There are a lot of people who are re-thinking the importance of marriage as an institution - and, like you mentioned, the whole renegotiation is almost certainly connected to widely available reproductive control. I agree with you that it is one of the most substantive changes in human history.

I'm in the process of writing a few academic papers on well-being in single adults. One name keeps popping up in the research literature and if you have a chance to look her up I think you'd appreciate her work: Dr. Bella DePaulo.

J