In the article “Too Close for Comfort”, the author, Stephanie Coontz gives an analysis of the romanticized importance related to the current times marriages. The author introduces the article by giving the Census Bureau release that showed a reduction in the married-couple households. In the article, most Americans are concerned with making their marriages work and avoid divorce and separations. She realized that most married couples are interested in maintaining their marriages, even to the extent of getting back their broken married-relationships.
In her opinion, asking the question “How can we save our marriage?” (Coontz) is not the right question that these married couples should be asking. In her advice in the article, she says American couples ought to ask this question: “Why has marriage diminished the importance of all other social relationships (Coontz). She argues that all Americans have put their couple in one basket, which she does not support. Further, she cites a three-sociologist study, which even makes her argument more relevant and understandable by her audience. These studies were carried out between 1984 and 2003, at the Universities of Arizona and Duke University, and indicated that the number of Americans who were either willing or discussing meaningful matters with others who were not their spouses had reduced greatly. She also suggested that other social relationships outside marriage have also declined considerably.
In my opinion, the author gives relevant advice to the married and the dating audience on how they should conduct themselves before and during their marriages. I think Coontz is striving to help individuals understand the facts that maintain other close social relationships especially after a person is married is most likely to make the marriages not to work out.
I agree with you since you also understand that we spend most of our single days making our girlfriends our significant others, and the fact that women dump their friends when they meet their loved ones. Additionally, I like the way you relate the article to the book and that you recognize the authors motive of helping individuals fulfill emotional intimacy.
Work Cited:
Stephanie Coontz. Too Close for Comfort. The New York Times. Web November 7, 2006
