Portraits of Marriage

From The New Yorker’s archive: a collection of pieces on matrimony and marital trouble. View in browser | Update your preferences Portraits of Marriage The longtime New Yorker writer Veronica Geng titled one of her funniest books “Love Trouble Is My Business.” It wasn’t her business alone: over time, love and love trouble, marriage and marital trouble have been at the center of some fascinating pieces in the magazine. In “Fixed,” the scholar and staff writer Jill Lepore chronicles the history, and the complexities, of couples therapy. (“Campaigns to defend, protect, and improve marriage have been around for a long time. They’re usually tangled together.”) In “A Modest Proposal,” David Sedaris recounts the multiple times he proposed to his boyfriend, Hugh, before getting a yes. In “A Couple in Chicago,” Mariana Cooke interviews Barack and Michelle Obama near the beginning of their lives together. In “The Perfect Wife,” Ariel Levy explores how Edith Windsor achieved a groundbreaking victory for same-sex marriage. Finally, in “You’re Getting Married,” from 2003, Rebecca Mead examines the booming bridal industry and how it has reshaped popular ideas about weddings and matrimony. “The average American bride and groom together spend twenty-two thousand dollars on the day that sees them transformed into man and wife,” Mead writes, “and each new union is filled not just with cordial hope but with the promise of profit.” —David Remnick From The New Yorker’s Archive Domestic Affairs You’re Getting Married The Wal-Martization of the bridal business. By Rebecca Mead | April 21 & 28, 2003 Portfolio A Couple in Chicago At home with the Obamas, in 1996. By Mariana Cook | January 19, 2009 Reflections A Modest Proposal Just when you thought you’d never get married. By David Sedaris | September 28, 2015 Newsletters Sign Up for The New Yorker’s Crossword-Puzzle Newsletter Never miss another New Yorker crossword again. Profiles The Perfect Wife How Edith Windsor fell in love, got married, and won a landmark case for gay marriage. By Ariel Levy | September 30, 2013 A Critic at Large Fixed The rise of marriage therapy, and other dreams of human betterment. By Jill Lepore | March 29, 2010 You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up. Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our Privacy Policy Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.