Conference details

The current age of individualism has shaped public debates over marriage and family. As a result, marriage, for many, is reduced to the concept of a close committed relationship between consenting adults.

The goal of this conference is to foster an enriched public appreciation of the institutional dimension of marriage.

This conference adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on the fields of social anthropology, sociology, history, economics, religious studies, and social philosophy.

Contributors will explore:

• the complex institutional ways that marriage penetrates into human culture;
• how marriage shapes the social experience of being male and female and relationships between the sexes;
• how marriage shapes the social experience of children, paternity, and maternity;
• marriage and the problem of institutional change;
• the problem of de-institutionalization;
• marriage and liberal democracy;
• renewing the public discourse on marriage.