Elizabeth Vos

A Question of Marriage:: of Holy Grails, Ultimate Meanings and Untouchables Elizabeth Vos

The author's exploration of marriage draws on a post-structural epistemology to interrogate ?the truths? of marriage, to foreground the interplay between the institution and society as the site of poetic and political struggle, and in particular psychology?s influence (on marriage) as a dominant knowledge system. This exploration shows marriage to be anything but ?neutral?; it highlights marriage as the receptacle of societal, ideological struggle and in the process it highlights the tensions inherent to our subjectivity, in relation to marriage. It then asks the question as to how psychology and in particular marital (couple) therapy has played a role in the sedimentation of certain dominant stories of marriage and self, how it has reified marriage as the preferred form of heterosexual pair bonding and how it has reified ?husband? and ?wife? as dominant templates of being