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Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. By NANCY COTT. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. 304. $29.95 (cloth); $15.95 (paper). Nancy Cott’s subtitle, A History of Marriage and the Nation, should be taken seriously. Her overview of marriage in the United States from the Revolutionary Era to the present focuses on marriage understood as a public institution and on its regulation by state law and federal law and policy. She deftly incorporates into a fluent whole a stunningly wide array of specialized subjects, ranging from English common-law doctrine and self-made marriages on the nineteenth century’s moving frontier to federal tax law, immigration policy, and the antigay backlash. The transitions tying together these and other potentially disparate topics are so fluent and seemingly effortless that nonspecialists may not fully appreciate Cott’s impressive narrative achievement. The book will be indispensable reading for all who want a professionally reliable and up-to-date overview of the history of marriage and public policy. Several important themes sustain the book’s strong narrative drive. The most general, perhaps, is that law is formative. The book traces a tension between the belief that marriage law merely affirmed a divinely or naturally sanctioned institution and the view that marriage is conventional, a "political creation” defined by…

Jan. 10--After nearly 30 years of living together, doing the dishes together and paying the bills together, Louise Young figures it's time to marry her partner. Soon, for the first time, it may be legally possible for her to wed her beloved, Vivienne Armstrong. "Heterosexual couples can get married two or three or four times, and each time they have all the rights and privileges marriage can provide," Dr. Young said. "We've been together all these years and have none." Like lesbians and gays around the country, the Far North Dallas women are ready to run off and tie the

Interview With Patrick Guerriero, Genevieve Wood.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: At least one member of the Massachusetts bar liked the state's Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage, an opinion that is not popular in our latest poll numbers as you can see -- 61 percent saying gay marriage should not be recognized as valid by law. Joining me to discuss the ruling and its fallout Genevieve Wood and Patrick Guerriero Ms. Wood is with the Family Research Council, a culturally and socially conservative group. Mr. Guerriero is a Log Cabin Republican, a group for gay Republicans. Good afternoon to both of you. PATRICK GUERRIERO, LOG

Kansas Law on Gay Sex by Teenagers Is Overturned

Matthew R. Limon had just turned 18 when he had consensual oral sex with a boy just shy of 15 at a Kansas school in 2000. He was convicted of criminal sodomy and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Had the sex been heterosexual, the maximum penalty would have been 15 months. Yesterday, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the starkly different penalties violated the federal Constitution's equal protection clause. It said the state's "Romeo and Juliet" statute, which limits the punishment that can be imposed on older teenagers who have sex with younger ones, but only if they are of

Mexico City Officials Legalize Gay Unions

The city assembly here legalized same-sex civil unions for the first time in Mexico's history, overcoming long-standing objections from the Catholic Church and prejudices stemming from this country's culture of machismo. The law gives gay people in the country's largest city the right to make medical decisions for their partners and to list their partners as beneficiaries of pensions and inheritances. Activists hope it will inspire legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, perhaps at the national level. "This is a historic day," said Alejandro Brito, director of the activist group Letra S: Health, Sexuality and AIDS. "It will reinvigorate our movement." Mexico City has

Utah cases challenge whether anti-polygamy laws are constitutional

Polygamy is the practice (usually religious) of having multiple spouses (usually wives). There are two possible lines of constitutional attack on anti-polygamy statutes. One derives from the First Amendment's religion clauses. The other derives from Due Process "right to privacy" concepts -- and in particular, from the Supreme Court's recent holding in Lawrence v. Texas that adults have a privacy right that extends to private, consensual sex acts. In the end, neither of these lines of attack will -- or should -- be successful. Still, it is worth taking a close look at each to examine the extent to which the