This course offers third and fourth-year students majoring in Religious Studies an opportunity to reflect on the study of religion in a general way. Presuming you have already begun to develop familiarity with one or more religious traditions, the course is intended to stimulate thinking on questions such as: What is religion? How is it studied? Why study it? We will use marriage as a site to explore these questions with tools provided by historical and anthropological methods and ritual and gender theories. We begin by examining the historical evolution Christian marriage and family construction in its cultural context. Equal emphasis will be given to early modern and contemporary American marriage, including same-sex marriage and polyfidelity. Particular attention will be paid to the gendered ideologies and practices of marriage in relation to the shift from patriarchal to companionate marriage; the relationship between marriage and citizenship and civil rights; and sex, as the root symbol of marriage.