Origin of the Distinction of Ranks: Or an Inquiry into the Circumstances Which Give Rise to Influence and Authority in the Different Members of Society Book

Very interesting read. From the conclusion:

"... one of the more important conclsuions of this study [is that] marriages were generally stable in traditional Western society and that a significant extent of marriage breakdown is peculiar to modern times, notably the last hundred years ... [In the past] the imperatives of marriage and the family economy produced flexible and potentially very low expectations, and a high level of tolerance, both of which have changed over time ... Marriage is integral to broad social, political, economic and cultural processes, and it is futile to expect marriage to remain constant or to have a consistent social meaning while social structures, economic relationships, demographic patterns, and cultural configurations have undergone the massive transformations of the past centuries." (pp. 254-5)