On today's episode of WNYC's new popup advice show, journalist and producer Nayeema Raza, host of the podcast "Smart Girl, Dumb Questions," leads a conversation about navigating life-partner relationships, with Stephanie Coontz, an academic who studies the history of marriage and family, and formerly Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families. Listeners call in with their questions, experiences and tips for building long-lasting partnership and a harmonious home, together.
Note: You are listening to the podcast version of a live radio show. The call-in number only works between 1 and 2 PM Eastern, while the show is live.
If you'd like to submit advice questions to be featured on the show, or topic suggestions for future shows, please use the form on our showpage at wnyc.org/advice
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Nayeema Raza: Welcome to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza. I usually can be heard on a podcast of my own. It's called Smart Girl, Dumb Questions, but this week, I'm here with you on Please Advise, helping you get answers to all your questions about dating, mating, and procreating.
Yes, this week is like that old playground poem, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby and a baby carriage." Tomorrow, it's the baby bit. We're going to talk all about family. Yesterday, we talked about dating, finding your person. Today, we're going to get into that messy middle bit, marriage or simply mating, whatever comes after you feel the spark with someone, whether it's cohabitation in a small New York City apartment with limited closet space or a marriage contract.
I want your questions. Maybe you're figuring out if you want to lock it in. Maybe you're partnered and having problems, or maybe you're married not just to your partner, but to their job and your in-laws, and wondering where to go from here. Our lines are open at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. If you want to be anonymous, that's totally fine too. This is not a Coldplay jumbotron. Just let our producers know.
I'm joined today by somebody who has studied marriage for over four decades. Stephanie Coontz is an academic historian of marriage, gender, and family. She's the former Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families and the author of many books, most recently For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage.
Stephanie and I will be taking your calls on partnership, marriage, divorce, all things mating. Call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Stephanie, welcome to Please Advise.
Stephanie Coontz: Thank you.
Nayeema Raza: I am such a fan of your work. Back when I was at The New York Times in 2020, I was a staff editor in the Opinion section, and we published a piece by you called "How to Make Your Marriage Gayer." Do you remember that?
Stephanie Coontz: I do remember that, yes, and I stand by it. [laughs]
Nayeema Raza: It's called Please Advise, the show on WNYC, but please explain. Explain why we should make our marriages a bit gayer. What that research had really shown.
Stephanie Coontz: It's that one of the really grateful things about the legalization of same-sex marriage is that it offers us some real pointers for dealing with some current problems in heterosexual marriage. One of the biggest conflicts between men and women today is over the question of housework and childcare. One of the things that I talk about in my new book is that we have all these earworms that we bring. It's not that we don't want to change. We really want more egalitarian relationships, but men have this idea that, "Oh, well, women have always done the emotion work in the family, and they're the good organizers. They know how to do this."
I think women sometimes don't admit the extent to which we have inherited-- and it was very recent; women didn't used to think that they were the big experts on childcare and how the house is organized. We now developed a sort of sense that we know how to do this right, so we often invite men to do it, but to do it our way. Both of us bring in these kinds of attitudes that offend the other person, and rightfully, we need to change them, but instead of thinking that maybe we're just bad people, we should remember that we've got a whole hundreds of years of these myths about how women and men are, and we have to change them.
When two people of the same sex get together, they don't think, "Well, men do this better, women do this better." They have to have a conversation-
Nayeema Raza: Yes, they have to negotiate it.
Stephanie Coontz: -about who does what, how to change it, how to share it equally. Those conversations are a big predictor of how satisfactory your marriage is going to be.
Nayeema Raza: What I loved in that research was it showed that same-sex couples argued better with more amusement, and they made up faster, and there's something maybe we could learn from that. Of course, your 2005 book was quoted in the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. If you're just listening and tuning in now, I'm here with Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian.
I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, and you're listening to Please Advise on WNYC. Our lines are open. We want your questions about marriage, divorce, anything you're going through when it comes to mating, and we want your advice too. If you've figured it out and you have the wisdom, call us. It's 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We have our first call, actually, Stephanie. I'm going to pick it up. This is Martin in Red Bank, and he has a question about marriage. What's going on right now?
Martin: Hello, how are you doing?
Nayeema Raza: Hi, Martin. I'm well, thank you. How are you?
Martin: Good. I'm good. I have a question. My wife and I have a great marriage. We're married 35 years. We're at the other end, and everything's been perfect. All of a sudden, not out of the blue, but over a period of maybe a few years, my wife completely lost any desire for having sex anymore. I would say she lost her libido, and I'm wondering what I'm supposed to do about that.
I just wanted to give you one fact. My first idea was for her to try to do something about it with her doctors, but she has no interest in that, and I'm just wondering what to do about it. It's important. I used to give it a rating of a quarter of the marriage.
