Article 1: Kefalas, M. J., Furstenberg, F. F., Carr, P. J., & Napolitano, L. (2011)
In this study, researchers wanted to know young adults’ views of marriage in the United States. In order to do so, they asked simple questions about marriage and commitment to 424 people ages 21 to 38 from various socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. The results showed that there are two major types of marital constructs, and two major arguments in the debate of marriage’s current state. The two categories of people who think of marriage are called the marriage naturalists and the marriage planners. Both groups of people have nearly opposite views on the idea of what is needed to be able to have a good, healthy marriage. The major arguments about the current state of marriage in the U.S are the marriage decline and the marriage resilience perspectives. These are also polarized, naturally.
The first type of person who marries or wants to do so is known as the marriage naturalist. This tends to be the majority of rural populations who seem to still have similar views to that of former generations when it comes to the ultimate commitment. These traditional people see marriage as something that should be done as the next step of adulthood. Typically, marriage naturalists wed if the relationship has endured for long enough and the time feels right. For them, the transition into adulthood is fairly quick. Many go on to higher education for a short or average amount of time, or head directly into the work force. Instead of waiting for stability, they decide to make the plunge depending on how long the relationship has been going. It’s a steady flow, and usually based on the two people as a whole instead of each person as an individual. As a result,...
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... As well, Japanese culture typically shows that marriage is a form of union for child bearing alone. Even in this day and age, arranged marriages still happen although the numbers are relatively low. Still, in marriages that are based on love, great pressure is placed on the continuation of the family via children.
In conclusion, this study shows that there are traditional differences between the U.S and Japanese cultures when it comes to views on marriage and the family unit. The U.S usually follows love and family more casually than the Japanese due to the amount of pressures placed on individuals by the status quo and past generations. Such pressures such as honor and responsibility for the family could lead to fewer divorce rates among Japanese, whereas Americans are ultimately about individual happiness, regardless of the blending effect of American marriage.
Suresh, G., Horbar, J., Plsek, P., Gray, J., Edwards, W., Shiono, P., & ... Goldmann, D. (2004).
The culture that exists in America is one that is constantly changing to suit the times and the many different types of people that reside in the country. One aspect of American culture that has changed profoundly is the institution of marriage. Marriage began as the undisputed lifestyle for couples willing to make the ultimate commitment to one another. However in less than a century, pointless and destructive alternatives such as premarital cohabitation, have developed to replace marriage.
Wynn, D., Kaufman, M., Montalban, X., Vollmer, T., Simon, J., Elkins, J., I Rose, J. W. (2010).
Tackett, J. L., Lahey, B. B., van Hulle, C., Waldman, I., Krueger, R. F., & Rathouz, P. J. (2013).
Marriage is the legal or formally recognized union of a man and a woman, or two people or the same sex as partners in a relationship. Marriage rates in the United States have changed drastically since the last 90’s and early 2000 years (Cherlin 2004). Marital decline perspective and marital resilience perspective are the two primary perspectives and which we believe are the results from the decline. The marital decline perspective is the view that the American culture has become increasingly individualistic and preoccupied with personal happiness (Amato, 2004). The change in attitudes has changed the meaning of marriage as a whole, from a formal institution
Marriage is a commitment that seems to be getting harder to keep. The social standards placed on an individual by society and influenced by the media inevitably lead some to consider divorce as a “quick-fix” option. “Have it your way” has become a motto in the United States. It has become a country without any consideration of the psychological effects of marriage and divorce. The overwhelmingly high divorce rate is caused by a lack of moral beliefs and marital expectations.
It is not a new thought that today’s young Americans are facing issues, problems and difficult decisions that past generations never had to question. In a world of technology, media, and a rough economy, many young adults in America are influenced by a tidal wave of opinions and life choices without much relevant advice from older generations. The Generation Y, or Millennial, group are coming of age in a confusing and mixed-message society. One of these messages that bombard young Americans is the choice of premarital cohabitation. Premarital cohabitation, or living together without being married (Jose, O’Leary & Moyer, 2010), has increased significantly in the past couple of decades and is now a “natural” life choice before taking the plunge into marriage. Kennedy and Bumpass (2008) state that, “The increase in cohabitation is well documented,such that nearly two thirds of newlyweds have cohabited prior to their first marriage”(as cited in Harvey, 2011, p. 10), this is a striking contrast compared with statistics of our grandparents, or even parents, generations. It is such an increasing social behavior that people in society consider cohabitation “necessary” before entering into marriage. Even more, young Americans who choose not to cohabitate, for many different reasons, are looked upon as being “old-fashioned”, “naive”, or “unintelligent”. This pressure for young people to cohabitate before marriage is a serious “modern-day” challenge; especially when given research that states, “... most empirical studies find that couples who cohabited prior to marriage experience significantly higher odds of marital dissolution than their counterparts who did not cohabit before marriage”, stated by Jose (2010) and colleagues (as c...
