Transcript + Marriage - FCSTmsu200

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Marriage
Introduction to Family
Studies
FCST 200
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Marriage
With
all the possibilities and popularity
of cohabitation, why do people get
married?
 Requires
a long-term public commitment
 Fulfilling
social norms, such as expectation of
parents, friends, relatives
 Legal
rights and privileges reserved for spouses
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Marriage
 With
all the possibilities and popularity of
cohabitation, why do people get married?
 Allows
for emotional investment with reduced
risk of abandonment
 Increases
the probability that children raised by
two parents
 Marriage
is a social institution that confers
legality on a relationship
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Marriage
 With
all the possibilities and popularity of cohabitation, why
do people get married?
 Traditionally
marriage has been a KEY part of a
sequence of the life course
 Marriage
used to be connected to such things as:
 Leaving your parent’s home
 Position in the labor market
 A regular sex life
 Parenthood
 Marriage
has less effect on these things, so it becomes more
acceptable not to marry/ marry/ or divorce
Changes in the Importance College Students Attach to Characteristics of
Marriage Partners, 1939-1996.
Note values on this table and how change
occurred
CHARACTERISTICS THAT HAVE INCREASED IN VALUE SINCE 1939
(1996 RANKING IN PARENTHESES)
FOR MEN
FOR WOMEN
Love (1)
Education (5)
Sociability (7)
Good looks (8)
Similar educational background (12)
Good financial prospects (13)
Love (1)
Education (5)
Sociability (8)
Good looks (13)
CHARACTERISTICS THAT HAVE DECREASED IN VALUE (1996 RANKING IN PARENTHESES)
FOR MEN
FOR WOMEN
Desire for home and children (9)
Refinement, neatness (11)
Good cook, homemaker (14)
Chastity (16)
Ambition, industriousness (7)
Good health (9)
Refinement, neatness (7)
Chastity (17)
(Source: Buss, Shackelford, Kirkpatrick, & Larson, 2001)
+ What characteristics are most
important
 The
top half of the table shows characteristics that
have become MORE important over time:
 For
BOTH Men and women LOVE is the #1 characteristic
for a marriage partner and education is #5
 But
look at the importance of good looks for men (#8) vs.
women # 13!
 The
bottom half of the chart shows those
characteristics that have decreased in importance:
 Chastity, neatness, good
cook and homemaker
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Marriage
 Age
of marriage has increased considerably
 This
related to several other changes:
1) Rise in cohabitation.
2) Technological advances in contraceptives
3) Increases in educational attainment, esp. for
women
4) Increased female labor force participation
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Marriage
 “The
United States crossed an important marital
threshold in 2009, with the number of young adults
who have never married surpassing, for the first time
in more than a century, the number who were
married.”
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/us/29marri
age.html

Source: New York Times, October 3, 010,http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/us/29marriage.html
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Marriage Market
 Sociologists
often study marriage in terms of the
marriage market
 Thinking is similar to the employment market
 There
are 3 components to this “marriage market”
 Supply
– who is available
 Preferences
– preferred characteristics
– individual characteristics that are
attractive to others
 Resources
+ Marriage Market

The concept of the marriage market:

unmarried individuals search for spouses with an
acceptable set of desired characteristics

What are some of these desired characteristics?
1.
Propinquity (Proximity)
Religion
Education
Class
Race
Personal Traits
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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Marriage Market
 Proximity
– where ones lives.
 Proximity
is important as you actually have to come
into contact with someone to meet them and start
dating – A study in 1958 showed that people most like
to marry lived within 2-3 miles of each other.
 The
importance of proximity is weakening, especially with
advances in communication like the internet, but still has some
effect (according to more recent studies).
 Proximity
still makes sense because neighborhoods are usually
stratified by class, ethnicity, and race.
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Marriage Market
– there is a strong tendency to marry within
the same religious group – though this is also
changing.
 Religion
 Research
has shown that:
 Inter-marriages are less stable and more likely to
end in divorce
 Inter-marriage varies by gender and religion
 Jews – males more likely to intermarry
 Catholics – females more likely
 When
the less typical combination occurs, the marriage is
more likely to end in divorce.
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Marriage Market
 Education:
women are becoming more educated so the
old pattern of men marrying a wife with less
education is no longer the norm.
 1/3
of married women now have more education than
their husbands

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashion/24marriage.html?scp=13&sq=January%2024%202010&st=Search
 But
similar education is preferred, particularly
because more education often means more earning
potential, and this is now preferred by both men &
women

Educational attainment may also reflect social class.
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Marriage Market
 Education:
 In
the past, those who did NOT have a college
degree were more likely to be married by age 30
 Now
college educated are more likely to postpone
marriage today than their less educated
counterparts.
 http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1756/share-
married-educational-attainment
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Marriage Market
 Class:
most people marry within their social
class (measured by their occupation or their
parents’ occupation).
people seek to marry up – this is called
hypergamy
 Many
 Hypergamy
is defined as: marrying up in social
status.
 Women
more likely to marry up, men down.
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Marriage Market
 Race:
most marry within their racial group
 In
the past -- laws against inter-racial marriage
(miscegenation)
 Still
on the books in some southern states until
the Supreme Court overturned them in 1967
 Sociologists
expect that inter-racial marriage will
become more common
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Marriage Market

Personal Traits - People tend to marry people like
themselves

In what ways?
1) IQ - may be the result of a similar background
2) Physical similarities – which may also be from marrying
within ethnic group
3) Physical attractiveness – similar measure of physical
attractiveness.
Research has shown that a marriage may be less stable when the
partners are unequal in attractiveness
Who is Getting Married and Who is
Not?
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Summary
 Cohabitation
has become a new family form –
but it has not replaced marriage
 According
to Cherlin – marriage today is a
paradox, that as people enter marriage, they
are more likely to judge it by a single
standard – personal fulfillment - which is
difficult when you are an individual in a
couple.
 People
are more likely to marry those who are
similar to them in religion, race, class,
educational attainment, and attractiveness