Nayeema Raza: Thank you, Martin, for that question. Stephanie, I know you're not a relationship therapist or a sex therapist, as the case may be, but what have you learned in terms of the history of what we expect when it comes to marriage and sex and partnership? It's obviously a challenging situation that Martin and his wife are navigating right now.
Stephanie Coontz: [laughs] This is way beyond my expertise, but it raises such hard questions because women have often been trained to put up with sex, and you don't want to ask them to do that. On the other hand, if you have a relationship that started with sexual attraction and sex was a very important part of it, it seems to me that it's an important thing to negotiate on both sides about what can come next. I don't think anybody should stonewall the other person on it.
Nayeema Raza: Is there something in the research around homosexual couples, there's more sex or more sexual alignment, as the case may be? Is there anything in the research that reflects that?
Stephanie Coontz: It depends. Female same-sex couples tend to have less sex than male same-sex couples, but this is probably beyond my pay grade. I'd like you to weigh in on it.
Nayeema Raza: [chuckles] I think nowadays, what's happening in my generation is a lot of people are already starting with open relationships or opening up relationships. I'm seeing this as a millennial, where I have friends who might have gotten married in college, and now they're talking about, well, do they open up their marriage?
I find that really striking because, Stephanie, I grew up-- and thank you so much, Martin, for your question. We appreciate it for kicking things off here. Please, people, if you're listening, call us with your questions about marriage, mating, everything to do with the decisions around marriage and mating. We're at 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, here with marriage historian and author Stephanie Coontz.
Stephanie, I grew up in a very traditional family. My parents had an arranged marriage, actually, from Pakistan, and just navigating the current dating landscape is really challenging because I think modern marriage has put a lot of pressure on the individual. I think one part I really look at in my parents' marriage is there was a real village around them. I know that my mom did not lose her libido. I know that because I walked in on my parents when I was maybe 20 years old.
That was quite scarring, and again, in my 30s. I have to say, my dad was in his 50s, my mom was in her 40s when I was born, so quite striking. They had this village around them; friends and family and people that showed up, and one of the things I think right now is we don't have that village anymore. I'm curious what your studies have shown about the history of marriage and the role that that village really plays.
Stephanie Coontz: Of course, the village can be a very controlling kind of thing, too, to the extent that for large parts of the past, marriage was really not based on people falling in love first and then getting married, but on finding a suitable partner that was approved by parents and by the community, and then hoping that you would fall in love. Sometimes, that worked out very well. Sometimes, of course, it did not at all.
Since the invention of the love match, people have always wanted to fall in love, but the idea that love should be the main purpose of marriage raised all sorts of confusion in people and all sorts of new opportunities, yes, for real close and close relationships, but also questions about how you relate to other people. In terms of how it relates to us now, one of the things that I think, you're absolutely right, is a real problem is the extent to which some people have taken the love match to mean that you should be all to each and each other.
You should spend lots of time together. I talk about date nights. I think date night is probably the worst advice for a married couple that is, in fact--
Nayeema Raza: [chuckles] Really?
Stephanie Coontz: Oh, yes, because-
Nayeema Raza: What's wrong with date night?
Stephanie Coontz: -you know each other.
Nayeema Raza: It's too routine?
Stephanie Coontz: You get out there, and you talk to each other, and you've already heard each other's stories. Double date night, party night; those are much more important. People respond to the way that you interact with others. I'll give you an example. My husband has a great sense of humor, but I've heard his stories, and when we're at home, or we're going out to dinner, I don't need to hear them again.
However, if we're going to a party, I encourage him to tell them because he's very funny, he's very witty, and I get the reflected glory of these people saying, "Oh, he's very funny." I think the extent to which we overestimate the twosome and underestimate the extent to which we draw social reinforcement from other people, and how they relate to our partner and how he relates or she relates to them, are a very important part of modern love, I think, and we do much better when we've got those contacts.
Nayeema Raza: I love that advice, "Screw the date night, go for the double date night." Actually, Esther Perel, who's a relationship therapist, is a friend of mine. She always encourages me early in dating to bring the suitor to a group event. I've actually taken that advice, and it's actually worked out really remarkably. One time, I even brought one to a Shabbat dinner at her house, and he said, "Is he going to stay a while?" She didn't mean for the dinner, but in my life. Unfortunately, he did not.
We have some more callers here. John, a doctor, had called in to respond to Martin, the first caller who was calling about his wife's libido, and said that there is an actual pill for that. John is a doctor. We also had some messages coming in saying, "If guys want more sex, try doing more housework, literally. Do the dishes, vacuum, do the laundry." Interesting advice over there.
