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Stephanie Coontz consulted in Pew marriage poll

Marriage is increasingly optional and could be on its way to obsolescence,according to a survey of more than 2,600 Americans that examines changing attitudes about relationships today.

Among the 2,691 adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center last month, 39% say marriage is becoming obsolete, up from 28% who responded to the same question posed in 1978 by Time magazine, which participated in the survey....

Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., was among four scholars who consulted with Pew.

"The relationship of marriage is taken more seriously than it used to be and it means more to people, but the institution is no longer as dominant," she says....
Read entire article at USA Today