Gary Chartier is Professor of Law and Business Ethics and Associate Dean of the Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business at La Sierra University, California.

• 1. Marriage and the dynamics of love; 2. Love's obligations; 3. An alternative to marital obligation?; 4. Gender and the intimate contract; 5. The limits of marital obligation; 6. Delinking marriage and the state; 7. Same-sex marriage, with or without the state.

'There is among us today no universally shared understanding of what marriage is. Gary Chartier presents a discerning, attractive account of marriage - more precisely, of what we should understand marriage to be. Moreover, Chartier explains why, if we accept his account of marriage, we should support admitting same-sex couples to civil marriage. He also explains, persuasively in my view, why we should reject a prominent competing account of marriage, one according to which same-sex couples cannot be truly married. Everyone interested in the contemporary controversy about the meaning of marriage should read Chartier's important, stimulating new book.' Michael J. Perry, Emory University, Atlanta