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
The origins of modern marital instability lie largely in the triumph of what many people believe to be marriage's traditional role - providing love, intimacy, fidelity, and mutual fulfillment. The truth is that for centuries, marriage was stable precisely because it was not expected to provide such benefits.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote discusses how traditional views of marriage have contributed to its instability in modern times.
Stephanie Coontz argues that the instability of modern marriages is rooted in the contemporary expectation that marriage should fulfill emotional needs such as love and intimacy. Historically, marriage was more stable because it was viewed primarily as a social contract, not as a source of personal happiness or fulfillment.
Themes
MarriageInstabilityLoveIntimacyRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a counseling session to illustrate the evolving expectations of marriage.
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
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 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
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