Restitution

Abstract

The purpose of my thesis is to show the effects that religion and society can have on marriages between young men and women.Set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, my memoir"Only You (And You Alone) relates my personal experience growing up in Queens, New York, how the mores of that era and the dictates of the Catholic Church led to my unhappy, doomed-to-fail early marriage. After much research of the period, which is reflected throughout the memoir, with the news of the day, the music and popular culture, newspaper, magazine and book excerpts, plus my own journals, diaries and photographs, and including interviews with family and friends, I have attempted to show how two na ve, uninformed teenagers could be influenced by social and religious pressures, to disastrous consequences. My marriage to Billy at age 18 (he is 19) is fully detailed in this book, our marriage, honeymoon, and then our daily lives. We live together for close to two years before our precarious relationship falls apart. I use humor as much aspossible and weave my family history into this true story.