In From Sacrament to Contract, John Witte Jr. offers a study of five conflicting models of marriage–Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Enlightenment–and their social and political impact over the last thousand years. In so doing, Witte shows how we arrived at the notion of marriage as contract.

The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family’s revitalization.