In a 2023 piece in the London Review of Books,Maylin Hays asks,“In the post-marriage era, what happens to the marriage plot?” Despite being in the midst of this alleged “post-marriage era,” conversations about marriage seem to be animating public discourse more than ever—from wildly popular “trad wife” influencers on social media, to the increasing frequency of conversations about gendered household labor in marriage self-help books like Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play (2019) and Kate Mangino’s Equal Partners (2022), to the recent rise in divorce memoirs like Lyz Lenz’s This American Ex-Wife (2024). In the last few years, the literary world has also witnessed the rise of “anti-marriage” novels like Sarah Manguso’s Liars (2024) and Miranda July’s All Fours (2024). While the marriage plot was once fundamental to the form of the realist novel, more recently published novels trouble any lingering notions of stable marriage.

In the face of this tension created by loud disavowals of and increased interest in marriage, we wonder where this leaves the marriage plot and invite essay submissions for a special issue on “The Marriage Plot, ‘Post’-Marriage,” including critical readings, theoretical interventions, and pedagogical approaches. We would further welcome essays that think transhistorically and comparatively about the marriage plot in the novel. For example, submissions might put historical literature in conversation with the recent run of “anti-marriage” novels, memoirs, and autofiction, such as Manguso’s Liars,July’s All Fours, Jenny Offil’s Department of Speculation (2014),Holly Gramazio’s The Husbands (2024),and Dolly Alderton’s Good Material (2023). Essays might focus on novelistic engagements with the division of gendered household labor during and ‘after’ the pandemic, conversations sparked by books like Fair Play and Equal Partners and that also harken back to the 1970s wages-for-housework movement. In addition, we are curious about  the current (and heightening) “Why have kids?” discourse, with pro-natalist and “proudly childless” positions limning a very complex field, and its bearing upon the novel. The question appears to be top of mind among politicians, op-ed writers, and a spate of recent feminist writers, as in Sheila Heti’s autofictional Motherhood (2018). We also seek investigations of how novels about marriage have expanded beyond the decidedly heterosexual marriage plots of the past to include queer couplings.

We are further interested in pedagogical approaches to the marriage plot: how do students respond to the novelistic marriage plots we teach? With suspicion? Heteropessimism? Joy? Nostalgia? Cruel optimism? How does reading the marriage plot shape students’ desires and their understandings of the role of marriage in their own lives? In addition, how might the marriage plot help scholars to frame the role of historical novels in English department curricula? How might teaching a course on the marriage plot—a topic with enduring resonance in contemporary culture—provide an avenue for students to access historical novels? And how might contemporary conversations about marriage help illuminate historical novels in turn?

Full essays of 6,000-9,000 words (inclusive of notes and works cited) will be due October 1, 2025, and should conform to MLA 7th style. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to the issue’s editors: Lana Dalley (ldalley@fullerton.edu), Shannon Draucker (sdraucker@siena.edu), and Doreen Thierauf (dthierauf@ncwu.edu).