Meeting Places and Romance
Gray Divorce: Higher standards, more opportunities, longer lives, women at work help explain the trend
One reason for this is what we might call the divorce echo effect. Older individuals are more often in remarriages, not first marriages, and remarriages have long been more likely than first marriages to end through divorce. People who have been divorced in the past are more willing to divorce again in the event a marriage becomes unsatisfying. In contrast, some proportion of those in first marriages are unwilling to divorce even if they have an unsatisfying marriage. more »
Birds Do It, Bees Do It: A Century of Sex (Mis)Education in the United States
From junior high school hygiene films to websites, public health campaigns, scientific studies, children’s books, bodice-ripper novels and (sometimes) parents, Americans have always found ways to learn about sex. While attitudes towards sex education swing from the blissfulness of ignorance to the empowerment of liberation — and back again — every generation finds new ways to answer the old questions. Our desire to learn about desire has not changed. more »
Elaine Soloway's Widow Series: Odd Number & Like Mother, Like Daughter or Not
There were five of us seated around the table — circular, so much better than rectangle where an empty chair would have been haunting. Four dear friends, who didn't want me alone on my aborted 15-year wedding anniversary, treated me to dinner at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was the same spot Tommy and I, and this very same group, celebrated at each year. more »
Generations and Cousins at Dyckman: Broadening Our Chances for Genetic Refreshment
Julia Sneden writes: We are not so much proud of our ancestors as we are just grateful to them, for being tough enough and stubborn enough to have picked up and moved when they needed or simply wanted to do so. Crossing the Atlantic (or any other ocean) in a tiny little wooden ship must have taken huge amounts of courage, and once here, huge amounts of energy and brain power to keep from starving to death. more »