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" Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. "

Stephanie Coontz

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" We need to push for work-family practices and policies that allow individuals to customize their work lives according to their changing individual preferences and family obligations, not just their traditional gender roles. "

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" There is no denying that we have made great progress toward gender equality. "

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" Rising inequality has changed family dynamics for all socioeconomic groups. "

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" Unilateral divorce has decreased the bargaining power of the person who wants the marriage to last and has not engaged in behavior that meets the legal definition of fault. On the other hand, it has increased the bargaining power of the person who is willing to leave. "

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" When liberals dismiss all Trump supporters as racists, this only fuels their anger. "

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" Turning back the inequality revolution may be difficult. But that would certainly help more families - at almost all income levels - than turning back the gender revolution. "

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" Usually, Valentine's Day comes and goes with just a day or two of news media attention to courtship and marriage. "

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" One thing standing in the way of further progress for many men is the same obstacle that held women back for so long: overinvestment in their gender identity instead of their individual personhood. "

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" As time passes, the actual complexity of our history - even of our own personal experience - gets buried under the weight of the ideal image. "

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" Couples need time alone to renew their relationship. They also need to sustain supportive networks of friends and family. "

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" You can't judge a family's health by the form it's in at a given moment. "

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" In the 1970s, family history wasn't yet thought of a serious field for study. I was terrified of being laughed at by other historians. I called my book 'The Social Origins of Private Life.' It should have been 'As Pompous as You Want to Be.' Every sentence was academic jargon, and if I said X, I qualified it with Y. "

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" Deciding together to have a child and sharing in child-rearing do not immunize a marriage. Indeed, collaborative couples can face other problems. They often embark on such an intense style of parenting that they end up paying less attention to each other. "

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" A primary motivation for introducing no-fault divorce was, in fact, to reduce perjury in the legal system. "

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" Averages are useful because many traits, behaviors, and outcomes are distributed in a bell-shaped curve, with most results clustered around the middle and a much smaller group of outliers at the high and low ends. "

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" There's nothing wrong with celebrating the good things in our past. But memories, like witnesses, do not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We need to cross-examine them, recognizing and accepting the inconsistencies and gaps in those that make us proud and happy as well as those that cause us pain. "

Stephanie Coontz

" It no longer makes sense to see singlehood and marriage as two distinct and stable social categories that should be accorded different legal rights and social esteem. "

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" Putting women's traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It's the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike. "

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" If the ascent of women has been much exaggerated, so has the descent of men. "

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" Putting women first would mean strengthening America's social safety net, because a higher proportion of single-mother families live in poverty here than in any other wealthy country. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Some people may long for an era when divorce was still hard to come by. The spread of no-fault divorce has reduced the bargaining power of whichever spouse is more interested in continuing the relationship. And the breakup of such marriages has caused pain for many families. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process, it has become more flexible - but also more optional. "

Stephanie Coontz

" We must recognize that there are healthy as well as unhealthy ways to be single or to be divorced, just as there are healthy and unhealthy ways to be married. "

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" For a century, women have binged on romance novels that encouraged them to associate intimidation with infatuation; it's no wonder that this emotional hangover still lingers. "

Stephanie Coontz

" When we assume that 'normal' people need 'time to heal,' or discourage individuals from making any decisions until a year or more after a loss, as some grief counselors do, we may be giving inappropriate advice. Such advice can cause people who feel ready to move on to wonder if they are hardhearted. "

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" Cohabitation itself doesn't cause ineffective parenting. "

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" As a child, I was lucky enough to spend each summer with my grandmother. "

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" Marriage is no longer the main way in which societies regulate sexuality and parenting or organize the division of labor between men and women. "

Stephanie Coontz

" In personal life, the warm glow of nostalgia amplifies good memories and minimizes bad ones about experiences and relationships, encouraging us to revisit and renew our ties with friends and family. It always involves a little harmless self-deception, like forgetting the pain of childbirth. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Economically as well as emotionally, modern marriage has become like an affluent gated community. It has become harder for low-income Americans to enter and sustain. "

Stephanie Coontz