MICHAEL SATLOW'S Jewish Marriage in Antiquity is reviewed by Steven Fine in the Jewish Studies Newsletter (scroll down to bottom). Excerpts:

Michael Satlow begins this hefty volume with the assertion that his title "is deliberately misleading." Satlow believes that his title misleads in its seeming concrete use of such terms as "Jewish," "marriage" and "Jewish marriage." Our author notes that this terminology is far more ambiguous than his title might suggest. He is certainly right. A book called "Rabbinic Perceptions of Jewish Marriage within their Literary and Greco-Roman Contexts" (or something like that) would, however, be far more clumsy-and sell far fewer books. Satlow's goal was not to provide a stodgy academic volume, however, but rather to have an effect upon the broader
culture. Satlow wants to show that "a scholarly study of the past [can] contribute to burning contemporary societal issues" (p. xiii). By showing how "Jewish groups in antiquity understood marriage, how they practiced it, and how they reconciled the messy realities of marriage with their ideals" (p. xvi) Satlow hopes to provide a more ambiguous model of marriage from the past to contemporary readers (particularly Jews).

[...]

Satlow's fundamental insight in this volume is that "there is nothing
essentially Jewish about Jewish" marriage in antiquity. He concludes that there "was no 'essence' of Jewish marriage, no single quality that must have been present for a marriage to be termed Jewish" (p. xvi). This conclusion is not surprising. Jews have always adapted to the times and places where they live. What is interesting about Satlow's book is that it carefully traces the early history of Jewish marriage from the Second Temple period up through the Rabbinic community. This was the formative period of Jewish marriage as we know it.

[...]

In reading through _Jewish Marriage in Antiquity_, I sense a tension between the author's desire to reach both a scholarly and a lay audience. The notes, by his own admission, are not complete, while at the same time, the well-written discussion is often far too technical for all but the most intrepid non-specialist. Still, as a scholar who esteems good writing, this book was a pleasure to read. Satlow's _Jewish Marriage in Antiquity_ is an important study of marriage within the Rabbinic communities of late antiquity. I highly recommend it.