Offering powerful evidence for the Libertarian cause from an unexpected quarter, Mount argues that counter to popular conception, neither State nor Church has ever looked benevolently on marriage. Why? Because it is private. For example, discussing the huge obstacles both State and Church have placed in the way of divorce, Mr Mount writes:

Neither the Law nor the Church ever grappled with the idea - common in almost all pre-Christian and non-Christian societies - that any serious conception of marriage must include provision for dissolving disastrous marriages. The belief that it is the State's business to control marriage dies very hard. This is because the idea that marriage is an independent institution with a life of its own is extremely distasteful to the State as it is to the Church - neither of which lightly tolerates any rival for power over human hearts. (p41)

He also explodes a great many myths about marriage: that arranged marriages were the norm in Britain until this century; that child care is a modern invention; that the nuclear family is a recent phenomenon; that romantic love never existed before the 12th century; that divorce is a novelty.

Altogether, a thoroughly readable book which provides a telling illustration of how the mechanism of state coercion, once set in motion, must attempt to bring all aspects of human life under its control.

Nicholas Dykes