Drawn from a time span of 2,000 years and from many different nationalities, these extracts show the feelings and experiences of marriage, through the writings of Darwin, Kafka, Rabelais, Jane Austen, Pepys, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Alison Lurie, Albee amongst others. The editor charts the course of a marriage in twelve chapters, beginning with courtship and proposal and the wedding ceremony itself, through the establishment of married life, having children and ending with old age and death. As well as describing the happiness, the extracts look at the factors that lead to adultery or divorce.