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" Over the ages, some societies have accorded far less value and respect to singles than to married individuals. "

Stephanie Coontz

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" 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

" Whatever their relative valuation of the single and married states, most societies in history made sharp distinctions between those who married and those who remained single: They were seen as mutually exclusive ways of life, with different legal rights and social obligations. "

Stephanie Coontz

" 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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" The growing diversity of family life comes with new possibilities as well as new challenges. "

Stephanie Coontz

" 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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Labeling people single parents, for example, when they may in fact be co-parenting - either with an unmarried other parent in the home or with an ex-spouse in a joint custody situation - stigmatizes their children as the products of 'single parenthood' and makes the uncounted parent invisible to society. "

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

" In 1975, which was the height of the women's movement, I thought I'd write a book on women's history. But in searching for a topic, I realized that there were few places in history where men and women interacted. Finally, it hit me: 'Oh, look at the family. That's the one place.' "

Stephanie Coontz

" Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let's stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Hyper-parenting has many pitfalls. Overprotected and overpraised children may develop an inflated sense of entitlement. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Why do people - gay or straight - need the state's permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn't, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents' agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

" Inequality was written into the creation of the American Republic when our Founding Fathers denied voting rights to women. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it to compensate for the way that work has devoured time once spent cultivating friendships. "

Stephanie Coontz

" During the 1960s, rising real wages for low-income and high-income workers, due in part to rapid economic growth and the spread of unionization, worked in tandem with expanding government support systems to improve Americans' well-being. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Liberal politicians, in celebrating the benefits of modernization, free trade, diverse families, and the rise of more women and minorities into political and economic prominence, have often glossed over the pain of white blue-collar communities. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Social and economic policies constructed around the male breadwinner model have always disadvantaged women. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

" For most of America's history, people typically aspired to acquire 'a competency' rather than great riches. A competency meant the ability to comfortably sustain a household without depending on others. 'Competence' also meant being capable and reliable. The American Dream was that people who worked hard and capably could support their families. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

" 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

" Graduating from high school is certainly a good idea, but it's no longer much protection against poverty. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Throughout history, people with few educational or economic resources and little bargaining power have often looked to authoritarian, ruthless people to stand up for them. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

" The notion that marriage is an impediment to commitments to the larger community is a long-standing one - and one reason early Christians did not place the institution at the top of their moral hierarchy, complaining that married couples cared more about pleasing each other than doing the Lord's work. "

Stephanie Coontz

" In 1992, I critiqued the panic over growing family diversity. My skepticism about the doomsayers has since been proven correct. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Second marriages can and do create 'real' families. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

" Social changes always involve trade-offs. "

Stephanie Coontz