| At the outset of the 21st century, the United States finds itself in the midst of a pro-marriage movement, one sector of which is characterized by religio-political marriage reformers whose agenda involves returning the family to a traditional model predicated on the husband-as-family-leader. In this dissertation, I refer to this model as the "corporate family" and observe that these family moralists advocate marriage-for-life as the mechanism most expedient for achieving the corporate family model. The modern marriage movement has a precedent in the marriage reform movement of the late 19th century, which resulted by about 1920 in the formal regulation of marriage throughout the United States. Emerging from the framework of the earlier movement, modern era marriage reform both adopts and expands on the processes and discourse of its predecessor.;Each of these marriage reform movements followed periods of "gender crisis" during which traditional masculine identity and patriarchal institutions such as the family experienced destabilization due, in part, to demographic and economic upheavals. These gender crises culminated, in each period, in a full-fledged women's rights movement that sought independence and equality for women. This dissertation suggests that religio-political marriage reform that promotes the corporate family model represents a backlash to these movements for women's rights.;Using critical feminist theories and social constructionist perspectives, I analyze the discourse of marriage reform by drawing on publications of one marriage reform organization from each of the salient time periods. The logic of this discourse involves reversion of the feminist egalitarian discursive frame to that of the corporate family. This dissertation explores the discursive strategies used by these marriage reform groups to naturalize this logic. In this context, marriage reform organizations become "information brokers," shaping facts in conformance with their pro-corporate family agenda to appeal to policy makers with the power to promote that agenda. Marriage reformers' attempts to reduce the complexity of modern life by advocating a return to the traditional corporate family is an oversimplification that overlooks the diversity of families today. |
