DIVORCE, AMERICAN STYLE REDUX

Las Vegas

Perhaps I can have the last word on Katha Pollitt's review of Judith Wallerstein's Legacy of Divorce ["Subject to Debate," Oct. 23; "Exchange," Dec. 4]. I'm a sociologist who has written and taught about marriage and family for seven years. Whatever the merits of the methodological debate on Wallerstein, I have my own method of truth, which although nonscientific has proven extremely reliable. Every semester I ask my students to raise their hands if their parents are divorced. As in the rest of the population, around half raise their hands. I then ask them to keep their hands raised if they wish their parents had not divorced. Without exception, all but one or two hands fall. When I ask those who lowered their hands, "Why?" they respond that the stress and conflict of unhappy parents took an intense emotional toll on them.

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