Transnational Coupling in the Age of Nation Making during the 19th and 20th Centuries

Transnational Coupling in the Age of Nation Making during the 19th and 20th Centuries examines and compares courtship and marriage patterns that occurred between France and the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. Departing from state-centred studies of marriage law, it draws on the methodologies of transnational history, cultural history, and the history of emotion to show that these unions were part of a broader pattern of the larger cultural love affair between the two societies.

In an effort to address not only why Franco-American marriages occurred but also how and why the dynamics that produced them changed over time, this work examines and compares two transnational marriage patterns in different historical contexts. The first pattern occurred when wealthy American heiresses married French aristocrats during the second half of the 19th century—a period marked by relatively free transatlantic circulation and mobility. The second pattern was during the world wars when borders were far more solidified, and French women entered into matrimonial contracts with American soldiers.

The purpose of this work is twofold. First, it aims to provide new categories of analysis that place the human experience into broader, more global perspectives. Concepts of transnational marriage and courtship are used to allow historians to move beyond the analytical frameworks of national histories by reconsidering how family formation and the permeability of national borders function during different stages of the national project. The second purpose is to challenge the assumptions in existing historiographical explanations that those who crossed national borders to couple or marry did so purely for socio-economic reasons. Nicole Leopoldie contends that such rationalisations are too narrow. At the intersection of cross-cultural encounter and transnational coupling stood a profoundly emotional experience. Thus, greater analytical considerations need to include both cultural and emotional motivations that were always in the background.

Situated in the methodologies of transnational history, cultural history, and the history of emotions, Transnational Coupling in the Age of Nation Making during the 19th and 20th Centuries examines and compares courtship and marriage patterns between France and the United States. Social practices of courtship and marriage became mechanisms through which borders were crossed, and new cultural spaces were created, making these relationships significant elements of transnational entanglements. This work seeks to explore not only how observable patterns of transnational marriage emerged from cross-cultural encounters between the two societies but also how those encounters' dynamics changed over time.

While existing scholarship on the subject has highlighted apparent socio-economic motivations for these marriages, Nicole Leopoldie argues that such explanations are too narrow. Greater analytical considerations must also include cultural and emotional motivations. By locating and identifying transnational spaces that produced marriages and analysing their cultural and emotional dimensions, she posits that marriage participants were largely driven by a strong emotional attachment to perceived cultural differences beyond national boundaries. Within the shifting global contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, these marriages provoke important questions regarding family formation, the role of marriage in national cohesion and belonging, and the permeability of national borders during the different stages of the national project.