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 CoontzRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Modern marriage is increasingly exclusive and challenging for low-income individuals to access.
Stephanie Coontz's quote highlights the socioeconomic barriers that have emerged in contemporary marriage, likening it to an affluent gated community. This metaphor emphasizes that, much like exclusive neighborhoods, marriage has become less accessible for low-income Americans, who often find it difficult to enter and maintain relationships within the structures of modern society. The quote addresses both economic and emotional aspects, suggesting that the ideals surrounding marriage have evolved into something that not everyone can reach or sustain.
Themes
MarriageSocioeconomicAccessibilityRelationshipsExclusivityEmotionalEconomic
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech discussing the importance of accessibility in relationships, you could quote this to emphasize challenges faced by low-income individuals.
More from Stephanie Coontz
All quotes →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 CoontzRead
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 CoontzRead
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 CoontzRead
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 CoontzRead
As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love.
Stephanie CoontzRead
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