Index

Articles by Stephanie Coontz

Articles by Other Authors

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The Feminine Mystique Revisited

Appeared in 38 newspapers across the country, in 10 different languages, between August 21 and September 4, 2008. By Stephanie Coontz,

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique . Today, many social conservatives still blame Friedan and feminism for inducing women to abandon the home for the workplace, thus destabilizing families and placing their children at risk. More...

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Separate Peace

Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2008. By Stephanie Coontz

In March, comedian Robin Williams and his estranged wife, Marcia Garces Williams, filed for divorce after 19 years of marriage. But tabloids hoping for a juicy celebrity battle may be disappointed. More...

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Spitzer scandal shows gender politics' inequality

Newsday, March 14, 2008. By Stephanie Coontz

To most Americans, the most heart-rending image of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal had to be that of his ashen-faced wife standing silently beside him at the podium Monday as he apologized for his transgressions and then again, on Wednesday, when he resigned. More...

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Taking Marriage Private?

New York Times, November 26, 2007. By Stephanie Coontz

WHY do people gay or straight need the states permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didnt, because marriage was a private contract between two families. More...

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Real Men Marry Rich Women

The First Post, October 23, 2007. By Stephanie Coontz

The US census has just reported that in at least five major American cities, the majority of women in their twenties now earn more than men of the same age group. . More...

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Feminism has not made women unhappy. Expectations have risen, says stephanie coontz

The First Post, October 8, 2007. By Stephanie Coontz

A recent study shows that, on average, American men now report themselves happier than women do. This is the opposite of what polls found in the early 1970s, when women tended to report themselves happier than men. . More...

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The Romantic Life of Brainiacs

Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, February 18, 2007. By Stephanie Coontz

College-educated, highly successful women have long had a reputation for marrying less (and having lousier sex). But in a historic reversal of past trends, these women now triumph in matrimony. A marriage historian explains. More...

Motherhood Stalls When Women Can't Work

The Hartford Courant, May 13, 2007. By Stephanie Coontz

Over the past seven years, two small changes in the participation of mothers in the workforce have generated almost as much attention as the initial entry of wives and mothers into the working world in the 1960s. More...

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How to Stay Married

The Times of London, November 30, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

As married couples become a minority, our correspondent argues that the best way to keep a marriage strong and healthy is to retain a close network of friends. Now, for the first time, married-couple households are a minority in both the UK and the US, outnumbered by single-person households and cohabiting couples. More...

Too Close for Comfort

The New York Times, November 7, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

Ever since the Census Bureau released figures last month showing that married-couple households are now a minority, my phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people asking: "How can we save marriage? How can we make Americans understand that marriage is the most significant emotional connection they will ever make, the one place to find social support and personal fulfillment?" More...

Marriage as Social Contact/The Decline in Married-Couple Households

Philadelphia Inquirer, October 20, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

For the first time in 150 years, households headed by single adults and unmarried couples now outnumber married-couple families. In 1960, married-couple households represented more than 78 percent of American households. More...

Three 'Rules' That Don't Apply

Newsweek, June 5, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

Marriage has changed more in the last 30 years than in the previous 300. People today have unprecedented freedom about whether, when and whom to marry, and they are making those decisions free from the huge social and economic pressures that once had them marching in lockstep. More...

Myth of the opt-out mom

Christian Science Monitor, March 30, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

In 1998, Brenda Barnes quit her job as head of Pepsi's North American Division to spend more time with her kids. Since then, hardly a month has gone by without some media outlet reporting that affluent, highly educated mothers are opting out of their jobs to become full-timehomemakers. More...

Activism or facing reality?

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

With several state supreme courts due to rule on suits from same-sex couples demanding access to marriage, conservatives must be delighted to have a Justice Samuel Alito. During his confirmation hearings, Alito argued that judges should interpret the Constitution based "on the meaning that someone would have taken from the text... at the time of its adoption." . More...

