In their well-written and extensively researched book Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage, B. J. and Mary Sokol explore the connections between the legal world of Shakespeare's England and the ways he dramatizes legal situations related to marriage. The result is a thorough and interesting contribution to the growing field of “law and literature” studies. The book moves chronologically through the legal issues connected to the stages of marriage, from arranged and consensual matches to the effect of death on marriage. Each chapter has a similar structure: first, an explanation of the legal conditions for the particular topic of marriage, followed by a discussion of how those issues are dramatized in Shakespeare's plays.