The United States in the 1980s, written by a group of renowned and widely respected specialists, are a major contribution to a balanced discussion of the choices that lie ahead. The authors analyze the central issues, describe the policy options open to the country, and recommend specific courses of action to deal with or mitigate the problems confronting the United Statest--in recognition of the fact that the major problems of the new decade "are interrelated, that no problem can be resolved in isolation, and that different perspectives can contribute to a clearer and more balanced understanding of the problems that are often viewed as separate from one another." The United States in 1980s will not provide comfort or reassurance for pessimists or optimists. On the contrary, by stressing that there are realistic limits to America's ability to solve all problemst--domestic and internationalt--the essays offer guidance for sensible solutions and identify the solid base of strength upon which the United States can build in the new decade.