Exploring Marriage in Regards to Social Class

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When one attends a wedding, they probably think what a lovely couple the bride and groom make or wonder when they’ll start procreating. Marriage is socially acceptable in the United States and is actually encouraged and expected for heterogeneous couples. But getting married is not as simple as some make it out to be; many people find alternatives to the traditional wedding scene and some refrain from getting married in the first place. I have noticed by observing those around me that people view matrimony differently according to what social class they are in. Most of the marriages in my family have not exactly worked out in everyone’s favor, and so I wanted to research and learn why people get married according to their social status. This paper explores how marriage differs across various social classes. I will assess the rates of marriage and the reasoning behind marriage for the social classes of the lower, middle, and upper varieties.
A social politics article states, “Marriage promotion is a neoliberal policy shifting risk to the shoulders of the poor, aiming to produce ‘strong families’ for the purposes of social security” (Geva, 2011). One may ask: how does the government benefit from making “strong families”? I believe the implied statement here is that married couples make more money and so that means more social security money coming in for the government, meaning the government ultimately benefits from citizens getting married. Statistics show that 48 percent of the population surveyed declared their marital status as married, excluding the people who are married but separated (Census, 2012). Taking this information into consideration, this means that about 52 percent of the population surveyed was not married, whet...

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...Why Don't They Just Get Married? Barriers to Marriage among the Disadvantaged. In The Future of Children. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from USF Database.
Fu, X. (2007). Inter-Racial Marriage and Family Socio-economic Status: A Study among Whites, Filipinos, Japanese, and Hawaiians in Hawaii. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 38(4), 533-554. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from USF Database.
Geva, D. (2011). Not just maternalism: marriage and fatherhood in American welfare policy. Social Politics, 18(1), 24-51. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from USF Database.
Lapp, A., & Bradford Wilcox, W. (2013, September 30). The Privilege Of Marriage. National Review, 65(18), 40-41. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from USF Database.
Poppel, F., Mondel, C., & Mandemakers, K. (2008, March). Marriage Timing over the Generations. Human Nature, 19(1), 7-22. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from USF Database.

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