Men and Women, Together and Solo

To the Editor:

Re “Less Marriage, Less Sex, Less Agreement,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, May 30):

Women’s discontent with marriage is not new; it just became more obvious because the availability of both birth control and abortion freed women to express their discontent by either not marrying or not remarrying.

Recently the number of women who are choosing not to marry has reached a level that is alarming to those who become anxious when the power of traditional hierarchies weakens.

So it’s not surprising that a prominent feature of the MAGA movement is an effort to bully women back into dependency by appointing Supreme Court judges willing to revoke their access to abortion and perhaps also birth control.

This bullying gets dressed up in religious rhetoric that ignores the obvious truth that our freedom of religion must always include freedom from others’ religious convictions.

The only way to have a satisfying marriage is for both partners to want to be in it. Mr. Kristof is right to emphasize the need for men and marriage to change, not for women to lose the ability to choose what kind of life they want.

Susan Stewart
Broomfield, Colo.
The writer is a retired marriage and family therapist and a co-author of “Flying Solo: Single Women in Midlife.”