The only thing that can replace (the emptiness) is a new sense of community. It's more than the sum of the individual losses.

Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.

Nostalgia wouldn't begin to capture your sense of loss, ... The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms With America's Changing Families.

This is a new phenomenon ? not the mercenary quality, but the fact that people are willing to risk this kind of money, just to say they're married. Love has been so idealized that at the top, the rich are willing to throw good money after bad to see if they can get the magic ring.

Life is filled with trade-offs, and I worry that it's so easy to slip from descriptions of problems to one-size-fits-all prescription,

The depth and influence of the radicalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s are often exaggerated.