Stephanie Coontz
Author
1944-08-31
Books by Stephanie Coontz
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Quotes by Stephanie Coontz
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It wasn't until the 1920s that a bare majority of children grew up in families where the father's labor purchased the family's provisions, while their mother did unpaid child care, elder care, and housework.The Great Depression and World War II disrupted this family form, but it roared back in the 1950s, when the percentage of wives and mothers who were supported entirely by their husbands' wages reached a high that has never been equaled, before or since.
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The idea that in prehistoric times a man would spend his life hunting only for the benefit of his own wife and children, who were dependent solely upon his hunting prowess for survival, is simply a projection of 1950s marital norms onto the past.
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It wasn't until the 1920s that a bare majority of children grew up in families where the father's labor purchased the family's provisions, while their mother did unpaid child care, elder care, and housework.The Great Depression and World War II disrupted this family form, but it roared back in the 1950s, when the percentage of wives and mothers who were supported entirely by their husbands' wages reached a high that has never been equaled, before or since.
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The idea that in prehistoric times a man would spend his life hunting only for the benefit of his own wife and children, who were dependent solely upon his hunting prowess for survival, is simply a projection of 1950s marital norms onto the past.
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People feel better when their spouses have good friendships, over and above the effects of their own friendships.
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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.
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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.
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If we want to revive and achieve the American Dream, we need to change a situation in which the people whose hard work makes this country run cannot earn a living wage, while bankers, speculators, and corporate elites - the real 'takers' in today's society - skim off far more than their fair share.
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Throughout history, people with few educational or economic resources and little bargaining power have often looked to authoritarian, ruthless people to stand up for them.
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As time passes, the actual complexity of our history - even of our own personal experience - gets buried under the weight of the ideal image.
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Many alternatives to traditional marriage have emerged. People feel free to shop around, experimenting with several living arrangements in succession. And when people do marry, they have different expectations and goals.
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Unilateral divorce has decreased the bargaining power of the person who wants the marriage to last and has not engaged in behavior that meets the legal definition of fault. On the other hand, it has increased the bargaining power of the person who is willing to leave.
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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.
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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.
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Valentine's Day is a perfect time to reject the idea that the ideal man is taller, richer, more knowledgeable, more renowned, or more powerful.
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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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Presidents Reagan and the first George Bush never used the vile language of some Trump supporters, but both blamed scarce resources and decaying communities on 'welfare queens' and black criminals like Willie Horton.
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Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution.
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Inequality was written into the creation of the American Republic when our Founding Fathers denied voting rights to women.
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As an overly confident college freshman, the first time I received a below-average score on an exam was a needed wake-up call.
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