Is marriage really important? There is a lot of controversy over marriage and whether it is eminent. Some people believe it is and some people believe it is not. These opposing opinions cause this controversy. “On Not Saying ‘I do’” by Dorian Solot explains that marriage is not needed to sustain a relationship or a necessity to keep it healthy and happy. Solot believes that when a couple gets married things change. In “For Better, For Worse”, Stephanie Coontz expresses that marriage is not what is traditional in society because it has changed and is no longer considered as a dictator for people’s lives. The differences between these two essays are the author’s writing style and ideas.
Timpano, K. R., Keough, M. E., Mahaffey, B., Schmidt, N. B., & Abramowitz, J. (2010).
For hundreds of years, society has considered marriage as the only legitimate way to beget children. However, as time progresses families and marriage grow farther apart as different social classes have differing opinions as to what constitutes a “good“ family dynamic.
Marriage in our generation is a commitment and a promise that two people make to be
Marriage in Japan Why people get married? There would be many reasons; to save money, to escape from loneliness, to have a better life, and so on. But in most case people marry for love. Though it is almost always true, a married life is different between in the western culture and in Japan. A marriage in modern western culture is based on mutuality and companionship. In Western there is a tendency to be independent. Most college graduates live apart from their family and find an apartment near the working place. They have learned how to ¡°survive¡± in single and marriage is an optional. However, a person in Japan who graduates from a college and has a job still lives with one¡¯s family until one gets married, which means one keeps the parent-child relationship. Therefore it is hard for a Japanese man to learn to be independent. After he gets married, he now relies on his bride for having foods, doing laundry, and many other things. Takeo Doi explains it with the term of amae that means the seeking or causing of oneself to be loved, nurtured, and indulged. He says it is an active attempt to make oneself into a passive love object. One reason why a man continues depending on someone else is that he has been witnessed what his parents have been done and now he considers himself as a head of his own family. In case of woman, it is difficult to keep her job after the marriage, because she needs to take care of her child, which is considered to be a wife¡¯s job. She has to do everything else except making money for the family, which makes her dependent on her husband who has the economic power. However in western culture, it is natural for both partners to have their own jobs and to be responsible for every single household job after marriage. Until recently it has been true in Japan but now it is changing. More women have their jobs rather than prepare to be a bride after the graduate. They don¡¯t need to get married if they don¡¯t want to. It has also become common not to have many children and some couples don¡¯t have a child at all. A younger bride could decide to divorce her husband if she wants to because she has a chance to get an economic independence easily nowadays.
In Japan, the family units are smaller and the country has a declining birthrate. The falling birthrate is due to the Japanese culture that marriage is a prerequisite for having children and since the average cost of a Japanese wedding is about ¥3.2m (SGD $40,000), this causes them to avoid marriage. Furthermore, the private companies in Japan discouraged women that have children to return to their previous jobs through their actions that include forcing them to take low-paid irregular or part-time jobs (The Economist, 2010). Moreover, the employment rates of the women in Japan have increased because of the expansion of employment opportunities. Henceforth, they postpone their marriage to later ages to pursue their career. Therefore, with a small family size; it allows them to focus their spending on fewer children. With a larger budget to spend on toys as there are fewer mouths to feed, enabled families to spend more on expensive toys for their children and
Barker, V., Giles, H., Hajek, C., Ota, H., Noels, K., Lim, T-S., & Somera, L. (2008).
Statistics show that in 1998, 2,256,000 couples became married, and 1,135,000 couples became divorced (Fast 1,2). For every two couples getting married, there is one that is getting divorced. In fact, half of ALL marriages end in divorce (Ayer 41). That is a sad reality to face. Those percentage rates increase as the age of the participant’s decrease. It seems these days, fewer and fewer teens between the ages of 14 and 18 are getting married. This is a change for the better. Teens are usually not prepared for marriage. Marriage comes with many responsibilities; most of which teens are not prepared to handle. “Early marriage, though possessing certain inherent dangers, is widely practiced in contemporary America” (Teenage 1). Even if teens feel they have the potential for a lasting marriage, they should still wait to become married.