On Marriage

I am reading the latest book by Fox-Genovese. It begins with basically her lecture from Princeton (which you can access and was my first introduction to the brilliant lady. Go to www.princeton.edu/webmedia/lectures and search for her name. Here is some of what you will be in for:

"First, the human species divides into males and females who are at once mutually attracted and sufficiently different to be mutually antagonistic, but whose cooperation is necessary to the perpetuation of the human race. Marriage binds them together into what Willa Cather brilliantly called a state of mortal enmity as well as into the bonds of sacramental love. Second, and more importantly, from the perspective of civilization and the species, marriage proposes a reconciliation of the most fundamental natural difference among human beings--sex. For to flee from engaging that difference is ultimately to flee from all others."