215 Quotes by Stephanie Coontz

You have to make a family where you can find it.

Even 25 years ago, most people were reliant on their friends to fix them up. People in their 40s and 50s don't want to be hanging out at bars. Now they have access to this incredible pool of single people their age.

This is a new phenomenon ? not the mercenary quality, but the fact that people are willing to risk this kind of money, just to say they're married. Love has been so idealized that at the top, the rich are willing to throw good money after bad to see if they can get the magic ring.

The depth and influence of the radicalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s are often exaggerated.

Singlehood is not longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it's the dessert - desirable, but no longer the main course.

Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary.

Women are told that we can have the most exciting, glamorous, demanding, rewarding careers ever but we also have to be constantly sexy and sexually interested, and when we have children we have to spend more time with our kids. Of course you can't really do all three of those things at once, so we feel this tremendous stress.

Nostalgia wouldn't begin to capture your sense of loss, ... The Way We Really Are Coming to Terms With America's Changing Families.

The idea that academics should remain ''above the fray'' only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.