In 1965, his foremost work, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,'' identified the breakup of black families as a major impediment to black advancement. Though savaged by many liberal academics at the time, it is now generally regarded as "an important and prophetic document,'' in the words of Professor William Julius Wilson of Harvard.

That's why Okafor's story stands in such high relief. He leads the nation in shot-blocking, but he also swats at the cynicism of academic fraud that threatens his sport. In contrast to some players at other universities � like the one who entered St. Bonaventure on a welding certificate, and those who received A's for classes they never attended at Georgia � Okafor is an honor student, an academic all-American set to graduate after three years with a degree in finance.

"I don't know what to make of all this. I'm just being me. I haven't lived a stressful life. My parents are together, my family is fine. Maybe someone with a burden, it would affect sports or academics. I've been very lucky."

Suggestions for austere weddings include renting reception premises from a social cooperative for the prevention of juvenile delinquency, or having a dinner catered by a relatively low-cost agricultural cooperative. Marginalized persons also can help through a social cooperative with the distribution of wedding invitations and booklets. The archdiocese suggests the names of wedding-gift stores that, in addition to conducting an ethical business, contribute to the funding of development projects in the Third World.

While the overall divorce rate in Japan still appears flat when compared with America and Europe, in the last few years divorces among older people have been skyrocketing, reflecting profound changes in a traditionally conservative society.

Linda Waite, a sociologist and marriage scholar at the University of Chicago, said that married couples don't always realize how much they have invested in their marriage. Both married men and women, on average, live longer than unmarried peers and run lower risks of developing heart disease, among other ailments, she said. Married people also tend to have more satisfying sex lives than single peers, more financial resources and a better shot at avoiding depression and alcohol abuse.

"Unfortunately," Waite said, "we may not take into account all these things until the marriage is over."

With only 40 percent of black adults married, nearly 70 percent of their children born out of wedlock and 23 divorces for every 1,000 couples, according to government statistics, black women are the least legally partnered group in America, said Nisa Islam Muhammad.

"The real benefits of a successful marriage are hidden secrets from the black community," said Muhammad, 40, a divorced single mother who lives in Washington. "We are basically clueless to the great benefits for all involved.

"It is a proven fact that black married men make more money," Muhammad said. "They are greater accumulators of wealth, as well as living longer and healthier. Further, successful marriage frees women from the burden of parenting and providing at the same time. It provides children with the comfort of both financial and emotional stability, and marriage gives children access to the two most important people in their lives on a day-to-day basis."

She laments the "collapse" of the mating rules that she imagines guided our mothers and foremothers to the altar and contentment beyond. It is a sad, tired and essentially neo-conservative litany. Clearly, despite living in the same city, Haussegger and I dwell on different planets. Don't get me wrong - I've had my fair share of men dragging teddy bears. And I face my own dilemmas about juggling time and priorities over the coming years. But I don't feel part of a "displaced generation", out of sync with the life and times of past generations of women who fought or hoped for equal pay, equal rights and an equal say in the running of Australia. To me the health of interpersonal commitment is not really measured in terms of Family Court litigation tearing chunks of property and children apart. Nor in terms of the large number of legally or socially sanctioned couplings slowly crumbling around me. These developments are mainly about the form corresponding more accurately, even honestly, with the substance of what's always gone on behind closed doors and locked white-picket fences. Women and children - and men as well - have always been badly let down inside marriages and families.

Curiously, Hacker shares Schlafly's view of a yawning abyss between men and women. He suggests an additional subtitle for his book: "from affinity to estrangement." Hacker justifies this conclusion, one Schlafly shares, by telling us why he forces the "sexes into strict dichotomies." This he does "knowingly and for a reason." The best way to confront social realities, Hacker claims, "is by portraying them as vividly as possible. In this spirit, hyperbole can serve a purpose: to sharpen our understanding of the murky world in which we live." No, in this spirit lie distortions that flow from hyperbole, although these seem not to worry him all that much. Schlafly functions in much the same way.

Mr. Ben-Israel contends that wedding cakes now rival wedding gowns for attention. "Now more than ever, couples want to make a statement with the cake, whether it is a theme, a vivid color or some special detail that makes the cake their own," he said. Increasingly, the iconic wedding cake, typically an unexciting vanilla done in white frosting, is becoming pass�. "It just doesn't get the ooh and aahs," said Leslie Maynor, a co-owner of Fantasy Frosting in Los Angeles (562-941-6266), and whose list of wedding cake clients has regularly included Jennifer Lopez.