Modern Marriage

A new essay from one of Britain’s most celebrated state-of-the-nation novelists.

Marriage has been around for over 4,300 years and while it remains a union that establishes the rights and obligations of two people, it has - for the most part - changed out of all recognition.

In this discerning essay, novelist Amanda Craig asks what it means to be married in the twenty-first century. How has female economic independence, gay marriage, divorce, increasing longevity and equality changed the institution? Why do people still want it? Is it outdated, as many claim, or still the key to happiness? And can it be disentangled from the patriarchal model, or is the latter integral?

Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy and became a journalist for newspapers such as The Sunday Times, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent, and regularly reviews for the Guardian, the Spectator and the New Statesman. Often compared to Balzac, Trollope and E.M. Forster, she is the author of nine books, including the novels The Golden Rule, which was longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize, as was Hearts And Minds (2009), and The Lie of the Land, which was a Radio 4 Book At Bedtime, a YOU Magazine Book Club choice and was picked by six national newspapers as a Book of the Year in 2018. Her latest novel, The Three Graces, is currently being developed for TV by Momentum Pictures.