Thanks to men like Curtice, "the bonds of scarcity" had been broken and America was rolling "to an all-time high of prosperity".

If we ask Americans why they eat with knives and forks, or why their men wear pants instead of skirts, or why they may be married to only one person at a time, we are likely to get similar and very uninformative answers: "Because it's right.

Single-sex education also made it less likely that boys would feel they had to conform to a stereotype that men should be "masterful and in charge" in relationships