1.
One of the most contentious debates in the United States today centers on the concern that some social critics have that, as a society, we are turning away from the institution of marriage. Though American families have been in transition for as long as there have been American families, the normative context for family formation has shifted over the last several decades in four important ways: (a) nonmarital cohabitation is being practiced more visibly and more widely across our social spectrum; (b) the proportion of births that occur outside marriage has increased dramatically; (c) people marry later in life; and (d) divorce has settled in at a high rate.
2. These phenomena have broad implications for adult lifestyles, childbearing, and childrearing. Social scientists, legal scholars, family advocates, and pundits have examined the causes and consequences of the changing shape of American families. A growing consensus exists that being raised in a well-functioning twoparent family is generally good for children, and the declining proportion of twoparent married families is seen by some as a crisis in need of intervention. Some scholars have argued that the benefits of marriage over other lifestyles are manifold, and policymakers have recently considered federal legislation to promote and protect the institution.
3 . This article sets forth our thoughts about these issues. We begin by posing a series of questions. We present evidence that should encourage people to move beyond their own experiences and, instead, to be mindful of the diverse circumstances under which people delay marriage, dissolve marriage, or choose not to marry at all.
IS MARRIAGE RIGHT FOR US ALL AND ALWAYS?
4.
Let us consider some questions to which many of us offer differing answers. a. What constitutes a ‘‘good marriage’’ or a ‘‘good enough marriage’’? b. Can the future of a marriage be foretold from the character of its courtship? c. What constitute ‘‘legitimate’’ personal reasons for terminating a marriage? d. Can the attractiveness of marriage be increased by decreasing poverty and its common manifestations, such as crime, out-of-wedlock childbearing, low educational attainment, drug abuse, and alcoholism?

e. Should we attempt to relieve single mothers’ burdens by encouraging them to marry? f. Should the government be involved in encouraging marriage and discouraging divorce, and, if so, what kinds of government efforts are likely to benefit society the most?
5.
Social scientists should not feel comfortable promoting marriage over other lifestyles unless we can document that the good effects of marriage are general – that is, if it could be demonstrated that nearly everyone who marries and stays married would be happier, healthier, and better off financially than they would be if they did not marry.
6.
The idea that marriage is beneficial requires, at a minimum, that we compare married, single, and divorced individuals on a variety of indicators of well-being, and find that those who are married are consistently better off. We will start with a brief review of the demographic trends that underlie the concerns that people have about marriage.
THE STATE OF MATRIMONY IN THE UNITED STATES
7.
American couples today form relationships with each other in a very different social context than did couples of the 1950s because of two broad trends in marriage over the second half of the 20th century: the postponement of marriage (today’s brides first marry at about age 25) and the increase in divorce. Adults now expect to spend a smaller proportion of their lives in the state of matrimony than would adults in the 1950s. Between 1970 and 1996, the proportion of 25- to 29-year-olds who had never married more than tripled for women (from 11% to 38%), and more than doubled for men (from 19% to 52%). This trend is largely accounted for by a revival of our nation’s historical trend of delaying marriage.
8.
Of course, this delayed age at marriage does not necessarily mean that today’s unmarried people are single people. Americans today are far more likely than in the 1950s to reverse the traditional order of family-building transitions by living together and bearing children before marrying. Cohabitation has been practiced by an increasing proportion of the U.S. population in the last 40 years, and by the mid-
1990s, half of women in their 30s had cohabited. In addition to sharing a home before marriage, American couples are now more likely to be parents before they marry. Today, more than one million unmarried American women give birth in a year,