Also, some advice from somebody who's going through menopause who said, "Maybe there's something going on here that you need to have a deeper conversation about that." I really love your advice, Stephanie, about putting yourself into a social environment to turn each other on again and see that spark in your partner that you just lose because it becomes wallpaper on a day-to-day basis in your life. If you're just tuning in, this is Please Advise on WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, here with marriage historian Stephanie Coontz, and you can call us with your questions about mating, marriage, divorce, all of it. 212-433-WNYC.
There's a question I have actually for you, Stephanie, which is: you talk in your book about earworms, these things we hear about marriage, and there's so much pessimism about this right now. 7 in 10 Americans say marriage is important for a fulfilling life, but if you ask people between age 18 to 30, only 1 in 5 think it's extremely important or very important for a fulfilling life.
I recently saw the film The Invite, which starts with the Oscar Wilde quote that says, "One should always be in love," and then the second quote says, "That is the reason no one should ever marry." Then George Bernard Shaw, who you quote in your 2005 book, described marriage as two people, "Under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most elusive, and most transient of passions. They're required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part."
One of the things I found remarkable about your latest book, For Better and Worse, is it really tackles this polarity between people who think that marriage is the end-all, be-all, and people who think marriage is just the most oppressive thing in the world. What's your advice for people navigating the social conversation between trad wives on one hand, and the 4B movement, which is saying, "Never get married," on the other? What's your practical advice for people who are out there?
Stephanie Coontz: I think it's-- and this is uncharacteristic of me to be a little middle of the road on that. [laughs] Marriage has a very long history of oppressive relationships for women, although I don't think that's how it originally developed. At this point, we have begun to really overturn all of the institutions that forced marriage to be unfair and unequal, but at the same time, we have all of these ideas that have been handed down to us about how women are, how men are, and they get in the way of our negotiating new relationships.
One of the things that is really fun about studying history is to understand that we have a lot more leeway than we're often told about how to reorganize our relationships. It's not true that men are incapable of emotion work. Men used to do emotion work a lot. For one thing, emotion work in the medieval times was more a class thing than a gender thing. People in the lower classes had to read the emotions of people in the upper classes that they depended on and learn how to flatter and soothe them and do all the things that women now are expected to do to men.
As for men, the idea that men are naturally unable to express emotions freely, that's baloney. Look at our founding fathers in the early 19th century, when men would write letters to each other that sounded like my girly letters. "Oh, I miss you so much. Oh, just I wept when we were parted. I'm going to be so happy. I can't wait to lie down beside you." Many of them were roommates and shared beds together.
Nayeema Raza: Some of them were lovers maybe, too, as well?
Stephanie Coontz: Some were lovers, but some were definitely not. It was perfectly okay to be affectionate. When the camera was first invented, men would go and have pictures taken of themselves sitting on the laps of their best friends. These were men with girlfriends and wives, but they were totally okay with the idea that, "This is emotion, this is natural."
Nayeema Raza: Actually, on this subject, I love the idea of that history of emotionality and what has happened to it. I want you to get into that, but we actually have a call on that subject from Santiago in Queens. Santiago, are you here?
Santiago: Yes.
Nayeema Raza: You had a question about--
Santiago: Can you hear me?
Nayeema Raza: Yes, you were talking about male paths to emotional intimacy, right? Is that what your question was about?
Santiago: Yes, and it was just a comment that I think that men have fewer pathways to intimacy than women do. Perhaps it's because of the way we're raised or our culture, but I think that's why sex for men can loom so large, because it is one of the most important pathways we have to connecting intimately. It's not just the sex. It's also intimacy.
Nayeema Raza: Interesting. Thank you so much, Santiago. This is reinforcing, Stephanie, what you're saying, which is that the narrative now is that men don't have a lot of paths to intimacy, but in fact, if you look at the history of civilization and culture, you'd find that men did have those emotional paths to intimacy. They did have deeper male friendships. We're now talking about the male loneliness crisis.
I'm sure many of our listeners have read about this. Maybe some have sons; they're concerned about the role of video games or mogging or looksmaxxing, what we're seeing in male community right now. What happened, Stephanie, and what advice do you have? What happened for it to change so much? And what advice do you have for men to bring back that emotional side of life that, yes, existed before?
Stephanie Coontz: Just to give it a little historical background, right up until the late 19th century, the opposite of "manhood" in American culture was considered "childhood, boyhood," not "womanhood." The way you proved you were a man is that you gave up the games and childishness and insults of the boy. Suddenly, in the 19th century, the opposite of "masculinity" and "manhood" became "femininity" and "womanhood," and that, of course, has caused all sorts of problems.
It may be one thing when women were not doing any of the same jobs and were seen as totally different, that men could emphasize their positive things. "Well, I can protect. I can be an army person. I can do all of these sorts of things," but once women started entering the fields that men were involved in and could be just as brave and just as heroic, then how does a man prove that he is not a woman?
