Love and Marriage Around the World

Love and Marriage Around the World, written by Carol Gelber, provides interesting information on customs dealing with love and marriage throughout the world. I found this informational book in the library and thought it sounded interesting. The book is divided into sections, some of which address how matches are made (running the continuum from the couple choosing for themselves to an arranged marriage), what the wedding ceremony is like, and who is present. It doesn’t seem like something that a teacher would be able to apply in a classroom, except maybe to tie the information to a study of different aspects of world cultures. Instead, it would be an interesting book for a student to read on his or her own.

This is not such a concrete topic as other informational books might concern themselves with, although it was presented extremely well. I really learned a lot about many different cultures and their ways of thinking about marriage and love. The pictures worked really well with the text to illustrate some of what the author was describing. It seemed that there was a picture of a bride or groom or marriage ceremony almost every few pages. This way, I could really visualize the people and activities better than if there weren’t any pictures.

It was so interesting to see all of the similarities and differences between the different cultures on the topics of love and marriage. The American culture event shares some similarities with other cultures that I never thought it would. For example, in Japan, the book states that young people look for “the three ‘highs’: high education, high income, and physical height” (28). This is what a lot of Americans are looking for as well! The book also mentions some other universal idea governing marriage, like that it developed as a union between a man and a woman to create and care for a family. How do universal tendencies develop? It’s so interesting to me.