representing a third of all births, and substantial and increasing proportions of children start out in cohabiting families.
9.
If they do marry, today’s couples are far more likely to divorce than were couples in the 1950s. The number of divorced people has increased more than fourfold over the last three decades, and today the currently divorced represent 1 in 10 adults ages 18 and over.
10.
This national portrait obscures substantive differences in family-building behavior for different racial and income groups in the United States. One of the many comparisons that can be made is between Whites and African Americans, two groups that have taken divergent family-building paths since the mid-20th century.
Prior to 1950, African American women married at younger ages than did White women, but around 1950, this trend reversed. By the late 1990s, only about 15% of
Black women ages 20-24 had yet married, compared with one third of White women this age. And although the vast majority of White women can expect to have married by age 35-39, only about 65% of Black women this age have done so, a finding that suggests that nearly one in three African American women may, in fact, never marry.
African Americans who do marry are more likely to divorce than are Whites, and after divorce, their rates of remarriage are only one quarter those of Whites.
11.
Black and White couples also differ in their experience of nonmarital fertility.
Whereas 27% of births to White women occur outside marriage, a much higher proportion of African American births, nearly 69% occur outside marriage.
Consequently, a little over a third of Black children lived with two parents in 1998, and just under three quarters of White children did so.
12.
Family-building paths have also diverged for people of higher and lower socioeconomic status in the United States. For example, for college-educated White women, the chance of marriage increased from 91% for those born between 1945 and 1949 to 97% for those born between 1960 and 1964. For those without a college degree, however, the chance of marriage decreased from 96% to 92% over the same age group.
13.
These data signal a decline in marriage, particularly among African
Americans and those of lower socioeconomic status. Among these groups, it would appear that marriage has lost much of its appeal. Why is this the case? Does this transformation in the centrality of marriage in the lives of adults reflect a turning away from marriage, a devaluation of the institution? The answer, as we will see, appears to be No.

AMERICANS STILL VALUE MARRIAGE
14. Axinn and Thornton (2000) reviewed two decades of data from several national surveys and found that people still want to marry and believe that marriage affords the best opportunity to live the good life. They report that Americans remain convinced that married people are happier than those who go through life without getting married, and that most people believe that once married, it is very likely that they will stay married. Americans also still value marital fidelity highly, as evidenced by their consistent and strong expressions of disapproval of extra-marital affairs. At the same time, the American populace has become more open to choices that lead them to postpone marriage, to live together out of wedlock, or to divorce. People are more accepting of premarital sex and cohabitation and less disapproving of couples having children before marriage.
15.
When we look more closely at the evidence, the picture that emerges suggests that those who are least likely to marry –African Americans and those of low socioeconomic status – are strong believers in the value of marriage. Karney,
Garvan, and Thomas (2003) examined attitudes toward marriage among Florida residents and found near universal agreement (92%) across race and household income categories with the idea that ‘‘a happy, healthy marriage is one of the most important things in life.’’ Unmarried African Americans and Hispanics showed more interest in getting married than did unmarried Whites, and people with low incomes were more interested than people with more economic resources. African Americans were also less open to alternatives to marriage than other ethnic groups. They were less accepting of cohabitation and less willing to accept divorce as a solution to an unhappy union.
16.
Given that Americans still value marriage, why are they now more likely to delay marriage and less likely to stay married? In contemporary society, marriage has lost its place as the exclusive setting for society, family and reproduction. If this transformation continues to evolve, we should expect that the currently normative order of marriage before childbearing will bear decrea sing relevance to couples’ lives. People may increasingly view their family-building goals, as a group of objectives to be achieved in whatever order possible. And for many people, a happy, healthy marriage is a desired goal that is perhaps more elusive than childbearing.

PROBLEMS IN FINDING A VIABLE MATE
17. Given the value that Americans place on marriage, it would seem that teenagers and single adults would both fantasize about marriage and begin to look for a mate. But we want to focus here on the particular problem of mate selection in communities, such as low-income neighborhoods, that have substantially lower rates of marriage and higher divorce rates than is true nationally. Those living in such neighborhoods appear to possess a strong desire to marry, yet many find themselves on the outside of marriage looking in. Why is this so?
18.
Goffman points out the difficult situation of those who, for whatever reasons, are left to prospect for mates in a social environment in which only a small proportion of the people they encounter possess the qualities that promise a happy, durable marital union. They are faced with a cheerless dilemma: They can marry someone who has few virtues to offer and many liabilities, or not marry at all. This conundrum is demonstrated by sociologist Kathryn Edin (2000), who conducted in-depth interviews with nearly 300 low-income single Black mothers. Although most of these women hoped to marry one day, they described several costs and risks that, in their estimation, cautioned against marriage in the near term.
19.
First, most of these women faced near-constant shortfalls in their monthly budgets and hoped to marry men who would be able to help provide economic support to their households. The women said they could not afford to risk marriage to men who lacked marketable skills or who had shaky employment histories – common traits among the men in their communities – because they knew that such unions would likely prove to be more of an economic burden than a benefit. Even when they sympathized with their partners’ difficulties finding work, the women often felt forced to break off relationships with men whom they might end up having to support.
20.
Second, the single women Edin interviewed also refrained from marrying men who lacked qualities they deemed important in a mate because, they believed, marriage announces one’s ‘‘current and prospective class standing’’. Family and neighbors would interpret a poorly contracted marriage as evidence that ‘‘he was the best she could do’’. The women held marriage in high regard and, recognizing the major stresses that couples inevitably must contend with, they preferred not to wed rather than marry someone they did not feel they could count on.
21.
Third, the women felt that remaining single or cohabiting gave them more control over decision making than they would have if married. They perceived a divide between themselves and their mates on the issues of gendered family roles and childrearing, and they were concerned that these unresolved differences would