I think, for some, it became necessary to be toxic, and for others, it became necessary to shut down, and that's what we're dealing with now. One of the wonderful things, though, about the changes-- and I'm not a hetero pessimist here; I think that there really are changes going on-- is how many men have taken fatherhood as something that is an emotional experience and they want to relate emotionally to their children.
Nayeema Raza: I think we're seeing that. The feminist movement is birthing a modern fatherhood movement. That's interesting. We're going to take a quick break, which is a great time for you guys to call in with your questions about marriage, mating, divorce, the quest for a mate. Our lines are open: 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Cecile, when we're back, and Claire, we're going to come for you and your questions. You're listening to Please Advise, a new call-in advice show from WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, and we'll be right back. Don't go away.
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Welcome back to Please Advise on WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza. I'm in conversation today with Stephanie Coontz, a marriage historian and the author of so many books, including her most recent, For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage. We're taking your calls here today on WNYC, so call us with your questions. Maybe you're in a marriage that's struggling, going through a rough patch. Maybe you've recently divorced and are figuring out if you want to do it all again.
Maybe, like me, you're out there in the dating world, a millennial, trying to figure out if you even want to be married anyways, because it's such a pessimistic conversation about it. You can call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Hi, Stephanie. We have some more questions here. Let's get to Claire from Westchester.
Claire: Hi, Stephanie. It's great to hear the show today. I just wanted to give a shout out to-- My husband and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary today, and what a great topic for both of us. I was latching on to the role changes, particularly with domestic chores, et cetera. Since we come from a more traditional beginning and have morphed into a less traditional present, I was just wondering-- the caller before Santiago, I think, was talking about pathways to intimacy-- is there some way, even after all these years, that I could, as we change roles and share expectations, how I might be able to, or how we might be able to, create more opportunities for pathways to intimacy for both of us as we grow older?
Nayeema Raza: What advice do you have, Stephanie, on this? You talk a lot-- I think your research speaks about bids and the Gottman research around that as well, right?
Stephanie Coontz: Yes. There's very interesting research in terms of being able to listen to people's bids for attention, that somebody may say, "Oh, look at this, look at what's outside." Like if I'm working on my book and my husband says to me, "Oh, look outside at the window," and I grunt and go back to my work-- [laughs] you have to have room for that in your relationship, too, but whenever possible, it's important to try to remember that that is not just a random comment.
That's a way of establishing solidarity, of saying, "Let's share this experience," or, "Let's share what this is," and I think that's very important to people as their relationship grows older. I also would go back to what we were talking about earlier, that it's very important to cultivate strong friendship networks, too. They introduce new ideas and new experiences into the relationship. It's also important to allow your friends, your partner to have separate friends.
One of the pieces of research that I just love: it turns out that when somebody in a marriage has a friend with whom they can talk over problems, it not only improves their satisfaction with the marriage, it improves the satisfaction of their partner, even though the partner hasn't been in on it, and it just started to be-- [crosstalk]
Nayeema Raza: Oh, wow. Somebody else to vent to? [chuckles]
Stephanie Coontz: Yes, exactly. [laughs]
Nayeema Raza: Yes, the release valve. First of all, I should say, Claire, happy anniversary also to you and your husband. 35 years is a long road. She did ask, also, for tips on sharing housework. What about when those bids are, "Can you help me do the dishes?" I think the Gottmans do a good job also talking about this, where instead of being critical, make a complaint instead of a criticism. What do you think, Stephanie?
Stephanie Coontz: I think that's true. I think that it's important to say, "Well, look, we've been doing this for so long, maybe we should sit down and talk about what we're doing and why we're doing it, and how we're doing it." I'm not sure how relevant this is to a marriage that's been together this long, but I think I would love to share some research that a colleague of mine at the Council on Contemporary Families did in thinking about what it means to share housework.
He found an interesting thing. That many couples who say they shared housework and childrearing similarly were not really satisfied with their marriage, so he said, "Well, maybe it's not an important predictor of satisfaction as we have always assumed, as the research has shown that it is." Then he broke it down, and he said, "How are they sharing those chores?" And it turns out that the people who were most satisfied were the ones who either did chores together or alternated chores.
When you sit down and think about it, you realize that if you haven't done the chore yourself, you have no idea how difficult it is. If you're a guy and you see, "Well, the woman sweeps the floor. Well, how hard can that be?"
Nayeema Raza: Yes, or if you're a woman, you see him cutting things with the-- whatever you put in the garden. I don't know what it's called.
Stephanie Coontz: That's right. Unless you've done it yourself, you don't realize how much advanced planning it takes, how much you have to correct things and go back, and so you begin to appreciate what the others are doing. I think that's really important in terms of sharing chores. It's also really important-- and this is, again, to go back to what we can learn from same-sex couples, is not to assume that women are better at one thing and men are better at other things. Take a risk and try doing something that you're not good at.
