A collection of writing from the literature of marriage. Marriage : Many people have tried it, longed for it, or carefully avoided it, and most of us are the result of it. instituted by God, upheld by Church and state, reviled by feminists, the fragile idea of human love, marriage is the single most challenging relationship any of us attempt in our lives, and one in which increasing numbers of us fail. Elizabeth Jane Howard has chosen extracts from novels, short stories, letters and poems to illustrate marriage's many temperaturesand moods, it's swings from despair to rapture.