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For the past several years, we've heard predictions that legalizing same-sex unions will overturn marriage as the Western world has known it for 5,000 years, destroying a tried-and-true institution. But history reveals that marriage has been an evolving arrangement throughout the centuries, remaining relevant only by adjusting to changing social norms and values.

The flurry of publicity around Kate Middleton's decision to try being "an ordinary RAF wife" has been used by social conservatives to bolster their contention that this is the ultimate ambition of most women.In January, Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics issued a report claiming that most young women aspire to marry men who are better educated and earn more than themselves.

ONE of the most enduring myths about feminism is that 50 years ago women who stayed home full time with their children enjoyed higher social status and more satisfying lives than they do today. All this changed, the story goes, when Betty Friedan published her 1963 best seller, "The Feminine Mystique," which denigrated stay-at-home mothers. Ever since, their standing in society has steadily diminished.

As Prince William prepares to take his oath to Kate Middleton on Friday, the ceremony will represent not only a new chapter in his life, but in the history of the monarchy. After all, he's the first heir to the throne granted the right to freely choose his own mate on the basis of love, an ideal the rest of the Western world embraced in the late 18th century. The last time a British monarch wanted to marry the woman he loved, in the 1930s, he had to give up his throne.

(CNN) -- Last week the White House released a comprehensive statistical report on "Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being," the first such assessment since President John F. Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women released its findings in 1963.The new report indicates that women still earn less, on average, than men and are more likely to live in poverty. They are also at much greater risk of sexual assault and of violence at the hands of an intimate partner than men.

A new book explains why Betty Friedan might have paved the way for equal marriages by blowing the roof off the feminine mystique.