Nayeema Raza: I love that advice. Actually, we might have some advice here from a listener as well. Claire seems to share her anniversary with Bob, not her husband, from Roslyn, Long Island. Bob, you've been married for how long now?
Bob: We've been married 52 years.
Nayeema Raza: Today is your anniversary?
Bob: Yes, it is.
Nayeema Raza: Happy anniversary.
Bob: Thank you.
Nayeema Raza: I hear you have some advice that you'd like to share and wisdom you'd like to share with WNYC listeners.
Bob: It's short and sweet. Don't sweat the small stuff.
Nayeema Raza: Don't sweat the small stuff.
Bob: Just if something is important, come together on it. If things are unimportant, let them drop. Don't make it a big deal.
Nayeema Raza: How do you know what's small stuff, Stephanie? I love that advice from Bob, but how do you know what's small stuff? Because the dishes can feel like small stuff.
Stephanie Coontz: Yes, the small stuff can add up. Let me give you an example. We talk about what men don't do, but women have our own issues that we bring that are destructive to the relationship dynamics, and one of them is what sociologists call "gatekeeping." When you go back in history, women didn't used to have anything invested in keeping the cleanest house around and stuff, and thinking that we were better than men at all of these kinds of homely things.
Now, in the 19th century, we gradually began to be rewarded for that instead of for the productive work that we used to do inside and outside the home. A lot of us now see ourselves; a lot of our identity is that we are so good at this, and when our husband tries to do it, or our partner tries to do it, we want them to do it, but we want them to do it our way.
Nayeema Raza: Micromanaging. Yes.
Stephanie Coontz: There's an example I use in my book about gatekeeping, because I've been talking about this for years in lectures, and yet it was only just a year or so ago that my husband caught me reorganizing the dishwasher after he had loaded it. He said to me, very reasonably, "Why should I load the dishwasher at all if you're going to reorganize it? Why should there be two people doing it?"
You need to talk about if you're doing that sort of thing that undercuts your confidence in what the other person is doing. They may be small things, but they can build up, and they can lead people to withdraw from the kinds of discussions and collaboration that you need.
Nayeema Raza: Yes, I completely agree with you. It can build up, but also, I do like Bob's idea of don't sweat the small stuff, and knowing the difference is a big deal. I often like to say to the boyfriend of my current boyfriend, et cetera-- if we both have a strong point of opinion on something, I say, "Is it a 10 for you or a 1? Who cares more about the topic on a scale of 1 to 10?" Then they can be the decider on whether we fly this way or take the red-eye or not.
I'm sure there are much deeper problems people are figuring out, but all of that can do with some love and attention, and I think noticing as well. Noticing.
Stephanie Coontz: I love that. I love that, "Who counts more?" [chuckles]
Nayeema Raza: Exactly. You're listening to Please Advise on WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, here with marriage historian and author Stephanie Coontz. We're taking your questions today on marriage, mating, relationships. You can call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. I have Cecile on the phone now from Princeton, New Jersey.
Cecile: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I was triggered by Stephanie's advice not to make a big thing out of date night. Let me just give you a brief background on me. I'm in my 70s. I had a wonderful marriage with someone who we were both working in something that had to do with a lot of intellectual stuff. We were also not always together, but that's why date night was very important for us, because love and respect is part of the marriage, and the more I knew about him, the more I'm able to love and respect him.
It went all the way to the end, and I have all these wonderful thoughts about all the things that we shared and how we grew together through the years, from being hippies to being now more open to whatever's going on around us. That's it.
Nayeema Raza: Thank you, Cecile, for that feedback. I understand "triggered," but I think, Stephanie, you're probably, as you said, not often in the middle of the road, but you probably agree that date night sometimes is a good idea?
Stephanie Coontz: Oh, yes. Yes, of course.
Nayeema Raza: You're not saying never a date night; you're just saying, "Mix it up"?
Stephanie Coontz: Mix it up. Exactly.
Nayeema Raza: [chuckles] Mix it up. I think I really like the mix-up of it all. It is true. Sometimes we celebrate anniversaries. I'm very happy for-- we had Bob celebrating 52 years, Claire and her husband celebrating 30-plus years, but sometimes it's not just longevity; it's the depth of a relationship. You can just be in a partnership that, I think, can turn into logistics over time, where you lose that relationship, or it becomes all about the kids or the next trip or the wedding you've got to get to and someone's graduation, and you don't get the time together.
Carving out that time is really lovely, as is, I think, what Stephanie, you were describing, which is seeing yourself from somebody else's eyes and reminding yourself why you fell in love with this logistics partner in the first place.
Stephanie Coontz: I think if I just add one other thing?
Nayeema Raza: Please.
