The Art of Marriage: A Guide to Living Life As Two

Platitudes abound in Blyth's marriage primer follow-up to The Art of Conversation. "For many couples marriage is not the choppy water, but the vessel to carry them through life's voyage." Also present here are Blyth's sweeping, undocumented statements, like "most divorcees report being less happy after a break-up than before," and pat conclusions: Millionaire Chef Jaime Oliver's wife, Jools, for instance, has "enlisted in the cult of the mother goddess" because she gets up to make her children porridge. References are often outdated and observations about sex in marriage, such as "the most contented couples also have well-matched libidos" or, if getting into the sack at all is a problem, to "Just Do It," lack insight. Though Blyth notes that she surveyed a number of couples for her new book, her examples are either vague, weak, or undocumented. She seems to write from a far-away place, where feminism has not yet reared its mighty head: "There is plentiful evidence that men feel emasculated if they earn less than their wives or do women's work." For Blyth, the solution to fixing that rotting relationship is no more complicated than this: husbands, kiss your wives. (Jan.)