Preamble; Robert A. Gaines.- 1. Shaw’s Early Writings: A Prelude to the Playwright; Richard Farr Dietrich.- 2. The “Mystical Union” De-Mystified: Marriage in Plays Unpleasant; L.W. Conolly.- 3. The Pragmatic Partnerships of the Plays Pleasant; Jennifer Buckley.- 4. Three Plays for Puritans: Decoy Marriages and Social Contracts; Lawrence Switzky.- 5. Not Really a Philanderer; Rodelle Weintraub.- 6. Shaw’s Salvation Trilogy: Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, Major Barbara; Michel Pharand.- 7. Marriage and Mating in the plays of Bernard Shaw and Granville Barker 1908-1911; Peter Gahan.- 8. Ruled by Autonomy: Women’s Evolving Material Choices from The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906) to Pygmalion (1914); Ellen Ecker Dolgin.- 9. From Elle to Eve: the Quintessence of Marriage in Shaw’s Heartbreak House, The Bolshevik Empress and Back to Methuselah; Audrey McNamara.- 10. Beyond /Married Love/: Shaw, Stopes, and Female Desire in the Drama between the Wars, 1923-1934; D.A. Hadfield.- 11. Definitions of Marriage: Village Wooing, On the Rocks and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles: A Vision of Judgment; Jean Reynolds.- 12. Matrimonial Partnerships and Politics in Three Late Plays: In Good King Charles’s Golden Days: A True History that Never Happened, The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza, and Geneva: Another Political Extravaganza; Matthew Yde.- Appendix A: Divorce Decrees, Divorce Rates per 1,000 Married Couples, And Petitions for Judicial Separation (England and Wales) 1851-1987.- Appendix B: Marriage and Divorce: Liturgy and Legislation; Edited by L.W. Conolly.- Bibliography; Edited by Michel Pharand.- Index; Compiled by D. A. Hadfield.-
Robert A. Gaines is Professor Emeritus at Auburn University Montgomery, USA, and holds a PhD from Indiana University. He has spent thirty-five years in university positions including Professor, Administrator, and Director of Theatre. His research interests are in classical theatre production, as are his publications, including John Neville Takes Command: The Story of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. He has been a member of the International Shaw Society since its inception in 2004.