Stephanie Coontz: There's a lot of research that shows that sexual excitement and intellectual excitement as well is produced by novelty. That doesn't mean you have to go out and sleep with new people. It means you need to seek out novel experiences together. I think that's one of the problems with a date night that just involves, "Oh, let's talk. Let's be intimate with each other."
A date night that involves learning a new skill, taking a risk, interacting with other people in ways that are a little bit challenging to you? That's the sort of thing that research actually shows people come home from that feeling more sexually attracted to each other.
Nayeema Raza: Oh, there you go. That's the libido answer right there. We have our next caller here. This is Hand calling from Crown Heights. Hi, Hand.
Hannah: Oh, hi. It's Hannah. Hi. I'm 31, and I haven't really ever been in a really long-term relationship, like more than a year and change. That wasn't that odd in my 20s, and I am very romantically inclined. I am very interested in that, and I date, but I'm looking around at 31, and I'm starting to see pretty much all of my close friends have long-term relationships, and I'm starting to be like, "Am I behind? Is this weird?"
I also feel a satisfaction in my individuality. I don't necessarily feel like, in my apartment, I'm like, "Something's missing." Yes, so I feel very confused about that, and I thought that I would ask.
Nayeema Raza: I love that question, Hannah. Thank you for calling. Yes, how do you look at that, looking at current dating? I think Hannah's representative of the kind of data I was showing at the beginning, which is you might not need a partnership to be fulfilled, but you might want one. How do you navigate that life and feeling what she called "perpetually single"? That's a very-- I feel that.
Stephanie Coontz: Yes, I don't have any easy answer for that. I think that one of the real problems we have is that we've lost a lot of our social contacts. People are spending less time out of the house, less time with other people in general. The more that we can recapture the idea that fun and intellectual and emotional stimulation comes from interacting with a range of other people, the more I think that we can both navigate the loneliness of not necessarily having a partner, and the more we're more likely to meet somebody who could actually develop into a partner. I think get out and be with friends more often. [chuckles]
Nayeema Raza: I like that. I like that advice, and, Hannah, what you're describing resonates with me. I'm a few years older than you, or maybe more than a few years older than you at 31, but dating is hard. I feel like our generation of women, millennials or Gen-Zs, we've absorbed a lot of societal shifts in terms of the role of women and men that Stephanie was describing having shifted over time, that it's really hard for us to-- we can look at all that and then individuate it, like, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I figure it out?"
If you look across the nation, as this is something I do as a journalist, and very much a question I ask on my show, Smart Girl, Dumb Questions, "What is happening to a generation of women?" You are not alone. You are not behind. This is also a New York City reality of challenges, and I think, on timeline, you do, I think, as Stephanie is saying, put yourself out there, be open to the possibility, because I do think that narrative can feed you in a way that doesn't help you achieve what you want. Yes, I think just putting yourself out there and taking the rush off of yourself.
I also think I'm a generation-- and tomorrow on Please Advise, we're going to be speaking about the "then comes baby" family planning part of it, but I found freezing my eggs and actually taking some time to be single after having been in relationships throughout my 20s was really a bomb for me and allowed me to date with so much more intention and a sense of what I wanted, not just whether I was wanted by somebody else. I would really encourage you to keep putting yourself out there and to try to take the timeline away as much as possible. It's not an insurance policy, but it definitely can change the timeline for you.
Stephanie, I have a question for you on timeline, as it comes to this, which is, in New York City, your research shows that back in the day, people would get married very fast. I think something like six months on average. You don't have data to support that, but that seemed to be, anecdotally, what you were finding in research for hundreds of years ago. Now, I think we have this phenomenon in New York City. I call it-- the technical term is "Peter Pan syndrome," where people can never get married or stay dating or cohabitating forever.
I think women can have it too, but what is the ideal timeline for having met someone to locking it in? Is there a three-date rule for marriage?
Stephanie Coontz: [chuckles] I don't know, but the statistic you're quoting is from the 1950s when people married extremely quickly. One sociologist estimates that after dating for only six months, they would get married. In fact, my husband's older sister, that's exactly how long she dated as someone who was raised in the '50s.
I think that it's very important for people to think through your relationships with others, not necessarily in terms of, "What's the timeline from dating to marriage?" But, "What's the way that I can explore relationships, some of which may be romantic and some of which will definitely not be romantic, but will be interesting and add to my repertoire of what I eventually bring to any relationship I end up in?"
I don't know. It sounds very not helpful, [chuckles] but we're dealing with a real problem in the sense that we're waiting until we're older to get married, and that's a good thing. Most of the time, it means it decreases your chance of divorce. You're bringing in experiences that can enrich your lives, but it also means that we're spending large parts of our time where we're not likely to meet people organically in school or in class or at work, and we have to think of new ways to get out and mix in groups together.
I think people are experimenting with maybe not just doing single dates online, but coming out and finding ways to socialize as a group.
