This book has an unabashedly political agenda: to expose as fictitious the claims made by traditional marriage's current defenders that marriage has been one constant thing over time, instead showing that “the persistence of change” (10) is typical. The editors collected eleven refreshingly brief essays that illustrate both marital variety and mutability. David Whitford begins with a fascinating close reading of Luther's writings on bigamy, in which he shows how they were influenced by his pastoral concerns to prevent adultery or fornication, but also his regard (or not) for the person seeking his advice. Essays on clerical marriage, social misalliances, cross-confessional unions, and incestuous matches follow. Beth Plummer, while not calling attention to the parallels, shows that monks' and nuns' marriages have clear contemporary resonance: the monks and nuns were seen to be seeking a radical redefinition of marriage, were treated as deviants and corrupters of marriage, and relied on secular authorities changing laws. Michael Sikora expertly explains how morganatic marriage—arguably the “civil union” of early modern Germany—allowed people of different social ranks to marry. Also compelling is Antje Flüchter's use of travelogues to report on interethnic marriages among Germans working in India for the VOC, showing that religious difference was a bigger problem than ethnicity or social position. Flüchter's essay and those on dynastic cross-confessional marriages highlight the broad use of ‘transgressive’ in this volume: it includes marriages that were illegal in some/most places but also those that were merely socially problematic and raised inconvenient questions. In that sense, not all of the essays serve the editors' purposes, since they were legal and did not challenge notions of who could marry—a different matter from who should. That said, this collection is enlightening and most essays are accessible to students as well as specialists.