But perhaps the greatest effect of the victory of individualism was on sex and the family. We haven't talked much about sex because my brother's teaching biology, which is basically just sex, but sex is pretty important historically because it's how we keep happening. But in the 20th century, greater variety and availability of contraception made it possible for people to experiment with multiple sexual partners and help to uncouple sex from childbearing, which was awesome. But individualism also had a destabilizing effect on families. As the great Leo Tolstoy put it, all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But when your individual fulfillment trumps all, you needn't live amid your uniquely unhappy family, you can just leave. So divorce rates have skyrocketed in the past few decades, and not just in the US.