Nayeema Raza: Yes. Enter the pickleball or mahjong revolutions that we're seeing right now. We're going to be taking a quick break, which is a great time for you to call us with your questions about marriage, divorce, the quest for a mate. Maybe you're looking to get married, and you want to propose. You want to know if it should be a surprise or not? I don't know. Call us. Our lines are open. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You're listening to Please Advise, a call-in show from WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza, here with Stephanie Coontz, and we'll be right back after this break.
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Welcome back to Please Advise on WNYC. I'm your host, Nayeema Raza. I'm here with marriage historian and author Stephanie Coontz. We're taking your questions today on all things marriage, mating, dating, relationships, so please call in. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Stephanie, I think one of the things I love about your work, and my favorite of your books, is from a long time ago, back when I was a baby, but it was called The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. I think we romanticize marriage so much these days, or we disparage it.
Stephanie Coontz: Yes. It's interesting. People say, "Well, people don't value marriage anymore," but actually very few people say they definitely don't want to get married, and most people believe that marriage is the highest commitment that they can imagine. When couples cohabit and don't get married, same-sex or straight, that's often because they see marriage as a bigger, stronger commitment than cohabiting and they're not ready to make it. The result is that we have much higher expectations of marriage, and I think that's a very good thing.
I don't belong to the group that think, "Oh, we expect too much of marriage," but I think we do expect too little of other people and of the extent to which our marriage needs support systems. Of course, also, it's tremendous because our high expectations mean that we really need more attention, more negotiation than marriages ever did before, in the past, when they were pretty cut and dried about what gender roles should be and who did what and what they had to do.
At that very same time, we're living in a world where the economic and time pressures, the scarcity, the sense of, "What are we going to do with our kids if we do get married?" That it undermines the kind of connection, bids for attention, negotiation, or gratitude that makes these relationships really work. We have to be very attentive to how much the outside world is making it very difficult for us to do what we need to do in our-- [crosstalk]
Nayeema Raza: What we want to do individually. I love that advice, Stephanie. This is WNYC, Please Advise, but we have a bunch of callers today who've called in with their advice, dispensing their wisdom from their observations of marriage. I'm going to do a round robin of advice from our listeners here. Let's start with Lisa from-- Lisa, are you here?
Lisa: Yes. Sorry, my hands are full of meatballs.
[laughter]
Nayeema Raza: Oh, is that the advice? Make meatballs?
Lisa: Yes, that helps. Would you rather be right or happy?
Nayeema Raza: It's not a question; that's her advice. That's your advice, Lisa, for how you can navigate a tough moment in a relationship?
Lisa: Yes. I've been divorced longer than I was married, but yes, it's still a good piece of advice.
[laughter]
Nayeema Raza: Love it. I hope you're making the meatballs for someone special today. I hope that someone special is you as well. Thank you so much, Lisa, for that advice: Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? That's great. We have Marcela with some advice now, too.
Marcela: Yes. Good afternoon. I'm so glad I called because I listen to the radio all the time, and this is the first time I've called, because I love psychology. Something I would like to comment is that I learned really early, and I don't know why, that freedom is so important in a relationship, because all the happiness you get in the world, all the dopamine you get outside, it comes back to the house.
I always thought, "Let me be free because it's going to come to me; all the happiness from the world will come back to me," and I trusted. I trusted, and it worked out. I think that I would give room for, "Go there and be happy because I will be happy, too." The other comment I have here is that did you notice that most of the people who called today are women? Is that surprising? Not to me.
Stephanie Coontz: Yes, look at that.
Nayeema Raza: I think we've had a good balance. Yes, I think we've had some balance here, but I take your point. I love that advice, Marcela, of finding freedom outside of your house and bringing that freedom and happiness home. I think that resonates with a lot of what Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian, was telling us about the role of the village and the world and relationships outside of marriage, outside of the romantic relationship, to a fulfilling life. Thank you so much, Marcela.
Next up, we have Adrian. I think Adrian is here with us.
Adrian: Yes.
Nayeema Raza: Oh, a man? Thank you. I wanted to be proven right about having as many male callers, so you're helping us with the numbers here.
Adrian: No. Hi. I'm a gay man. We've been in a relationship for 39 years, and what I learned early on in the relationship, that compromise was very important. Asking yourself, "How important is this?" Or do you want to stand firm in a position? And I've learned a lot of flexibility. Just to give an example. My partner likes action movies. I like historical or romantic movies, and so I decided, "Well, I'll go see these action movies. Even if I don't really like them, I'm with him, and he knows that I'm catering to his needs."
The same thing with him; he'll go to movies that I like. It's just a question-- be flexible. Also, roles change. I'm 20 years older than my partner, and in the beginning of the relationship, I was the dominant one, and I've had an interesting life, so I'd be telling stories at parties. Over the years, I've said to myself, "I don't need to tell my story anymore," and now he's taken over, and he's coming out with all of that.
