In the last twenty-five years, Americans have gained considerable freedom in their personal lives. Relationships are now more flexible, and self-development has become a primary goal for both men and women. Most scholars have criticized this trend to greater freedom, arguing that it undermines family bonds and promotes selfishness and extreme independence. Francesca Cancian is more optimistic. In this book she shows that many American couples succeed in combining self-development with commitment, and that interdependence, not independence, is their ideal. In interdependent relationships, love and self-development do not conflict, but reinforce each other.

Using sociological, historical, and psychological sources, Cancian shows how the roles of the sexes have shifted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She concludes that, while the trend towards more flexible, androgynous roles will continue, whether these changes lead to more interdependent relationships or to more independence and isolation, depends partly on economic and political changes in society as a whole.
In Love in America Francesca M. Cancian concludes that images of love in Am