The recent victories legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, the first time in U.S. history that same-sex marriage has been legalized by voters after over 30 attempts in the last 14 years, remind us of the limits of citizenship for certain populations and the continued struggle to access the rights of citizenship for many people and not just for gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities. In this talk, Professor Guzaitis examines the ways in which marriage has served as an exclusionary institution long before the battle over same-sex marriage captured public attention and the ways in which the institution of marriage is entangled in how the U.S. came to define citizenship in the 19th Century. Examining the complicated and vexed history of the institution of marriage in the U.S. is the fist step to critically rethink marriage and its attendant rights and privileges.
