Q&A with Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood

  

Nan Bauer-Maglin

 

 

Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood are the editors of the new book Loving Arrangements: Stories About Modern Living and Loving. They also edited the book Gray Love. Bauer-Maglin is a professor emerita at the City University of New York, and Hood is a retired professor of sociology. 

 

Q: What inspired you both to create this new anthology?

 

A: We, my coeditor Dan Hood and I, have been asked: “Why this topic; why write about Loving Arrangements?” Well, the idea of Loving Arrangements started with queries we got about some of the pieces in our previous book Gray Love: Stories About Dating and New Relationships After 60 (which came out in 2023, coedited by Dan and myself).

 

Gray Love was about people over 60 looking for love, mostly by using online dating. Some found a relationship, some gave up--accommodating themself to being single or not-- and some designed somewhat alternative relationships (mainly what is known as LAT, living apart together). LAT is a familiar term now, but a few years ago it was not well-known; so people wanted to know more about such arrangements.

Daniel E. Hood

 

In addition, two articles in Gray Love sparked a lot of discussion: one by a man who described his relationship with two women, both of whom were uncomfortably aware of each other; a second piece was by a woman who described how she was “dating” a man who had a primary relationship with a different woman, the primary ”squeeze” was unaware of the secondary “squeeze.”

 

So, with this expressed interest in LAT and triangular relationships, Dan and I felt that there was a book here, that the ideas and actualities of love, marriage, and the couple were ripe for exploration.

 

Q: How did you choose the essays to include in the book?

 

A: There are 31 writers and 29 pieces (two of the 29 pieces are jointly authored). The ages of these writers vary from 23 to 81.

 

For more than any other book of ours, there were many who thought they would contribute, but pulled back when they understood how much might be revealed. So, it is notable that these 31 writers did not hesitate to write about their intimate feelings and personal relationships.

 

All the writers responded to calls we posted on the internet (or calls forwarded to them by friends) except for a few that we searched for to make sure we had diversity of writers and diversity of topics.

 

The 29 personal essays in this collection offer a variety of perspectives and experiences with nontraditional relationships and forms of cohabitation. The contributors include married couples who live in separate cities and single people who find companionship through communes and cohousing.

 

These essays also present varied outlooks on the practice and ethics of having multiple partners, with some embracing large polycules while others opt for “monogamish” relationships.

 

There are many different stories to tell, from close friends living together to form a chosen family, to couples navigating the shifting boundaries of their relationship as one partner begins a gender transition.

 

With contributors across generations and representing the full ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States, Loving Arrangements demonstrates the myriad ways that we live and love today.

 

Q: How do you think ideas about love and marriage have changed in recent decades, and what do you see looking forward?

 

A: In Europe and America, there has been a change in marriage over the last 200 years from a political/social/economic bonding within a community to a more personal, exclusive love relationship between a couple in an increasingly individualized culture.

 

Today, besides now answering a person’s emotional and companionate needs, marriage provides a range of legal benefits such as tax advantages, partner’s Social Security, health care coverage, social status and recognition, but rarely is shaped by family business needs.

 

Attitudes towards and commitments to marriage continue to evolve as the Pew Research Center indicates via this statistic comparing 2024 to 1970 marriages: the share of adults who are currently married is now 50 percent, down from 69 percent in 1970 (Pewresearch.org/social-trends/2026/03/25/the-united-states-at-250-how-the-country-has-changed-in-the-past-50-years).

 

There are many factors that can explain why the traditional idea of marriage is coming unraveled at this time.

 

In no particular order, they include the recent COVID-19 pandemic’s confinement of individuals and couples that led to either an eventual breakup or a deeper commitment; online dating, which has opened up a myriad of possible relationships; advances in health care that make longer lives possible and may encourage a redefinition of self at different life stages; the expansion of college and work opportunities for women and minorities that create new possibilities for economic independence for individuals in these groups; and the popularization of reproductive technologies that allow family planning inside and outside of marriage.

 

From a more sociohistorical perspective, these changes are related to a series of social movements, mainly in the United States and Europe. In the 20th century, this began with the American civil rights movement, which then became a model for later movements seeking new individual rights (e.g., the women’s movement and the gay rights movement) and changes in the rights of the disabled and other “new” minorities.

 

One “symptom” of all this is the search for a more meaningful way of “doing” marriage and family, a way—or ways—that “respect(s)” the rights of both/all partners. Many people are experimenting with alternative living and loving arrangements such as cohabitation near or with friends, communal living, polyamory, and living apart together.

 

Laws are beginning to follow these family practices. For example, since 2023, at least five cities have adopted protections for polyamorous families, including Portland, Oregon, Oakland, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We see these changes perhaps as a sign of things to come,  

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: In The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center (St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2024) Rhaina Cohen argues that there is “a need to dislodge fixed ideas about who (and how many people) we can spend the rest of our lives with.” She says, as does our book, that we need “more models of deep relationships. That’s because our adult lives are not one continuous scene; they’re extended stories with unpredictable turning points.” 

 

Loving Arrangements contributes to this “dislodging,” Many of the stories in this book question those "well-worn cultural scripts," and some may even become drafts for new ones.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Nan is working on two more anthologies, one on infidelity and one on dementia.

 

The first, Stepping Out: Writing about Infidelity, explores one of the oldest and most complex human dramas: what it means to break or feel broken by the mutual bond of fidelity. Stepping Out gives a voice both to those who have “cheated” and those who have been “cheated upon,” revealing not only what happened, but more importantly, the way the writers understand their own motives, actions, and experiences.

 

The second, Caregrievers: Stories from the Frontline of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, will be a collection that can help with understanding and managing the emotional impact of the day-to-day life of this disease. The selections are written by people who lived with, cared for, or cared about someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s.

 

Dan has no immediate book plans. He is busy getting to know his new grandson and doing volunteer work for The Innocence Project.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Nan Bauer-Maglin.