"In this zoological guidebook to cuckoldry and commerce, Charles Fourier (1772-1837) offers a caustic critique of the bankruptcy of marriage and the prostitution of the economy, and the hypocrisies of a civilization that over regulates sexual congress while allowing the financial sector to screw over the public. Gathered together here for the first time are Fourier's two "Hierarchies"--Humorously regimented parades of civilization's cheaters and cheated-on in the domestic sphere of sex and the economic sphere of buying and selling commodities. 'The Hierarchy of Cuckoldry'--translated into English for the first time--presents 72 species of the male cuckold, ranging from such 'common class' cases as the Health-Conscious Cuckold, to the 'short-horned' and 'long-horned' varieties of the Sympathetic, Optimist and Mystical Cuckhold, and the Irate, Disgraced, and Posthumous Cuckhold. For Fourier, these amount to 72 manifestations of women's 'secret insurrection' against the institution of marriage. 'The Hierarchy of Bankruptcy' presents 36 species of the fraudulent bankrupt: a range of Light, Grandiose, and Contemptible shades of financial manipulators who force creditors, cities, and even nations to bail them out of ultimately profitable bankruptcies. In these attacks on the morality of monogamy and the perils of laissez-faire capitalism, Fourier's 'Hierarchies' resonate uncannily with our contemporary world."--[P] 4 of cover.