Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Blog 2: "Marriage saying I Don't"

Less people are getting married than fifty years ago. In 1960 alone almost half of 18 to 24 years old were getting married. Many young adults were getting married 50 years ago. The age of marriage has been falling since the 1900. In the 1960s educators and psychiatrists urged young adults to say no to marriage until they have completed their education. The next generation of young adults did just that instead of average age of 20 for women to get married was now 27. More individuals are remaining unmarried than ever before. Due to the same-sex marriage debates if this is passed the proportion of married young adults may rise. Marriage used to almost mandatory back in the day. Now it is more of a reward couples give themselves.  Many of the new marriages are of individuals who have cohabited. Not being married further increases social inequality because the majority of married couples have two incomes which increases the likelihood of being more stable and avoiding divorce. This article does a very good job on showing how marriage is changing and how they believe that making same-sex marriage legal would change the current number of couples getting married. Times have changed and more individuals are focused on education and this does not leave much prospective individuals for lower income individuals to marry. It is sad to see that even marriage creates social inequality for families. Marriage used to be mandatory and also marriage used to be looked at and still is for lower income families as a economic standpoint. It was a type of financial stability and even business partners during the agricultural era. 


http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/19/opinion/la-oe-coontz-marriage-20120119/2

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