Each marriage bears the footprints of economic and cultural trends which originate far outside marriage.

The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman's aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.

The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called 'advanced insecurity.

Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a 'second shift' at home.

Children born of married parents in America face a higher risk of seeing them break up than children born of unmarried parents in Sweden.

If in the earlier part of the century, middle-class children suffered from overattentive mothers, from being "mother's only accomplishment," today's children may suffer from an underestimation of their needs. Our idea of what a child needs in each case reflects what parents need. The child's needs are thus a cultural football in an economic and marital game.

Here is a new car, a new iPhone. We buy. We discard. We buy again. In recent years, we've been doing it faster.