Hi all. I'm a little behind schedule on my Robocop analysis. Keep the faith alive, though, I just need a couple of days to sort it because I am a bit tied up right now. It will come soon enough.
To hold you over, I found an interesting article from the New York Times about the quality of marriages today. The argument, based on the literature, is that the average marriage has declined in quality, while the best marriages have improved. Take a look and let us know what you all think. You'll see some familiar names if you study families. (I did not go looking for Penn State names to appear, but it happened anyway.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-all-or-nothing-marriage.html?_r=1
Leave your thoughts, and eventually I will leave mine as well!
Dylan
Gratuitous Simpsons quote: "Now what is a wedding? Well, Webster's dictionary describes a wedding as: the process of removing weeds from one's garden."
This article makes some interesting points, most of which I tend to agree with. The debate about whether marriage is in decline or in transition has been going on for a while now, and I feel the author's comments about marriage being both better and worse today fall into the marriage in transition category.
ReplyDeleteFinkel references the book by historian Stephanie Coontz, which provides a thorough description of how marriage has evolved over centuries. The function of marriage and what we want out of marriage has changed dramatically since the "ideal" marriage of the 1950's. Contraceptives allow us to choose when/if and how many children we have, which was not an option in this time. Women pursue more higher education than in the past, which has resulted in later ages of marriage and later age of childbearing. The function of marriage has changed, so that now the average American believe your spouse must be your best friend and perfect romantic partner. So yes, spouses today want more out of their marriage, and yes, it is true that most are not able to meet these expectations, resulting in divorce.
But those who study marriage recognized this and have been working to find a remedy for this problem. It is the general consensus that relationship education is likely the best way to prevent divorce. Relationship education programs have been heavily funded since the anti-divorce campaign of the Bush administration, and evidence-based practices have emerged from many respected researchers in the past 15 years. These programs focus on helping couples explore their expectations of marriage, and if these expectations are realistic. Many provide couples with skills to work through communication and conflict resolution issues as well. These programs are designed for the average couple, and are required in many areas as part of pre-martial therapy.
I agree with Finkel that the issues of lower marital quality and satisfaction are more salient among lower SES couples. I have worked with a few agencies that attempt to implement relationship education programs with these couples. Often any service provided to lower SES couples is geared toward helping them find food banks, childcare, and jobs, so relationship education is commonly abandoned. Finkel’s point about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is something that service providers in agencies are very much aware of when they provide relationship counseling to couples, especially those with children.
DeleteSo while I agree with most of Finkel’s points, I feel he was somewhat melodramatic in his article. While the institution of marriage may seem to be wavering, especially with the rise in cohabiting relationships, it is part of the transition that researchers continue to study. I would be interested in hearing about this “new theory of marriage” that Finkel and his colleagues are developing.
I appreciate your comments. I posted this largely because, as someone who does not know the literature, it seemed like a reasonable introduction to some of the big ideas in the field. And you know the literature, so that is fantastic,
ReplyDeleteWhat about cohabitation? Does cohabitation provide people with the same feeling of being married? Are the expectations for success lower for cohabiting couples? It seems like the fact that the potential threat of divorce is off the table might matter, but then again, the threat of a break-up might be just as bad as a divorce.
Family sociologists are still trying to figure out what the function of cohabitation is for most couples. Most cohabiting couples surveyed believe that cohabiting prior to marriage will decrease their risk for divorce, which has not been proven true by the literature on the subject. The exception to this is couples who are engaged prior to living together. These couples do have decreased levels of divorce over time. The same is true for couples that have explicitly discussed getting married before they begin living together, but might not be engaged. Couples that just "kinda know" they're going to eventually get married, but never explicitly discuss it have the same levels of divorce as couples who don't have that level of commitment to the relationship and don't even know if they will stay together.
ReplyDeleteThere appear to be two main functions of cohabiting : transition to marriage or alternative to marriage. For white and middle-class couples it appears to be more of a transition to marriage, whereas for minority and lower SES couples it appears to be more of an alternative to marriage. This divide means that there are different levels of commitment to the relationship depending on the function cohabiting is serving for the couple. A few qualitative studies have shown that people try living together before they get married to make sure they won't divorce, but this doesn't always work out.
Overall, cohabiting relationships are less stable than marital relationships, but are more stable than dating relationships. In one study, more than 25% of cohabitors had broken up or transitioned to marriage within the first 6 months of living together, and this number increases to over half by the end of the first year and over 75% by the end of the second year of living together (Binstock and Thornton, 2003). In the first year of cohabiting, marriage and breaking up are equally likely to happen, but by the end of the second year, 40% of cohabitors married compared to 23% that had broken up.
These numbers are somewhat misleading, as most cohabitors have constraints, or things that prevent them from leaving the relationship when they might have otherwise left. Constraints can be things such as sharing a lease, owning a home, having a child together, or one partner being financially dependent on the other. These things are not very present in dating relationships, but become more common in cohabiting relationships. So it is likely that there are cohabiting relationships that would end if those constraints were not present. The same goes for marital relationships. There are even more constraints present in marital relationships, so it makes it harder for couples that want to divorce. Constraints make it more likely that couples will slide into a big step in their relationship, such as living together or getting married, rather than deciding to do it and making a conscious commitment to the next step in their relationship. So most couples that are not engaged or have not explicitly talked about getting married in the future end up sliding into a more serious stage of a relationship than they otherwise would have. These couples have lower relationship satisfaction, less positive communication, and higher levels of conflict. They are also more likely to break up and get back together, as well as permanently end their relationship.