SOURCE: LeBar, Barbara. “The Subject is Marriage.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 9, nos. 3-4 (August 1988): 264-69.

In the following essay, LeBar contrasts Sarton's portrayal of marriage in Crucial Conversations to that in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.

Pearl Buck and May Sarton are authors separated by time, culture, and literary technique. Yet each has presented a portrayal of marriage that transcends the aforementioned differences. Each presents a marriage unique to its own time and place and yet, at the same time, a marriage which illustrates the universalities of the intuition.

Despite recent developments in the women's movement and despite long-held Western adherence to the idea that marriage should be based on romantic love, Pearl Buck's The Good Earth gives a readily-accepted portrayal of marriage. Though her story deals with a different time and place and with a culture markedly alien to our own, Americans accepted and cherished the book...