be exacerbated if they took on the role of wife. Additionally, the women worried about losing control over financial management decisions if they married.
22.
Finally, these women voiced concerns about the trustworthiness of the men they encountered. They not only worried about whether their men would be sexually faithful but many were also concerned about domestic violence, having witnessed its consequences in their own lives or in their communities.
23.
The multiple concerns these women raise are very real and must be especially difficult to put aside when raising children in a financially precarious situation. The women in Edin’s study seemed to appreciate that the benefits of having a father or a ‘‘father figure’’ in their home depend not only on how well the man performs as a parent but also on how he functions as a member of society.
Their views are well reasoned because research has shown, for example, that the more contact a child has with a socially alienated father, the more likely the child is to exhibit such antisocial behaviors as defiance, aggression, and delinquency. Despite this, Edin (2000) offers the following summary of the women in the study:
They say they are willing, and even eager, to marry if the marriage represents an increase in their class standing and if their prospective husband’s behavior indicates he won’t beat them, abuse their children, refuse to share in household tasks, insist on making all the decisions, be sexually unfaithful, or abuse alcohol or drugs. However, many women also believe they can mitigate against these risks if they forgo marriage until the tasks of early child rearing are completed and they can concentrate more fully on labor market activities. These women believe that by forgoing marriage until they can make regular and substantial contributions to the household economy, they can purchase the right to share more equally in economic and household decision making within marriage. Additionally, an income of their own insures them against destitution if the marriage should fail.
24.
Data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, which follows nearly 5,000 children of married and unmarried parents, provide additional insights about why some parents do not marry, even when they are involved with someone.
Such romantically involved new parents would seem to be primed for marriage, and indeed, most of the unwed parents in this study envisioned bright futures for their relationships. Among those who were co-habiting, 86% of the mothers and 91% of the fathers said that they planned to marry each other.

25.
Despite their optimism, most of the couples in this study did not have a specific date or time frame in mind for marriage. One year later, only 1 in 10 of the couples had actually married, and nearly a third of the couples were no longer together. Qualitative research revealed that the vast majority of the couples said that they had not married yet because they were not in an economic position to do so.
They felt a need to improve their financial situation, to purchase material assets, or to accumulate savings sufficient to hold a traditional wedding celebration. Many also had reservations about their commitment to each other and their own emotional readiness for marriage.
26.
These studies suggest that the hesitation about marrying that some Black and low-income couples feel does not signal their devaluing marriage. On the contrary, many such couples postpone marriage out of a deep respect for the institution.
Determined to avoid divorce, many couples desire first to achieve personal and economic readiness for marriage’s responsibilities.
27.
White women’s experience can be very similar. In a study on white women’s attitudes to marriage, the following story was revealed. All but one of the women in the room had grown up without a father in the home. At least two had been sexually abused in the first ten years of their lives. Those who had children had been left by the children’s fathers. Three had been beaten by men they had loved, and two had been involved with violent criminals. In short, it required an imaginative leap to believe that a committed relationship with a man would rescue a woman from poverty. In some places, relationships with men were often what stopped an ambitious woman from escaping poverty.
28.
The problem for some in communities in which marriage rates are low is that the pool of mates includes far too few prospects who would promise them a relationship that would bolster their health, happiness, and financial well-being. Two incomes are better than one, but one income for two (a mother and child) is better than one for three (add a husband, who cannot find or hold a job).
29.
So where does this leave us? Our reading of the available research suggests that social policies that promulgate the value of marriage are misguided. Marriage advocacy presumes that the benefits of marriage are considerable and general enough to legitimately speak on its behalf, yet insufficiently appreciated by the populace to make its promotion necessary. But Americans already value marriage and, sadly, those whose prospects for a successful union are bleak seem to value the institution the most .
30.
What approach to policy does our analysis suggest will be effective? We believe that it is one that accomplishes two goals. First, we must create a favorable

