Naoko McCracken

My husband and I just had our 4th anniversary past Friday. Well, that is not really relevant, but I just heard a good program about marriage on Diane Rehm show this morning.

It’s an interview with Stephanie Coontz, the author of “Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.”
She throws in facts from history to analyze marriage today. Starting with something like “for 1000′s of years, people didn’t get married for love. Getting married for love is a radical idea”… The way she does it is so objective it lacks sympathy -that’s probably normal for a sociologist talking about her subject matter, but not usual for people who talks about marriage in general. In fact that’s what I liked about her talk.

But at the same time it’s surprising that she doesn’t sound like a cold-hearted theorist at all. Rather, she comes off as a really curious person who is so eager to find the truth about marriage, relationship, and family.

The sound file of the program is now online (link to the program pagex). If you are married, thinking about getting married, or just curious about what she says, I think it’s worth listening!