Marriage-A Luxury Item

[The Lost One]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17445891/

I read this article today and I find it very disturbing that it is calling me elitest and abnormal because I'm married with kids. So why is it that so many people that I associate with believe that getting married and having children is the norm, when the demographic data suggest that it is only a small minority in today society (less than 1/4 of US Household)?

I will agree that people who are married tend to be better educated and wealthier (at least I can't dispute it).

[dawncawley]

I think I am offended. But I am not sure. Yeah, I think I am. I really should have a thicker skin, but honestly, I don't think that being low income parents who are married really makes my husband and I that odd. All of our friends who have children are married, and let me just tell you, that they are in the same tax bracket as my husband and I, the lowest one you can think of. Most of us are also in school, trying very hard to better our lives for our children and ourselves. The statistics may be true, but I am not sure that marriage is the "luxury item" that the article is making it sound like it is. At least not in my experience.

And Lost 24, I am not offended by you at all Just the way the article sounds towards people of both classes, lower and upper. I apologize if I have offended anyone with my comments, they were not meant to offend.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Dawn,... you wouldn't happen to be in Utah would you?

In my company, as far as I can tell, only 2 of the 10 of us are married with children.

I find it odd that people are offended by this. Who, exactly, has offended you? The whole of society? They're simply reporting statistics. Using personal experience is a very poor measure trends. You tend to hang around people who are like you. So it's not surprising that so many people you know are in the same situation as you. At least half of the people I know are LDS. That doesn't give me any illusions that the LDS population in the country is that large.

[FirstMateJack]

I remember reading a study that showed that for the first time in U.S. history, 51% of women were not married.  I found out that they were using ALL women who could be married as their basis, 16 and living at home, or 81 and widowed. It had nothing to do with were they married previously or were they socially too young., etc... just unmarried.

When my mom was mayor she wanted to find out how the city felt about a certain law that was going to be passed and she contacted a national polling agency to find out. They asked her what she wanted to poll to say? In essence they told her whatever you want popular vote to be, we will get it for you.

I have never trusted a poll since i found that out, even ones I would normally want to believe.

I toss this in there with that philosopy. I really don't care what newspapers have to say on popluar opinion. Let's face it, if newspapers didn't print something that most people found shocking, they wouldn't be a newspaper for long.

[Aen Elderberry]

Most of us are also in school, trying very hard to better our lives for our children and ourselves.

If I understand the article correctly then you're quest for education puts you in the upper end.  You are in the lower income bracket right now but that's just because you're still in school.   It's in the "uneducated and staying that way" segment where marriage is least popular.

'"We seem to be reverting to a much older pattern, when elites marry and a great many others live together and have kids," said Peter Francese, demographic trends analyst.'

I don't know if the article is 100% accurate but it seems believable.  Is pop culture driving this?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yay! first I get *this* sort of ads on this thread:



and then I remembered this segment of the Diane Rehm show which is relevant to the discussion. It's about a book called Alone Together and the reason is struck such a chord is their research, among other things, shows that people express the same level of satisfaction in their marriages today as they did 20 years ago.

here's their description:

By some accounts, the institution of marriage is deteriorating; others say it's adapting and changing with the times. A sociologist talks about a new study that used surveys of couples in 1980 and 2000 to assess how marriage is changing, for better or for worse, and what those changes mean for men, women, children, and American society as a whole.

You can listen to it streaming

edit by Tage: fixed link

[stacer]

'"We seem to be reverting to a much older pattern, when elites marry and a great many others live together and have kids," said Peter Francese, demographic trends analyst.'

I don't know if the article is 100% accurate but it seems believable.  Is pop culture driving this?

I believe the demographic info that marriage is declining, but I don't believe it's true historically. At least, common-law marriages tended to be the norm among lower classes, where people were considered married if they cohabited long enough, but there was also plenty of pressure from upper classes and from the church--whatever the local church be--to get married if you found yourself "in the family way." Birth control being what it was in yesteryear, marriage was much more prevalent than it is today, from my studies (MFHD @ BYU).

[The Jade Knight]

Historically, marriage was a simple announcement of intent.  There was actually a great debate in the Catholic Church (during the late Medieval period, I think) over whether or not consummation was required for a marriage to be considered having fully taken place (I believe the consensus was eventually no).  Other than that, a marriage was simply stating "I am married to you" or something along the lines.  Eventually, however, to protect women who thought they were married to men who denied having married them, the Church started requiring that all marriages be witnessed by the Church.

Modern marriage is a funny thing, compared to that.

[42]

This article doesn't really surprise me.

Social work and sociologists have all sorts of headaches caused by the trend away from marriage. Cohabitation causes all sorts of problems, particularly when the couple decided to break-up since there are few legal guidelines to help them divide their stuff/children. Then there are the problems with insurance, welfare assistance, medical rights, etc...

