Dog And The Child Friends

• Americans' dependence on a partner or spouse went up from 5% to 9%
• Research has found a link between fewer friendships (especially in quality) and psychological regression
In recent times, it is postulated modern American friendships have lost the force and importance they had in antiquity. C.S. Lewis for example, in his The Four Loves, writes:
“To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philía which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book.”