I Don’t - The Case Against Marriage, by Clementine Ford

The statistics have been clear for years – married men are happier, healthier and wealthier than single men and married women are less happy, healthy and wealthy than single women. Why then does the myth of marriage as the be all and end all for women persist? Clementine Ford forensically examines the history and current reality of marriage as a tool of patriarchal control and the way it has been sold to women as their ultimate goal and as essential to their wellbeing. There is an element of preaching to the converted here and no new ground is broken in this book. But Ford expertly pulls together the myriad logical and convincing arguments against an institution that in fact offers women so little benefit. Despite occasionally lurching into hyperbole and extremism, for the most part I Don’t offers a valid alternative to the trap of marriage, with a considered dismantling of its purported attractions.