Conjugal Misconduct

William Kuby's Conjugal Misconduct discusses how the boundaries of conventional marriage were expanded or defied entirely in the twentieth-century United States. The book addresses exceptional coupling patterns, finding and identifying the broad array of marital nonconformity. None of these types of coupling were practiced by more than a small minority at the time, yet Kuby argues that they reveal the outer limits of coupling patterns. Paying money to a commercial matrimonial bureau to find a mate seemed scandalous, risky, and immoral in the early 1900s, precisely because the practice circumvented family interference and allowed individuals to define themselves and their priorities. Antivice reformers demanded bills to ban the matrimonial agencies; others tried to transform them into Christian marital bureaus that would assist in creating lasting holy unions. Elopements to other states helped couples marry quickly. “Consecutive polygamy” or the quick remarriage after divorce, threatened to damage the sanctity of monogamy (p. 2). Throughout the 1920s, Kansas senator Arthur Capper pushed for a constitutional amendment to put marriage and divorce law in the hands of Congress, but the profit motive encouraged some states to resist national marriage laws. Wedding industries developed in less restrictive states, with clerks, ministers, taxi drivers, and hotels, among others all taking a share

Economics · Management · Misconduct · Nonconformity · Political science · Remarriage · Sexual misconduct · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Reproductive Health and Technologies