“Until Choice Do Us Part offers an insightful analysis of how and why writers depicted the changing institution of marriage in the Progressive Era. This elegantly written, well researched book explores how and why marriage underwent significant critique and revision, along with changing conceptions of gender, sexuality, and the family, at the turn of the twentieth century. A distinguishing feature of this engaging work is Eby’s discussion of the connections between the form of the novel and the institution of marriage.  This study offers new insight into marriage, the novel, and the nature of social change and helps to explain why fiction writing is a uniquely important social endeavor.”

Priscilla Wald | Duke University

“As Eby shows in this rich and timely study, changes in fundamental attitudes toward marriage and divorce were both fervently advocated and hotly contested in the Progressive period.  Analyzing the tensions between theory and practice inscribed in a wide range of texts, Until Choice Do Us Part persuasively argues that Progressive era debates over marital reform anticipate and even continue to shape twenty-first century  position-taking about sexuality and marriage.”

Barbara Hochman | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

″...Eby’s project...successfully bridges the history of the family, marriage, and sexuality with the history of progressivism through skilled literary analysis of often experimental, messy books and their authors. She demonstrates how marriage, traditionally viewed as a bulwark of conservative stability, might also be reimagined in diverse ways as a vessel for social transformation.”

Brent Ruswick | H-Net Reviews

“Historians of social movements and of marriage will benefit from Eby’s fresh emphasis on the novel as a profoundly social tool of reform. . . . Until Choice Do Us Part is both compelling and enjoyable. . . . a persuasive and bracingly written account of marriage reform during the Progressive Era.”

American Historical Review