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AT first glance, the prognosis for marriage looks grim. Between 1950 and 2011, according to calculations by the University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, the marriage rate fell from 90 marriages a year per 1,000 unmarried women to just 31, a stunning 66 percent decline. If such a decline continued, there would be no women getting married by 2043!

MY column last month about the dangers of nostalgia inspired many readers to write to me about their family memories of the 1950s and '60s. Some shared poignant stories about the discrimination they encountered as blacks, women, gay men or lesbians. Others described how much easier it was for their working-class fathers to support a family back then.

HERE'S an old riddle: a boy and his father are in a car crash and the father is killed instantly. The boy is airlifted to the best hospital in the region and prepped for emergency surgery by one of the top surgeons in the country. The surgeon rushes in, sees the boy, and says "I can't operate on this patient. He's my son." Who is the surgeon? When I heard this riddle as a teenager back in 1962, I was totally stumped. Had the boy been adopted, and the surgeon was the birth father?

FIFTY years ago, Betty Friedan made a startling prediction in her controversial best seller, "The Feminine Mystique." If American housewives would embark on lifelong careers, she claimed, they would be happier and healthier, their marriages would be more satisfying, and their children would thrive.

IT'S always seductive to know where one stands in relation to the average. As an overly confident college freshman, the first time I received a below-average score on an exam was a needed wake-up call. Today, I find it encouraging to read that I exercise more than the average woman my age.

AS a historian, I've spent much of my career warning people about the dangers of nostalgia. But as a mother, watching my son graduate from medical school on Thursday, I have been awash in nostalgia all week.