Most of us are now free to walk away from our marital commitments more easily than from any other contract in our lives.

A family, like a canoe, must be steered or paddled, or it won't take you where you want to go.

In the consumer culture of marriage, commitments last as long as the other person is meeting our needs. We still believe in commitment, because we know that committed relationships are good for us, but powerful voices coming from inside and outside tell us that we are suckers if we settle for less than we think we need and deserve in our marriage. Most baby boomers and their offspring carry in our heads the internalized voice of the consumer culture-to encourage us to stop working so hard or to get out of a marriage that is not meeting our current emotional needs.

If a married couple with children has fifteen minutes of uninterrupted, non-logistical, non-problem-solving talk every day, I would put them in the top 5% of all married couples. It's an extraordinary achievement.

Why would a married couple that lives together every day need to date each other? It's precisely because they live and sleep together.

Marriage is a public good, not just a private relationship. We have a public stake in healthy marriages and two-parent families. Our society suffers with the collapse of the relationship of the couple who brings a child into the world.

Most of us are now free to walk away from our marital commitments more easily than from any other contract in our lives.