context for the health and stability of marriage by giving serious attention to the neighborhood ecologies within which marriages and other human relationships are problematic. We must take an ecological approach that includes economic development and investments in human capital through education, job training, drug rehabilitation, and access to the full range of reproductive health services. Second, because marriages partly reflect the strengths and vulnerabilities that partners bring to their unions, policy initiatives should help people make healthy choices about whether, when, and with whom to partner. Of course, such initiatives may lead to lower marriage rates in the short run. But when the investments advocated above yield gains in human capital, marriages are more likely to thrive and survive.
(3,042 words)

I. Pre - Reading Activities
A. In groups, discuss the answers to the following questions.
1. What is a good marriage?
2. If people were happy together before marriage, does that mean they will be happy together when married?
3. Why do people get married? Think of several reasons.
4. Are poor people more likely to marry than people with high incomes? Why or why not?
5. Should single mothers be encouraged to remarry?
B. According to some research studies, there has been a decline in the marriage rate and an increase in the divorce rate and out of wedlock births. How can you explain these trends? List the possible reasons.
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GLOBAL QUESTIONS
1. What is the purpose of this article? a. To illustrate and promote the numerous benefits of marriage over other lifestyles b. To suggest a potential approach to policy that could help promote marriage c. To raise awareness of the various circumstances for making marital decisions d. To present the dangers involved in turning away from the institution of marriage
8 pts
2. What paragraph presents the purpose of the writers in writing this article? a. Paragraph 1 b. Paragraph 2 c. Paragraph 3 d. Paragraph 4
8 pts
3. a. Which groups of people in the section "The State of Matrimony in the U.S." do the writers contrast to show differences in matrimonial trends today in the U.S.? i. _____________________________ ii. _____________________________ b. Which members of these groups marry less often? i. _____________________________________________
6 pts ii. _____________________________________________ 6 pts
4. According to the writers, do the groups who marry less often value marriage?
YES / NO
Support your answer by quoting from the text.
Par. # ___________
Quote:
________________________________________________________________
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2+7=9 pts
5 .
According to Edin, what are some of the concerns of low-income single Black mothers about marriage in the near future?

Fill in the blanks to answer this question.
Apart from worrying about how meritorious and reliable their potential spouses may be, these women also believed that for them, marriage may mean the decrease in _________________________ and ____________________________.
8 pts
6. In what respect is the experience of White women similar to that of Black women?
Complete the following sentence:
In order to carry out the responsibilities of marriage, both wish to ________________
__________________________________________________________. 8 pts
7. What is the disadvantage of the suggested policy for improving marriage?
_________________________________________________ 8 pts
Close Reading Questions
Read paragraph 9-16 closely and answer the following questions.
8. According to paragraph 10 : “ This trend reversed”. What trend do the writers refer to?
8 pts
9. Mark (V) THREE statements that are true regarding the new paths for building a family since the late 1990s:
____a. African-American women are as likely as white women to be married at age
20-24.
____b. 33% of all white women are already married by the time they are 24.
____c. The vast majority of both African-American and white women is expected to be married by age 35-39.
____d. Divorce rates are higher among African-Americans that among whites.
____e. Non-marital fertility is less likely to occur among whites than among African-
Americans. 12 pts

10.Which statement best reflects the attitude of the general American society? a. They devalue the institution of marriage and therefore postpone marriage. b. They are more open about marital infidelity and extramarital affairs. c. They approve more of non-marital fertility and less of premarital sex. d. They strongly believe that marriage affords positive opportunities.
9 pts
11.a. Which transformation will decrease the relevancy of the normative order of marriage before childbearing?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
5 pts b. Although couples may have the same goals, what might change?
The _______________ (one word) of those goals. pts
5