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" Social changes always involve trade-offs. "

Stephanie Coontz

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" Using the existence of a marriage license to determine when the state should protect interpersonal relationships is increasingly impractical. "

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" Especially around Valentine's Day, it's easy to find advice about sustaining a successful marriage, with suggestions for 'date nights' and romantic dinners for two. But as we spend more and more of our lives outside marriage, it's equally important to cultivate the skills of successful singlehood. "

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

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" As Americans lose the wider face-to-face ties that build social trust, they become more dependent on romantic relationships for intimacy and deep communication and more vulnerable to isolation if a relationship breaks down. "

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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

" In my work as a historian and in my relationships as a friend, teacher, wife, and mother, I have come to think that the most useful way to understand the past and make it work for you is to look at the trade-offs and contradictions that, however deeply buried, can be uncovered in every memory, good or bad. "

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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" I am not arguing that women ought to 'settle.' I am arguing that we can now expect more of a mate than we could when we depended on men for our financial security, social status, and sense of accomplishment. "

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" It's always seductive to know where one stands in relation to the average. "

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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children - was an immense boon to many couples. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Too often, tributes to the home-cooked meal assume every family has a schedule that gets everyone home by 5:30 P.M. And too many recipes treat cooking as a solitary pursuit that requires the cook - still most often Mom - to take time away from other family interactions and chores. "

Stephanie Coontz

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

Stephanie Coontz

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

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

" 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

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

Stephanie Coontz

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

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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Historically, it has required a combination of favorable employment trends and active government intervention to lower the percentage of people in poverty and raise living standards for the working middle class. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Educated parents find more time to spend with their children by reducing time dedicated to home-based activities that involve little interaction with children. "

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

" 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. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Marriage is no longer the only place where people make major life transitions and decisions, enter into commitments, or incur obligations. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Unemployment, low wages, and poverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it less likely that individuals will marry in the first place and more likely that their marriages will dissolve. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Sometimes, having a mom stay home is a big help. On the other hand, when a mother works outside the home, her husband generally does more child care and has higher parental knowledge about his childrens' friends, routines, and needs, cutting across the tendency for fathers to be second-string parents at home. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Cooking ought to be, quite literally, child's play. And every child ought to have access to the game. Just don't tell them it's healthy. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Contrary to myth, 'The Feminine Mystique' and feminism did not represent the beginning of the decline of the stay-at-home mother but a turning point that led to much stronger legal rights and 'working conditions' for her. "

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

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

Stephanie Coontz