Mike’s Reviews > What Is Marriage For?: The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution > Status Update

I really don't like that Graff implicitly equates pedophiles with bisexual people, when she says that pedophiles generally don't show a gender preference in their sexual activity. Maybe the data says that (or said it in 1999), but Graff hasn't directly addressed bisexuality once, and she really needs to.

Graff doesn't always use rich people as her default, but she does usually establish a default (whether rich people or poor people) and then explain other groups as exceptions, which is just a confusing way to go about giving us this information.

At times, this book gets dangerously close to saying, "Gay marriage should be allowed because it makes gay people more productive members of capitalism." Still, this is a very good takedown of how arbitrary marriage and the ideas surrounding it are.

Graff's attempts to be funny are a bit cringe-worthy, but the information here is very interesting. This isn't comprehensive, exactly, but it doesn't aim to be - I definitely feel like I'm getting the important parts of the history of marriage.