Post-V-Day Marriage Musings

The scholar Stephanie Koontz, who recently published a well-received history of marriage, has just run in the Times an op-ed-ish piece about marriage in the U.S. It's a brilliant attack on the right's (and sometimes the left's) moronic assumption that marriages were once the bedrock of society. Apparently the book is much of the same. I don't want to give away too much, but I liked these facts:

• "Divorce rates in the 1950's were higher than any previous decade aside from the Depression, and almost one in three marriages formed in the 1950's eventually ended in divorce."
• "More couples will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversaries now than at any time in the past."