1. Marriages in Societal and Individual Perspective
Chapter 8

2. Chapter Outline Marriage in American Society Who Can Marry?
The Controversy over Same-Sex Marriage
The Marriage Market: Who and How We Choose
Why Marry?
Predicting Marital Success
Engagement, Cohabitation, and Weddings
In the Beginning: Early Marriage
Middle-Aged Marriages
Aging and Later-Life Marriages
Enduring Marriages

3. Marriage in American Society
Marriage has long been the foundation on which American families are constructed.
Approximately 55% of adults,18 and older, in the United States are currently married.
Another 19% are formerly married, being either widowed (6.4%), separated (2.3%), or divorced (10.4%).

5. Marriage in American Society
With a 2007 divorce rate of 17.5 per 1,000 marriages, the United States has one of the highest divorce rates among Western societies
Singlehood, cohabitation, and births to unmarried mothers (either single or cohabiting) all have increased over the last three decades of the twentieth century

6. Has There Been a Retreat from Marriage?
Some scholars contend that a retreat from marriage has occurred in the United States in recent decades.
The retreat from marriage as evident in such recent and ongoing trends as:
older age in first marriage for both women and men
more people never marrying
significant increases in cohabitation and nonmarital births
Continued high divorce rates

7. The Economic and Demographic Aspects Discouraging Marriage
Whatever retreat from marriage has occurred is not equal among all social groups.
Instead, racial, economic, and educational differences can be identified

8. Does Not Marrying Suggest Rejection of Marriage?
Even if low socioeconomic status reduces the likelihood of marriage, it may not signal an attitudinal rejection of marriage.
Low-income unmarried couples with children experience three barriers to marriage:
financial concerns
concerns about the quality and durability of their relationships
fear of divorce:

9. Race and Marriage
Despite what the race data on marriage appear to suggest, African Americans remain “strong believers in the value of marriage”

10. Religion and Marriage
Along with race and social class, religious affiliation is among the factors that may influence whether and when people choose to marry.
Religious differences have been identified in:
mate choice
childbearing and child rearing
the division of housework
domestic violence
marital quality
divorce

11. Somewhere between Decline and Resiliency
Deinstitutionalization of marriage
the “weakening of the social norms that define people’s behavior in a social institution such as marriage”
Marital decline perspective
the belief that marriage is endangered
Marital resilience perspective
the belief that marriage is changing though still highly valued

12. Who Can Marry?
Nowhere in the United States is marriage allowed between:
parents and children
grandparents and grandchildren
brothers and sisters
uncles and nieces
aunts and nephews.
Along with Canada and Mexico, 20 U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow first cousins to marry

13. Who Can Marry? Age Restrictions Number of Spouses
Throughout the United States, 49 of 50 states require both would-be spouses to be at least 18 years old to marry without parental consent (19 in Nebraska).
Number of Spouses
No state allows an individual to marry legally if he or she is already married.

14. The Controversy over Same-Sex Marriage
Although most states continue to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, as of September 2009, six states allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

15. Same-Sex Marriage
Internationally, the movement toward gay marriage began in the 1990s, when a number of countries enacted legislation extending marital rights or marriage like protections to gay couples.
As of mid-2009 the right to marry extends to same-sex couples in:
the Netherlands
Belgium
Canada,
Spain
Sweden
Norway
South Africa

16. The Marriage Market: Who and How We Choose
Endogamy
People usually marry others from within their same large group—such as the nationality, ethnic group, or socioeconomic status with which they identify—because they share common assumptions, experiences, and understandings.
Exogamy
Requires us to marry outside certain groups—specifically, outside our own family (however defined) and outside our sex.

17. Homogamy
Endogamy and exogamy interact to limit the field of eligibles.
The field is further limited by society’s encouragement of homogamy
the tendency to choose a mate whose personal or group characteristics are similar to ours.
Most marriages are between members of the same race.

19. Race and Ethnicity
Only about one in four racial intermarriages are between an African American and Caucasian.
Typically, when they occur, these are marriages of black husbands to white wives.

20. The Marriage Squeeze and Mating Gradient
The gender imbalance reflected in the ratio of available unmarried women and men
Members of one gender tend to be “squeezed” out of the marriage market
Mating gradient
The tendency for women to marry men of higher status.
Men tend to marry women slightly below them in age, education, and so on

21. Marital and Family History
Never-married people are more likely to marry other never-married people than they are to “intermarry” by marrying divorced people.
This marital history homogamy occurs mostly as a result of deliberate choices.

22. Why Marry? Benefits of Marriage Is It Marriage?
Economic well-being (e.g., higher income, greater productivity, and mobility at work)
Physical and mental health
Personal happiness
Is It Marriage?
Selection versus Protection

23. Predicting Marital Success
Ted Huston and Heidi Melz (2004, 952) describe three “prototypical courtship experiences,” each of which has different likely consequences for couples who marry.
Rocky and turbulent courtships
Sweet and undramatic courtships
Passionate courtships

24. Predicting Marital Success
Background Factors
Age
Level of education
Personality Factors
Opposites do not usually attract
Personality seems fixed and unchanging
Relationship Factors
Problem-solving skills are important but perhaps not as important as the emotional climate within which such skills are implemented

25. Engagement, Cohabitation, and Weddings
The culmination of the premarital dating process.
More significance as a ritual than as a binding commitment to be married.
Cohabitation
For some people cohabitation is an alternative way of entering marriage.
Weddings
Weddings are ancient rituals that symbolize a couple’s commitment to each other.

26. The Stations of Marriage
Emotional marriage
Psychic marriage
Community marriage
Legal marriage
Economic marriage
Coparental marriage

27. In the Beginning: Early Marriage
Traditional legal marriage contained the following four assumptions about husband or wife responsibilities:
the husband is the head of the household,
the husband is responsible for supporting the family
the wife is responsible for domestic work
the wife is responsible for childrearing

28. In the Beginning: Early Marriage
Marital Tasks
Establish marital and family roles
Provide emotional support for the partner
Adjust personal habits
Spouses also need to do the following:
Negotiate gender roles
Make sexual adjustments
Establish family and employment priorities and negotiate a division of labor
Develop communication skills and learn how to effectively share intimate feelings and ideas with each other

29. Marital Commitments
Johnson, Caughlin, and Huston (1999) identify three major types of commitment, each of which operates within marriage:
Personal commitment
Moral commitment
Structural commitment

30. How Parenthood Affects Marriage
Much research attention has been devoted to examining the effects of children on marriage.
The presence of children in the household appears to lower marital satisfaction and increase marital conflict

31. Middle-Aged Marriages
Middle-aged marriages, in which couples are in their forties and fifties, are frequently families with adolescents and/or young adults leaving home.
Families as Launching Centers
Some couples may be happy or even grateful to see their children leave home
Some experience difficulties with this exodus
Some continue to accommodate their adult children under the parental roof.

32. Aging and Later-Life Marriages
There are some 37 million Americans over age 65, representing an estimated 13% of the U.S. population.

34. Widowhood
The loss of one’s spouse confronts women and men with a variety of deep and painful losses.
Although both women and men lose their chief source of emotional support, women typically have wider and deeper friendship networks to turn to for support.

35. Enduring Marriages Conflict-habituated marriages
Passive-congenial marriages
Devitalized marriages
Vital marriages
Total marriages