Marriage Patterns

Abstract

This article highlights current and historical marital patterns, beginning with an overview of fluctuating age-related marital norms, followed by the 1950s marriage "ideal," including generational themes, misconceptions, and divorce configurations. The struggles faced by the homosexual community in their attempts to marry are covered, followed by international discrepancies that exist between "arranged" and "choice" marriages. A conclusion sums up contemporary marital themes as diverse and ever-changing.

Overview

Delayed Marriage. In examining the average age of marriage throughout the latter half of the twentieth and into the early twenty-first century, one might conclude that US citizens have steadily delayed their commitment to matrimonial unions. Indeed, in both 1950 and 1960 the mean age for marriage among men and women was 22.8 and 20.3 respectively, numbers that progressively mounted to 29.5 and 27.4 by the year 2016 (US Census Bureau, 2016). There are many theoretical explanations that account for wedding postponement, such as the fact that the United States is becoming a "graying society," one that is becoming significantly older due in part to innovative health advancements that have helped prolong life. These twentieth-century technological developments include internal pacemakers (Altman, 2002), artificial heart implants ("Engineering," 2001), and stem cell research (Barry, 2008), as well as screening procedures such as fMRI scanners (Gengler, 2008) and routine Pap smear procedures (Oliver, 2002) that detect the presence of early onset cancerous lesions from proliferating. Additionally, although Americans are often highlighted as a nation "at-risk" for such health problems as obesity (Marks, 2004), other patterns have contributed toward positive outcomes, such as an overall decreased use of tobacco ("Some Wins," 2008). These health-related changes have helped ensure the prolonged longevity of most Americans; for example, the life expectancy of an American in 1900 was 47.3 years of age, a number that rose to 68.2 years in 1950, and to 79 years in 2013 (World Bank, 2016). Hence, this suggests that from both practical and psychological standpoints, the longer a person has to live, the longer he or she has to defer marriage.

Additionally, since commencement of the women's rights movement, which took place in the 1960s and 1970s, women have entered into educational and work forces in greater numbers than ever before ("Women's Work," 2002). Such a movement countered the 1950s stereotype that relegated women into roles of domesticity in which their primary focus was to bolster the lifestyles of their husbands, children, and households (Shute, 2007). As women began joining the workforce in increasing numbers, the institution of marriage likewise morphed, and marital bonds became less hierarchical and promoted independence and self-sufficiency among both husbands and wives. This newfound autonomous structure prompted a delay in marriage, since men and women alike were investing in prenuptial educational and career pursuits prior to forging marital alliance; an enterprise that endorses at least some semblance of interdependency.

A common misconception pertaining to American marriages is that that there is a direct correlation between the advancement of time and increased marital age. While this trend holds true throughout the last sixty years, it is certainly not a conventional, historical representation of American culture. For example, the following table offers a glimpse into the mean age at first marriage for men and women in the United States between the years 1890 and 2013 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014):

Further Insights

The 1950s Mythology. From the data in the above table, it appears that the young ages for 1950s first marriages were actually an incongruous glitch that was perhaps related to unique, large-scale factors stemming from a variety of international dynamics. A likely influence was the fact that a flourishing economy and collective postwar relief following World War II led many young couples to settle down and establish families early. Many family patterns established themselves at the end of the war, most notably the initiation of the "baby boom" generation (Doyle, 2005), in which the birth rate soared to exceptionally high levels. A strong economy and the significant remuneration that many men received for serving in the military via the GI Bill (Leepson, 2007) allowed households to subsist on a solitary income, giving birth to that era's normative family composition of the stay-at-home wife/mother and the breadwinning husband/father.

Chasing the American Dream. Although the American Dream centered around the ideals of marital, familial, and domestic bliss, in actuality, the general public fought diligently to project such an image (Coontz, 1999). For example, in a time when conformity reigned, people were discouraged from deviating from cultural norms, which ranged from governmental officials restraining "radicals" from voicing alternate political viewpoints during the "red scare" (Storrs, 2006) to maintaining discriminatory practices toward minority groups. Teen pregnancy escalated threefold between the years 1940 to 1958, although such a phenomenon was discreetly swept under the rug. Unsavory marriages categorized by domestic violence or contention were fiercely concealed.

