Marriage and Civilization

How Monogamy Made Us Human

By: William Tucker

Narrated by: Patrick S. Korten

In his stunning new book, Marriage and Civilization, author William Tucker looks at the evidence from biology, evolution, anthropology, history, and culture to come to a remarkable conclusion: it was the monogamous pairing of male and female - unusual among mammals - that led to human evolution. Moreover, it is monogamous marriage that has shaped Western Civilization, giving us our sense of justice, undergirded Western democracy, and is the greatest institution we have for perpetuating human freedom and happiness.

Yet marriage is now under threat - and perhaps not in ways that people suspect. We could actually see the de facto abolition of marriage, with the state taking many of the responsibilities formerly assumed by the nuclear family.

Among Tucker's many eye-opening observations:

• How primitive polygamy was a retrogression from the original monogamous structure of the human family
• Why monogamy was essential to the development of ancient Greek democracy
• Why it was the Catholic Church, not the Bible or Christianity in general, that was the great defender of monogamous marriage in Western Civilization
• Why polygamous societies - from primitive farming communities, to the Mongols, to the Muslim world, to the early Mormons - are internally violent and have bloody borders
• Why same-sex marriage - utterly irrelevant, in evolutionary terms - is a distraction from the real marriage debate we should be having
• The prospects for monogamous marriage - and the dangers if it collapses

Marriage and Civilization might be the most important, provocative, and talked-about book of the year.

©2014 William Tucker (P)2014 Regnery Publishing

An Excellent book but it's so negative about Islam

The book is very good and in an interesting topic, well researched and highly but he seems to no nothing about Polygamy in an Islamic world,he make an artificial connection between Polygamy in Islam and violence,he talks like the Monogamous Western Civilization is a peaceful civilization which something makes anyone laugh,while the polygamous Muslim civilization is a violent civilization while exactly the opposite is the true,I encourage the author to visit one of the Islamic country by himself and see what's happening in the real world instead of his wrong assumptions, other wise the book is excellent especially in the last chapters that discusses the Modern western family and the Radical attemps to destroy it, recommend to everyone but do not believe the part of the Islamic world.

Entertaining history lesson

It flight trough history with detail and crash in an abrubt conclusion. I recomend it as a hope for mobogamus mariage.

Good until opinions overtook facts

I very much enjoyed this book until the last chapters where factual information seemed to stop and opinions and political views overruled. This tainted the material that came before.

Very informative

I was impressed with the wide array of examples of points and places in history through which the author tells the story. it's especially helpful information in the wake of the new world of online dating.

Exactly what I was looking for

This is an excellent biological analysis of monogamy. It has some biology and some history in a good balance. It was exactly what I was looking for.