'Traditional' marriage has changed a lot

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 23, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz, Guest Columnist

Pundits and politicians love to pontificate about strengthening traditional marriage. But as someone who has studied marriage forms and family life for more than three decades, I wonder how many of them have the faintest idea of what they're talking about. More...

A Pop Quiz on Marriage

New York Times, February 19, 2006. By Stephanie Coontz

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

Past, present, future of marriage

The Examiner, November 25, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

Many people believe that the instability of modern marriage exists because husbands and wives don't take their relationships as seriously as people did in the past. More...

Uncle Sam should give working families a hand

Newsday, September 7, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

At first glance, labor this year seems to have much to celebrate. Of the world's 20 richest industrial countries, the United States has the highest per capita income, as measured by the actual purchasing power of wages. More...

The Heterosexual Revolution

The New York Times, July 5, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

THE last week has been tough for opponents of same-sex marriage. First Canadian and then Spanish legislators voted to legalize the practice, prompting American social conservatives to renew their call for a constitutional amendment banning such marriages here. More...

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Why marriage today takes more love, work - from both partners

The Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

For hundreds of years, marital advice books have been written for women rather than men, because women were responsible for making a marriage work. More...

The Family in Upheaval

Philadelphia Inquirer, June 19, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

Everyone knows that the intensification of work in the global economy and the erosion of the male-breadwinner family have created a crisis for parents organizing child care and couples trying to juggle work and married life. More...

Great Expectations

Baltimore Sun, June 9, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz

THE PROBLEM with modern marriage, according to conventional wisdom, is that today's couples don't make marriage their top priority and put their relationship above all else. More...

Family Values: Action louder than words

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 13, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz, Guest Columnist.

Since the last presidential election, "values" has been a buzzword for political pundits and talking heads. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have rushed to affirm their commitment to strong family values and the traditional value of marriage. More...

Our Kids Are Not Doomed

Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz.

For the last 30 years, rising rates of youth violence, substance abuse and suicide have been blamed on two social pathologies: divorce and unwed motherhood. We have been told that unless we can reverse the tide of family dysfunction, these trends will engulf us. More...

For Better, For Worse

Washington Post, May 1, 2005. By Stephanie Coontz.

Thirteen years ago, Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the producers of TV sitcom's Murphy Brown for letting her character bear a child out of wedlock, claiming that the show's failure to defend traditional family values was encouraging America's youth to abandon marriage. His speech kicked off more than a decade of outcries against the "collapse of the family." Today, such attacks have given way to a kinder, gentler campaign to promote marriage, with billboards declaring that "Marriage Works" and books making "the case for marriage." What these campaigns have in common is the idea that people are willfully refusing to recognize the value of traditional families and that their behavior will change if we can just enlighten them. More...

Not Much Sense in Those Census Stories

Washington Post, July 13, 2001. By Stephanie Coontz

Nearly every week, the U.S. Census Bureau releases a new set of figures on American families and the living arrangements they have been creating in the past decade. And each time, as the media liaison for a national association of family researchers, I'm bombarded with telephone calls from radio and television producers seeking a talking head to confirm the wildly differing -- and usually wrong -- conclusions they've jumped to about what those figures say about the evolving nature of family life in America. More...

Historically Incorrect Canoodling

New York Times, February 2005. by Stephanie Coontz

For all the hand-wringing about how modern Americans have separated sex from love and devalued marriage, Valentine's Day is a reminder of just how romantic we are. Restaurants are reserved months in advance for romantic dinners for two. Thousands of lovers use the occasion to "pop the question." Married couples vow to renew their ardor. The focus is on passion, sure, but passion in a marriage or a long-term relationship. More...

The American Family: Where We Are Today

U.S. Society and Values, U.S. Department of State electronic journal, Voll 6, January 2001. by Stephanie Coontz

Modern life can be stressful -- in the family as anywhere else in our fast-paced society. And yet, with all the challenges and concerns about relationships, marriage and raising children, people in the United States today have higher expectations of parenting and marriage. More...

The American Family

Life Magazine, November 1999. Essay by Stephanie Coontz.

