Husbands do it by gassing up their spouse's car. Wives do it by having a heart-to-heart confessional. Each is expressing intimacy, but in a stereotypical Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus fashion. As Framingham State College sociologist Virginia Rutter notes, "Both men and women value a feeling of closeness with their partner, but they get to that feeling by somewhat different routes." And they often think their partner is taking the wrong route.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pity the overschooled old maid and the lonely career woman. Highly educated or high-achieving women are less likely to marry and have children than other women. If they do marry, they are more likely to divorce. Even if they don't divorce, their marriages will be less happy. And, oh, yes, they'll be sexually frustrated, too.

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.

Between 1998 and 2000, the labor force participation of women with babies under the age of 1 dropped for the first time in more than 30 years, falling from 59 percent to 55 percent. Then, between 2000 and 2004, the labor force participation of mothers with preschoolers also fell.