Sullivan marshalls persuasive evidence that marriage is in the process of being fundamentally transformed by the changing roles, relations, and negotiations of husbands and wives. Even marriages organized according to the so-called "traditional" male breadwiner/female homemaker division are responding to changing values and expectations. An important contribution to our understanding of modern marriage.

Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage

This is an extremely important book. Most books treat the family as static: fixed in a moment of time. This book corrects this misleading picture; the family and its members are changing all the time in response to global, economic and cultural forces. Almost uniquely, this text lets us understand how family and gender patterns are changing, and where things might be heading. This book will educate educators as well as students. It should change the way family classes are taught.

Dr. Pepper Schwartz, professor of sociology, University of Washington; author of The Normal Bar

A significant sociological study of the process of change in domestic gender relations and, through evidence of reciprocal causality, in the larger social sphere....The book is important for all gender scholors across the social sciences and activists who seek to make and understand the processes of large-scale social change.

Augist 01 2008, Book Review Digest

Oriel Sullivan has addressed an issue of great contemporary interest, and has given us a well-written, well-informed and insightful account of the complex evidence about changing gender relations in family life.....

R. W. Connell, The University of Sydney

Oriel Sullivan has addressed an issue of great contemporary interest, and has given us a well-written, well-informed andinsightful account of the complex evidence about changing gender relations in family life.

R. W. Connell, The University of Sydney