As the title implies, this book is about the effects of modernization on marriage and about "the complex cultural work" necessary to reconstruct and restore marriage in the new global context. While conferring general benefits for many, modernization has profoundly disrupted family patterns in all parts of the world, alienating men from the children they have fathered and from the women who have given birth to their offspring. Calling for a practical theology based on the "hermeneutical realism" of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur (with a dash of Jamesian pragmatism), author Don Browning insists on the need for genuine dialogue about marriage, not just between the religious and public sectors, but among the world religions themselves.