Divorce. By the 1960s and especially into the 1970s, these stereotyped images of domestic and familial bliss began to splinter. The year 1974 was the first time in US history that a marriage was more likely to dissolve because of divorce rather than death of a spouse (Lauer & Lauer, 2009), and the rate of divorce continued to steadily increase until reaching its all-time high in 1981, whereupon Americans had a 57 percent chance that their marriage would end in divorce ("The State of Divorce," 2007). A by-product of the elevated divorce rates converted the typical two-parent family structure into the typical female-headed single-parent family, which prompted demographers to examine possible causalities that led to the departure from the traditional marriage ideal. One possible contributing factor toward the increase in divorce rates circulates around the enactment of no-fault divorce laws (DiTullio, 1997; Glenn, 1997; Should States, 2001; Weisberg & Appleton, 2003), legislation that was first implemented in California in 1970 and quickly spread nationwide. No-fault divorce proceedings do not necessitate the citation of any specific reasons, such as allegations of abuse or adultery, to obtain a divorce. Although many people lauded such an enactment, which removed the embarrassing "blame game" and disreputable elements previously associated with divorce proceedings, others condemned the no-fault divorce laws for facilitating the demise of marriage through an ultra-accessible route to divorce. Whereas critics at the time foresaw the institution of marriage someday ceasing to exist based on skyrocketing divorce rates throughout the 1970s, such acceleration has since tapered off, and in 2014 the divorce rate in the United States rested at 3.2 per 1,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Arranged Marriage. In most Western cultures, romantic love is considered a prerequisite for marriage and therefore most Americans cannot conceive of marital arrangements outside of choice marriage. In many regions, however, arranged marriage is the standard practice (Chidili, 2001; Hortaçsu, 2007; Madathil & Benshoff, 2008; Myers, Madathil, & Tingle, 2005) or partner selection is a group process that supplants romantic love and sentimentality. Indeed, proponents of arranged unions argue that marriage is a practical institution and therefore necessitates its grounding upon a sturdy, pragmatic foundation as opposed to mutable traits such as emotion and desire.

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal (2001) describes the preparatory process that is undertaken in the preliminary stages of arranged marriage through the lens of the marrying agent, or husband-to-be. He uses the term deterministic to depict what is jointly known to the marrying agent and his loved ones who assist him in the process of finding a suitable mate. For example, it is likely that the marrying agent along with his supporters discern the qualities that he would find most compatible with his own. This in-depth, cooperative venture helps eliminate the likelihood of a rash, heart-felt decision, such as one made solely by the starry-eyed person falling in love. On the other hand, Batabyal applies the term additive stochastic to refer to knowledge that is held exclusively by the marrying agent. Despite the fact that arranged marriages are more likely determined by logic and circumspection, there are still intangible preferences that the marrying agent possesses, and he therefore has the right to veto plausible mates that his loved ones provide based on personal predilections.

The generalized sequence of events involved in pinpointing a fitting partner for the marrying agent entails gathering together a series of women with whom he might be amicably attuned. The order of succession begins with the least likely candidate, with each subsequent contender becoming more alluring. Why, then, would not the marrying agent withstand the multitude of offers set before him until the very last, and therefore most favorable option? There are viable flaws attached with such reasoning, in that a person's additive stochastic process might include a preferential age at which he would like to begin the marital process. Furthermore, a marrying agent cannot overturn a previous decision; if a young man declines the offer of a woman based on his desire to "hold out" for a better proposal, but in hindsight determines that she would have made an ideal companion, he is unable to retroactively annul his initial verdict. Also, the marrying agent who continually rejects promising suitors in anticipation of the perfect woman runs the risk that his well-wishers will exhaust their resources, thus leaving him empty-handed altogether.

Viewpoints

Same-Sex Marriage. In the early twenty-first century, many state and national legislatures around the world began enacting legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. Proponents of same-sex marriage argue that marriage equality is a major civil rights issue, as the longstanding ban on same-sex marriage have prevented same-sex couples from accessing the same benefits and rights that married heterosexual couples enjoy. Opponents of gay marriage often object to same-sex unions on religious grounds (Campbell & Monson, 2005; Campbell & Monson, 2008) and argue that homosexuality is aberrant in their religion or that the principal purpose of marriage is procreation.