In anthropology, there is definitely a link between wealth and marriage. In a lot of cultures, marriage is a privilege of the wealthy (often several times over for the really wealthy). Course, marriage is listed as a cultural universal--it exists in all cultures without exception. The ways that marriage is acknowledged vary, but all cultures have it.

In the U.S., the trend away from marriage is unusual considering how well educated most American have been you would think most people wouldn't take the risks associated with cohabitation. But cohabitation has been glamourzed. Also, Americans are the most individualistic culture currently in existence, so few American recognize the importance of having "shacking up" recognized by the community.

So this report is very consistant with other reports that show American losing income, being less communal, and becoming less educated. It will probably swing back the other direction as more and more people get shafted by cohabitation and marriage policies change.

[The Lost One]

42, you bring up a interesting point about cohabitation but I also think that many American are neither cohabitating or getting married. Pursuing relationships with the opposite sex seem to be generally degrading among many adult Americans.

Posted by: stacer :  I believe the demographic info that marriage is declining, but I don't believe it's true historically. At least, common-law marriages tended to be the norm among lower classes, where people were considered married if they cohabited long enough, but there was also plenty of pressure from upper classes and from the church--whatever the local church be--to get married if you found yourself "in the family way."

Common law marriage is funny because most states have abolished it.  Because of this, many couples who don't want to get married find themselves resorting to strained arguments under quasi-contract legal theories to get the same result as if they were married. Thus, I've read cases were the judge does a bunch of legal gymnastics so that he can treate a break-up just like a divorce.  This is particularly true when a cohabitating couple has kids. Even if there is no common law marriage, the legal rights of the children seem to virtually require the courts to make up some sort of legal relationship (i.e. common law marriage without saying as much) so that principles of equity can be applied to reach a just result.

In states where there is common law marriage (like Colorado), many people who are cohabitating suddenly claim they are married upon the break-up or death.

[stacer]

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are one famous example of a common law marriage. I'm not sure what the law is in California now (or even back then), but I have read something to the effect that since they've been together 20 years or something, maybe 30 now for all I know (or have they broken up? who knows? I don't pay close enough attention)--but anyway, what I read was that they'd been together for so long the state considered them as good as married.

Pursuing relationships with the opposite sex seem to be generally degrading among many adult Americans.

I'm not so sure I believe that. I think *serious* relationships with the opposite sex tend to be delayed for education, but it's still sought out in equal numbers later in life, I think. Just with different proportions for long-term non-cohabiting relationships, cohabitation, and marriage. (My sister, for example, dated my brother-in-law for five years before they got married, and they never lived together. They "delayed" marriage for their educations at different universities ("delayed" in quotes, because they got married at 24 and 23, respectively, so certainly at a relatively young age for people nowadays who aren't Mormons, and about average for Mormons.)

I have seen this pattern many times for friends across the country, the most common reason for long engagements or courtships being the cost of the wedding. When weddings become $20,000, $50,000 or even hundreds of thousand dollar affairs, it takes a long time to save up if you're paying for it yourself.

That's just anecdotal, of course, but I'd love to see the cost of weddings themselves factored into a study like this.

(Which makes me grateful I'm Mormon, because at least if I get married in the temple I won't have to pay for the cost of the church, the officiator, and the decorations for the ceremony. Receptions can vary widely, of course, but that's beside the point. Though, did you know that in the state of Washington, your marriage isn't valid unless you pay the officiator? Makes me wonder how they deal with that at the temple. I keep forgetting to ask, but it makes me curious. Not that I'm in any danger of needing that information for practical purposes.)

[Sigyn]

When my husband lived in Illinois he met a lot of couples who lived together but didn't want to get married.  The reason was because they would get less welfare as a married couple than as two singles who just happened to live in the same place.  I think it's funny that the welfare system punishes people for getting married.

[Tink]

Though, did you know that in the state of Washington, your marriage isn't valid unless you pay the officiator? Makes me wonder how they deal with that at the temple. I keep forgetting to ask, but it makes me curious. Not that I'm in any danger of needing that information for practical purposes.)

I got married in the Seattle Temple, and I never heard anything about having to pay the officiator.

[42]

When my husband lived in Illinois he met a lot of couples who lived together but didn't want to get married.  The reason was because they would get less welfare as a married couple than as two singles who just happened to live in the same place.  I think it's funny that the welfare system punishes people for getting married.

It's not that the welfare system punishes you for being married, in fact it favors a lot of people for being married. It's that cohabitating is one of those loop-holes in the system that allows people to easily abuse the welfare system. So those people you knew who got more welfare benefits by cohabitating were actually mis-representing themselves to the State and could have charges brought against them if ever the social workers and the courts had time to care about those things.

[stacer]

Oh, good. Sounds like either an exception for the temple or an urban legend from my coworkers. Then again, it was from the coworker who just got married, so who knows? I'm too lazy to look it up.