Nayeema Raza: Great. Look, I love the compromise, even in your film choices. Thank you so much, Adrian, for that advice. I think we also have some advice here from Sam.
Sam: Hello?
Nayeema Raza: Hi, Sam.
Sam: Hi. How are you?
Nayeema Raza: Good.
Sam: In September, my husband and I were married 39 years, and we have stayed married for 39 years by following my parents' advice. They were married for 38 years until my father died. Their advice was, "A marriage needs two things to survive. Respect for the other person and a sense of humor." With that in mind, they had a motto which we have also followed, which is, "Divorce, never. Murder, maybe."
Nayeema Raza: [laughs] Interesting. I love that. Thank you so much, Sam, for that advice. I just want to put a disclaimer out there: WNYC does not endorse you murdering your spouse, I'm quite sure, and neither do your host, Nayeema Raza, or Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian, who's here with me. Stephanie, I'm curious. There's a question that's come in through messages, which is: people are asking questions about prenups. Are they important in a marriage? Where do they come from? What is your--? [crosstalk]
Stephanie Coontz: About what? I didn't hear you.
Nayeema Raza: Prenups.
Stephanie Coontz: Oh, yes.
Nayeema Raza: Someone said, "Is there evidence that couples who have a prenup are bound to stay together longer? Because many people find prenups not that romantic, but important."
Stephanie Coontz: I don't know any evidence about whether they actually support the marriage or not, but I do know that they're becoming much more common, and I don't see anything wrong with them because you've got two people who really, for the first time in history, met more and more relationships, have two people who are not engaged in a joint project as in the old household economies of the past, but who have different jobs, different rewards, different demands on them, and need to think through what would happen if they have to separate.
The only thing that I would say is if you're going to do a prenup about your finances and your-- and, God, I don't know why I'm offering advice. I'm a historian, not a psychologist-- but the one thing that I would suggest is that you also write into it how you feel now, and the respect you feel now is, if you do part, you're going to try to maintain that. I would like to see people make a vow on paper as to how they will behave if they ever decide they part.
Nayeema Raza: I love that advice. I actually have interviewed a divorce attorney, Jim Sexton, a few times on my show about what you learn from prenups and what you should put into them. He has told me some wild stories about people putting weight clauses: "If you gain a certain amount of weight, we won't stay married." I like your, Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian's, advice about what to put in a prenup as well. Charles actually called in having some advice about prenups and divorces. Charles, come on in.
Charles: Yes, hi. I've been through a divorce; horrible experience. My thing is I wouldn't wish divorce on my worst enemy, and a lot of times during a divorce, that is the other party. The judge gave us or didn't give us advice, but he said, "The reason these things take so long is because, marriage, especially in New York State, is a legal contract, and the courts really detest breaking legal contracts." A prenup sets things up so that it would be much smoother if things don't go as planned.
Nayeema Raza: Thank you, Charles, for that advice. I think that is really helpful. We're nearing the end of our hour, and, Stephanie, I wanted to ask you, as somebody who has studied marriage for decades-- you're a marriage historian; you've written, I think, five books about this topic-- what hasn't changed in the history of marriage?
Stephanie Coontz: [laughs] I would have to write a new book about that because- [laughs]
Nayeema Raza: That things have stayed the same?
Stephanie Coontz: -things have changed so much.
Nayeema Raza: You yourself, you were reluctant to get married. You have quite a beautiful love story with your partner, your husband. You are married. How does studying marriage impact being married?
Stephanie Coontz: [laughs] My husband would tell you, and roll his eyes, that every once in a while, I'll say something like, "All the research shows--," and he wants to run out the door when I start a sentence with that.
[laughter]
Nayeema Raza: It is a trump card.
Stephanie Coontz: Yes, that's not been a particularly good thing. What has been useful is that it has allowed me to step back from taking some things personally. There are habits we bring from the past or from our socialization as children, or the ideas, the myths that have been drummed into our heads that make us behave in ways instinctively and habitually that irritate the other. One of the things that is really nice about being a marriage historian is that I can say, "Okay, I did that, and I know it's irritating." Do I have time for a quick example?
Nayeema Raza: No. Unfortunately, that's the end of our hours, but you can find more of Stephanie Coontz and her writing, her latest book, For Better and Worse. I'm Nayeema Raza, your host on Please Advise on WNYC. You can find more of me on my podcast, Smart Girl, Dumb Questions, or you can tune in tomorrow to Please Advise. I'll be hosting again, and we will be talking procreating. We will be joined by Anna Sussman, author of the book Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty.
Thank you so much for being with us, and keep going. Hannah, especially you. Keep going. Don't worry about timelines.
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