Marriage Quotes by Stephanie Coontz

Second marriages can and do create 'real' families.

— Stephanie Coontz

There is one group of people - social conservatives, religious conservatives - who honestly feel that women's place is in the home…

— 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

A significant minority of senior women I've interviewed say, 'Love the companionship, glad to live with him, but I spent my first…

— Stephanie Coontz

Economically as well as emotionally, modern marriage has become like an affluent gated community. It has become harder for low-income Americans to…

— Stephanie Coontz

The worst problems for children stem from parental conflict, before, during, and after divorce or within marriage.

— 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…

— Stephanie Coontz

It no longer makes sense to see singlehood and marriage as two distinct and stable social categories that should be accorded different…

— Stephanie Coontz

Many alternatives to traditional marriage have emerged. People feel free to shop around, experimenting with several living arrangements in succession. And when…

— Stephanie Coontz

Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around…

— Stephanie Coontz

Especially around Valentine's Day, it's easy to find advice about sustaining a successful marriage, with suggestions for 'date nights' and romantic dinners…

— Stephanie Coontz

Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it…

— Stephanie Coontz

Unilateral divorce has decreased the bargaining power of the person who wants the marriage to last and has not engaged in behavior…

— Stephanie Coontz

In my work as a historian and in my relationships as a friend, teacher, wife, and mother, I have come to think…

— Stephanie Coontz

The real gender inequality in marriage stems from the tendency to regard women as the default parent, the one who, in the…

— Stephanie Coontz

Why do people - gay or straight - need the state's permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn't, because…

— Stephanie Coontz

“Like it or not, today we are all pioneers, picking our way through uncharted and unstable territory. The old rules are no…

— Stephanie Coontz

For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish ora German girl…

— Stephanie Coontz

Hollywood overstates both the romance of marriage and the prevalence of divorce. Celebrities have divorce rates that are atypical and higher than…

— Stephanie Coontz

There is no going back to a time when most women will feel compelled to enter or stay in a bad marriage…

— Stephanie Coontz

“Never before in history had societies thought that such a set of high expectations about marriage was either realistic or desirable. Although…

— Stephanie Coontz

Marriage is no longer the main way in which societies regulate sexuality and parenting or organize the division of labor between men…

— Stephanie Coontz

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

— Stephanie Coontz

People feel better when their spouses have good friendships, over and above the effects of their own friendships.

— Stephanie Coontz

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

— Stephanie Coontz

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

— Stephanie Coontz

Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process, it has become…

— Stephanie Coontz

As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had…

— Stephanie Coontz

Because we live so much of our adult lives as singles, it no longer makes sense to assume that marriage is the…

— Stephanie Coontz

Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution.

— Stephanie Coontz

Sometimes, having a mom stay home is a big help. On the other hand, when a mother works outside the home, her…

— Stephanie Coontz

When parents are educated about how not to involve children in their conflicts and co-parent amicably, a lot of the ill effects…

— Stephanie Coontz

To my mind, it is better to have regrets about the good aspects of your former marriage because you were able to…

— Stephanie Coontz

The origins of modern marital instability lie largely in the triumph of what many people believe to be marriage's traditional role -…

— Stephanie Coontz

I think that divorce is a vital escape hatch for people stuck in marriage and it is not a sentence of doom…

— Stephanie Coontz

The notion that marriage is an impediment to commitments to the larger community is a long-standing one - and one reason early…

— Stephanie Coontz

I've had the kind of complex life I write about. I was a single mother for 12 years. I'd been engaged. The…

— Stephanie Coontz

Unemployment, low wages, and poverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it less likely that individuals will marry in the…

— Stephanie Coontz

Some people may long for an era when divorce was still hard to come by. The spread of no-fault divorce has reduced…

— Stephanie Coontz