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" 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. "

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" 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

Knowledge

Mom

Parents

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Marriage can provide a bounty of emotional, practical, and financial support. But finding the right mate is no substitute for having friends and other interests. "

" To my mind, it is better to have regrets about the good aspects of your former marriage because you were able to work past some of your accumulated resentments than to have no regrets because you had to ratchet up the hostility to get out in the first place. "

" 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.' "

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

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

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

" Establishing a 'livable wage' floor would immediately reduce the gap in average pay between American women and men. "

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

" 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. "

" Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women's progress by itself is not a panacea for America's inequities. "

" 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. "

" Feminism insists on women's right to make choices - about whether to marry, whether to have children, whether to combine work and family or to focus on one over the other. It also urges men and women to share the joys and burdens of family life and calls on society to place a higher priority on supporting caregiving work. "

" 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. "

" No single choice about how to organize work and family life is right or possible - for every family. And every choice has tradeoffs. "

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

" Investing in living-wage jobs and reducing the inequities between local school districts would give young people more, not less, incentive to postpone childbearing and more possibilities for independence. "

" The place where we keep our clothes isn't always the only place where we keep our commitments. "

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