Proponents of gay marriage highlight the civil rights that homosexual couples are denied due to bans on same-sex marriage. Married couples in legally recognized unions enjoy a number of benefits, including access to their partner's health insurance, Social Security survival benefits, tax benefits, family and medical leave benefits; the right to the inheritance of property; next-of-kin status in emergency medical decisions; custodial rights to children and shared property; and the ability to sponsor a foreign spouse for US residency and citizenship, as well as an assortment of additional rights (Bollag, 2007; Cahill, 2007; Marquez, 2008).

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage (Berg, 2006; Segal & Novack, 2008). In the following years, more than thirty other states enacted similar legislation, whether by ballot initiative, state legislature, or court ruling. The nation was certainly in a state of flux concerning same-sex marriage, and such ambiguity was most notably manifested in the state of California, which vacillated significantly on the issue of same-sex marriage. The controversy began in May 2008 when the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage, allowing same-sex couples in California to marry (Gallagher, 2008). However, just a few short months later, during the November 2008 state elections, Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8 (McKinley, 2008), an amendment titled "Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples To Marry Act," which ultimately served to countermand the court's decision. However, on February 7, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional because as it violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; the case was appealed to the US Supreme Court. On June 26, 2013, in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the defenders of Proposition 8 lacked the legal standing to represent the case, prompting the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift its stay blocking same-sex marriages in the state on June 28, 2013.

On October 6, 2014, the US Supreme Court decided not to review seven pending same-sex marriage cases in which lower courts had struck down same-sex marriage bans in five states. The Court’s decision meant that same-sex marriages could be performed in those five states and that those states had to recognize as valid same-sex marriages legally performed in other states. Furthermore, the decision effectively protected same-sex marriages in states within the Fourth and Seventh Circuits (HR Specialist, 2014).

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that same-sex marriage is a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution, legalizing same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Considered a landmark ruling, the majority argued that marriage is the foundational structure for any relationship, and that same-sex couples were also granted the right to take part in that institution. Some of the dissenters continued to claim that a literal reading of the Constitution did not necessarily align with the majority belief.

Conclusion

Since the 1950s, marriage patterns in the United States have changed significantly, with a decline in the percentage of nuclear families, an increase in the number of female heads of households, an increase of single-parent households, the rising average age at first marriage, and growing acceptance of same-sex marriages. One troubling trend in US marriage patterns that has attracted the interest of sociologists is a phenomenon termed the "marital divide." In the twenty-first century, among non-college-educated Americans, marriage rates have been declining and divorce rates increasing, especially compared to college-educated Americans. Some sociologists are concerned that marriage is becoming a privilege in the United States, and they point to the decrease in well-paying blue-collar jobs as undermining the economic stability of less-educated Americans and thereby adding instability to the marriages of non-college-educated Americans. Further study is needed to clarify the social and economic factors that contribute to this trend and what efforts can be made to support low-income marriages and families.

Terms & Concepts

Additive Stochastic: Within the scope of arranged marriages, the additive stochastic is the knowledge that is exclusively held by the marrying agent, such as his individual preferences and desires.

Arranged Marriage: In many regions throughout the world, partner selection is a group process as opposed to one made solely by the persons directly involved.

Choice Marriage: The marital structure found within most Western cultures, in which love serves as the foundation and individuals independently choose their mates.

Deterministic: Within the scope of arranged marriage, deterministic knowledge is that which is collectively recognized by both the marrying agent and his loved ones who are helping him select a bride.

Proposition 8: An amendment titled, "Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act," which overturned same-sex marriage laws in California.

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Suggested Reading

Ahrons, C. (1995). The good divorce. USA: Harper Paperbacks.

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Raley, R. K., Sweeney, M. M., & Wondra, D. (2015). The growing racial and ethnic divide in U.S. marriage patterns. Future of Children, 89–109. Retrieved January 21, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=110628970&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Seth, R. (2008). First comes marriage: Modern relationship advice from the wisdom of arranged marriages. USA: Fireside.

Trail, T. E., & Karney, B. R. (2012). What's (not) wrong with low-income marriages. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(3), 413–427. Retrieved November 13, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=75914900

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