Man is jealous because of his amour propre; woman is jealous because of her lack of it. - Germaine Greer

In the nuclear family the child is confronted by only two adults contrasted by sex. The tendency towards polarization is unavoidable. The duplication of effort in the nuclear family is directly connected to the family's role as the principal unit of consumption in consumer society. Each household is destined to acquire a complete set of all the consumer durables considered necessary for the good life and per caput consumption is therefore maintained at its highest level. In sex, as in consumption, the nuclear family emphasizes possession and exclusivity at the expense of the kinds of emotional relationships that work for co-operation and solidarity.

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate. Many a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room.

There are enough women prepared to boast of having got
a man in a million to persuade other women that their failure to find
a man rich enough, handsome enough, skilled enough as a lover,
considerate enough, is a reflection of their inferior deserts or powers
of attraction. More than half the housewives in this country work
outside the home as well as inside it because their husbands do not
earn enough money to support them and their children at a decent
living standard. Still more know that their husbands are paunchy,
short, unathletic, and snore or smell or leave their clothes lying
around. A very high proportion do not find bliss in the conjugal
embrace and most complain that their husbands forget the little
things that count. And yet the myth is not invalidated as a myth