As the century comes to an end, many observers fear for the future of America's families. Our divorce rate is the highest in the world, and the percentage of unmarried women is significantly higher than in 1960. Educated women are having fewer babies, while immigrant children flood the schools, demanding to be taught in their native language. Harvard University reports that only 4 percent of its applicants can write a proper sentence. There's an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among men. Many streets in urban neighborhoods are littered with cocaine vials. Youths call heroin "happy dust." Even in small towns, people have easy access to addictive drugs, and drug abuse by middle class wives is skyrocketing. Police see 16-year-old killers, 12-year-old prostitutes and gang members as young as 11. America at the end of the 1990s? No, America at the end of the 1890s. More...

In Search of Men Who Are In Search of Commitment

The Washington Post, Sunday, September 7, 1997. By Stephanie Coontz.

At a recent talk in Chicago I gave about the dangers of romanticizing "traditional" families, a young man asked me if I didn't think the mass rallies of the men's group Promise Keepers in football stadiums across the country represented "potential fascism." I argued, to considerable skepticism from my audience, that however disturbing the ideology of the leaders, the motivations that bring thousands of men together for these events are not fascist, or even explicitly right-wing. More...

Managing Old and New Family Traditions

Baby Talk, Dec/Jan '98. By Stephanie Coontz.

Combining traditions has always been a challenge. But it's particularly difficult today because so many older family members embrace rituals that were developed long ago when the wife was home full-time and could spend her days cooking and preparing for the holidays. These traditions are totally inappropriate for today's families, when women work and men share in the household responsibilities, so it makes sense that families are struggling to rethink them. I've seen a number of responses that have worked for families. More...

Mothers In Arms

New York Times, May 10, 1992. By Stephanie Coontz.

Hilo, Hawaii -- Criticism has become as much a cliché as the holiday itself. Most people believe that Mother's Day started out as a private celebration of women's family roles and relations. We took Mom breakfast in bed to thank her for all the meals she made us. We picked her a bouquet of flowers to symbolize her personal, unpaid services. We tried to fix in our memory those precious moments of her knitting sweaters or sitting at our bedside, all the while focusing on her devotion to her family and ignoring her broader social ties, interests and political concerns. More...

real, the idealized often at odds, experts say

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday March 26, 2006. By Gracie Bonds Staples - Staff

He was divorced, with a son. So was she. And so when Cathy and Denny Dobbs merged their families nearly 20 years ago, it was much like the popular 1970s sitcom "The Brady Bunch." More...

Our family myths

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday March 26, 2006. By Staff

Families have never been perfect, says Stephanie Coontz, author and director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families in Chicago.

Yet many of us still perpetuate the myths, says Coontz, one of several family scholars scheduled to speak at a free public conference Thursday and Friday at Emory University. More...

The Way We Weren't

The Star Tribune, Wednesday May 7, 1997. By Cecelia Goodnow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The key to regaining a sense of stability during this period of wrenching social, cultural and economic change isn't reclaiming 'traditional family values.' According to historian/author Stephanie Coontz, it's adapting our social institutions.

Stephanie Coontz, who studies the history of American families, was riding to the airport when her taxi driver started railing against the welfare system. More...

Author Coontz Sums Up Hot-button Issues of the 90's

The Star Tribune, Wednesday May 7, 1997. By Cecelia Goodnow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with American's Changing Families, offers her take on the following social issues: Wayward Teens, Social Support, the Role of Marriage. More...

Following the State of the Union Address, Childcare is Poised to Become the Next Emotive Issue in the National Debate. A Leading Family Historian Offers Her Solutions.

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Photo By Karen Moskowitz. Click to enlarge.
Mother Jones, June 1998. Interview By Sarah Pollock.

On February 4, 1997, when English au pair Louise Woodward fractured the skull of her 8-month-old charge, Matthew Eappen causing his death five days later she unleashed a storm of outrage. One of the targets was Deborah Eappen, the child's mother, who had returned to work as an ophthalmologist (albeit part time) after her son's birth. Eappen was vilified as selfish and irresponsible for leaving her son in the care of an 18 year-old. More...