Building and breaking families in the American West

The American West has had the highest divorce rate in the world from the 1870's to the present. In examining why marriages dissolve so frequently in the West, this volume is the first to explore the topic in a systematic, scholarly manner. It looks at a wide range of courtship and marriage practices among Anglos, Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans.

In studying men and women across cultural and ethnic lines, Riley argues that traditions often overlapped each other but never gave rise to widely accepted norms.

Riley devotes separate chapters to each phase in the life cycle of relationships - courting, the fusing and rending factors influencing marriage, the difficulties of intermarrying, and the dissolving of unions through separation, desertion, and divorce. She finds that family conflict occurred across cultures throughout the West when traditions clashed and people were unwilling or unable to blend beliefs or practices.