Examining men and women's differing realities within marriage, this text focuses on marriage as a system of rules, customs, and expectations. It shows that marriage changes men on basic dimensions because it reinforces certain behaviours as part of adult masculinity.
Because men and women live in worlds that are organized around gender, their marriages reflect differing realities. Marriage in Men's Lives focuses on marriage as a system of rules, customs, and expectations, and shows that marriage changes men on basic dimensions of achievement, participation in public and social life, and philanthropy because marriage reinforces such behaviours as part of adult masculinity. Using a huge database of over 6,000 interviews with men the author has studied since 1979, Nock draws some interesting and far-reaching conclusions about the nature of marriage, and predicts that marriage is definitely here to stay.