Marriages are in trouble today. That is clear. Effective mothods of combating this trend are less evident. Counselors, pastors and social workers need more than mere theories or mere moralizing. They need a practical and comprehensive model for understanding couples and their problems. They need a throughly Christian perspective that is biblical, compassionate and human. Everett Worthington provides this in an integrated, biblically based theory of marriage and marriage therapy with analysis at three levels: the individual, the couple and the family. The model he has constructed, with techniques drawn from the major psychological schools, is standard enough to guide counselors in actual interventions and powerful enough to produce change. A thoroughgoing overview of the assessment process includes practical, workable guidelines for: creating realistic, mutually-agreeable goals for counselor and clients; estimating the number of sessions needed to reach those goals; and planning the actual assessment, intervention and termination sessions. Next Worthington offers specific techniques for enhancing cooperative change, intimacy, communication, conflict resolution and forgiveness within the marriage. But keeping couples from slipping back into old patterns is one of the counselor's most difficult tasks. So Worthington concludes with suggestions for solidifying change and effectively concluding the counseling relationship. Here is a text that will be a standard for counselors, pastors and mental health professionals in the years to come.

Weddings in 15th-century Italian courts were grand, sumptuous affairs, often requiring guests to listen to lengthy orations given in Latin. D'Elia shows how Italian humanists used these orations to support claims of legitimacy and assertions of superiority among families jockeying for power, as well as to advocate for marriage and sexual pleasure.

The essays in Marriage Proposals envision a variety of scenarios in which adults would continue to join themselves together seeking permanent companionship and sustenance, linking sexual intimacy to a long commitment, usually caring for each other, and building new families. What would disappear are the legal consequences associated with marriage. No joint income tax return; no immigration privileges like the “fiancée visa” or the right to bring in a husband or wife; no special statuses for prison visits or hospital decisions; no prerogative to remain silent in court by claiming “confidential marital communications”; no pension entitlements; no marital benefits and detriments regarding criminal or civil liability. The anthology makes a unique contribution amid the two marriage furors of the day: same-sex marriage and the Bush Administration's “marriage movement” (that marrying is good and more marriages would be better for society). Abolishing the legal category of marriage is the only policy suggestion in current American discourse that speaks to both causes. Activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage fight, along with marriage movement partisans, all seek improvement through law reform. Marriage Proposals gives them a viable reform—abolition of marriage as a legal status—for fighting battles in the courtroom and the streets. Contributors include Anita Bernstein, Peggy Cooper Davis, Martha Albertson Fineman, Linda C. McClain, Marshall Miller, Lawrence Rosen, Mary Lyndon Shanley, and Dorian Solot.

A compulsively readable, startling, and philosophically rich book about marriage, from an acclaimed critic and filmmaker "Baum is an erudite and entertaining guide through the landscape of marriage. . . . A fascinating exploration."--Stephanie Merritt, The Guardian "As far back as our history books go, we have no record of a time preceding marriage. Isn't that an extraordinary fact?" So writes Devorah Baum in this searching and revelatory book. Marriage, for better or for worse, is how humans have organized their world and told their story. Straight, queer, coupled, single: none live outside the remit of marriage. One might as well try to live beyond language. But when confronted with the question "What do intellectuals think of marriage?" Baum concludes that most philosophers have preferred to avoid the subject. Is marriage then an intellectual blind spot? To fill in the gaps, she draws on a wide range of cultural material, from the classical to the contemporary, while interweaving reflections on her own experiences of matrimony to both critique and celebrate marriage's many contradictions and its profound effects on us all. In doing so, she reveals how marriage has worked as a cover story for power and its abuses on the one hand, and for subversive and even utopian relational practices on the other. Entertaining, illuminating, consoling, and candid, On Marriage is an unprecedented investigation of what we are really talking about when we talk about marriage.

The United States Constitution has already been interpreted to provide a variety of family-related protections which, if applied consistently, also protect same-sex couples and their children. Only by radically reformulating and severely undermining existing protections can courts and commentators justify the claim that the Federal Constitution does not offer a wealth of family protections, including the right to marry a same-sex partner. Discussing the constitutional implications of civil unions with a special focus on how they might be treated in the interstate context, Strasser explains how the courts and commentators have reworked and significantly weakened a variety of constitutional protections in their attempts to establish that same-sex couples are not afforded constitutional protections. He further suggests that the constitutional protections for religion support rather than undermine the constitutional protection of same-sex unions.

"The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family" by Ch. Letourneau is one of the first examples of a family and relationship book for the "modern" age. It shows how the marriage dynamic has changed over time, starting at the first historic examples of the union. If you're interested in learning about psychology and family dynamics, this is an excellent place to start.