This book represents a new direction in the study of religion and marriage by using a postmodern theoretical framework focusing on gendered discourse and culture, to examine the meaning of sacred marriage within social contexts. Drawing upon data from in-depth interviews of couples in long-term, sacred marriages living in the American Midwest, together with an analysis of Christian marriage advice manuals, Sacred Marriage explores how couples use religious and nonreligious discourses and cultures to give their marriages meaning, and how those sacred meanings are used in their daily lives and...