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Societal attitudes toward homosexuality
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Peer Marriages
For Centuries in our society marriage between man and woman has been a practiced cultural right and custom. Over 90% of Americans will marry in their lifetime and roughly 50% of those marriages will result in Divorce. Many Sociological factors contribute to the high divorce rate expressed in our culture. Reasons that contribute to the divorce rate are longer life expectancy, women in the work force, birth control, social acceptance of cohabitation, single parenting and welfare reform. It is also now socially acceptable and legal to get a divorce due to dissatisfaction and unhappiness. This social acceptance of divorce implies that today there is a changing criteria when entering marriage. Couples today now insist on the element of personal fulfillment and happiness for entering wedlock, where as, in times past this was not one of the main considerations for man and woman to get married.
Historically with in marriage man and women have adopted gender roles. These gender roles that are predicated by society are traditionally seen as the man in the provider/ authoritarian role and the woman is seen as the caretaker of the home and children or in the nurturer role. These gender roles exist in our society today, even though our society now considers man and woman equal and gives each sex equal rights. Consequently, many couples still adopt traditional roles while in other marriages couples opt for non-traditional roles and treat each other as equals these are called egalitarian relationships and are far less frequent in our society. By examining these egalitarian couples that do not operate with in the traditional limits of gender and comparing them to traditional relationships, we, as a society can learn ...
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...er reading interesting by comparing the differences of traditional and peer marriage. By introducing points and supporting them through personal accounts of couples from either type of marriage she managed to successfully support her contentions.
Through examining the myriad of ways that gender roles interfere with intimacy, Pepper Schwartz has identified the costs of traditional marriage and the rewards of peer marriage. She has demonstrated that the provider and nurturer roles assumed by man and woman ultimately negate intimacy and antagonize deep friendship. She shows that deep friendship found through equality is essential for intimacy and that peer marriage promotes commitment, shared worlds, co-parenting and the celebration of similarity. It is these qualities that peer marriage promote that make a marriage lasting and fulfilling for man and woman.
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
...t a couple should not live together nor engage in sexual activity until they are wed. If I had to agree with one of the authors, I would agree with Coontz because society does not focus on marriage anymore. Most of the people I know do not put marriage as the main goal of their daily lives. Also, I agree with Solot and Coontz about gay marriage. I do not support that gay marriage is a correct way of living, but I do believe they should have the right to love who they please. Overall, these essays were enjoyable to read because they provoked emotion and opinions out of me.
The early, twentieth century was not a positive time for females and marital relationships. As depicted through countless novels, there were two main female roles in society and neither created much opportunity for females. Whether a woman was a humble housewife or a mysterious mistress, there was controversy in every aspect of both roles. These roles also placed females in oppressive relationships that almost always decreased the qualities of honesty and loyalty that are necessary in relationships. From the beginning of the twentieth century all the way up until now, the treatment of females thrust into these roles has caused controversy and problems in countless marriage and all throughout our society.
Knudson-Martin, C., & Mahoney, A. R. (2009). Couples, gender, and power: Creating change in intimate relationships. New York: Springer.
In closing, while Ferrer has presented a well thought-out article that has achieved its goal, at least in my case, of opening the reader’s mind to other relationship styles, he does overlook a few areas. Our society is always changing and along with that the way we form relationships. Divorce and inter-racial marriage has become fairly common-place and acceptable, while same-sex marriages are slowly working toward that goal. This shows that people prefer to do what they feel is best for them, and makes them happy, rather then what societal pressures makes them feel they should do. By doing what makes us happy, and what we feel is right, we slowly change societal opinion. You can not please everyone, so you may as well please those that are important to you, as long as you do not harm to others.
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.
Warren Farrell is a well educated man who focuses his attention on gender. In his essay “Men as Success Objects,” he writes about gender roles in male-female relationships. He begins, “for thousands of years, marriages were about economic security and survival” (Farrell 185). The key word in that statement is were. This implies the fact that marriage has changed in the last century. He relates the fact that post 1950s, marriage was more about what the male and female were getting out of the relationship rather than just the security of being married. Divorce rates grew and added to the tension of which gender held the supremacy and which role the individuals were supposed to accept. “Inequality in the workplace” covered up all of the conflicts involved with the “inequality in the homeplace”(Farrell). Farrell brings to attention all ...
Throughout the one-hour-and-a-half observation much data was collected and stored for further investigation. Gender roles and power/authority were the two sociological concepts observed and applied to the analysis of this particular study. The four forms of groups examined were intimate couple, friends, single person and families. The field observation was concerned with the comparison between these different groups' interactions.
Marriage was once for the sole purpose of procreation and financially intensives. Living up to the roles that society had placed on married couples, more so women, is no longer the goal in marriage. Being emotional satisfied, having a fulfilled sex life and earning money is more important in marriage (Cherlin, 2013). Couples no longer feel the obligation to put the needs of their partner in front of their own needs. In the 1960’s and later it was the woman’s job to ensure that the house was clean, the children were bathed and dinner was prepared before the husband came home work. However, once more and more women began to enter the workplace and gain more independence, a desire for self-development and shared roles in the household lead way the individualistic marriage that is present in today’s society (Cherlin,
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.
Every year approximately 2.4 million marriages occur.Out of those,2.1 millionwill file for divorce in the United States. These marriage and divorce rates have significantly increased since the years past(Coltrane and Adams, 364).According to Schoen, in the 1950’s, 15 out of 1,000 marriages ended in divorce.In the 1970’s, the rates of divorcedoubled,increasing to 40 per 1,000 marriages. Currently, the rate of marriages resulting in divorce remains the same. Most marriages are ending within seven years ofthemarriage for multiple different reasons. Sociologists haveestablisheddivorce as a social problem from the rise in divorcerates due to the early year of marriages (2006).
Overall, we can see that 200 years later we are still attempting to escape from the gender line created through society’s image of men and women. Men and women still fail to communicate their feelings within their relationships, resulting in an overall unhealthy marriage. Today women and men attempt to challenge these gender stereotypes by taking on the roles of the opposite gender, but like in the “Yellow Wallpaper” are immediately met with “heavy opposition” and disapproval through the process. Although we may seem as though we are improving in escaping from the gendered stereotypes, the past will always be recurrent in a majority of relationships today if dominance within the relationship is not equally balance between both sexes.
Tradition is a strong component in the institution of marriage. The ideal American dream usually involves the perfect fairy-tale wedding with the gorgeous white wedding dress for the bride, the matching bridesmaids, the well-arranged bouquet and the numerous rituals that compose this well thought-out event. Usually it requires a great amount of planning, devotion and dollars to make the important day memorable. Family and friends come together to rejoice in the vows that will bond the two lovers into a lifetime journey of love, commitment and fidelity. Each person in the couple is expected to have a role in this institution. According to Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, “in the idealized form of the older model of traditional marriage, the man’s primary job for self-definition is to provide for the economic well-being, protection, and stability of his family ...The woman’s job and self-definition”, on the other hand, continue Wallerstein and Blakeslee, “is to care for her husband and children and to create a comfortable home that nourishes everyone, particularly her husband, who comes home each evening drained by the demands of his job (211).” With a constantly changing society, the concept of marriage has also varied. The “quickie” Vegas drive-through wedding or the underwater vow exchange is not as unusual or shocking as it once was. Even the roles of the persons involved have changed to fit the shape of society’s needs. For example the modern “companionate marriage” which is “founded on the couple’s shared beliefs that men and women are equal partners in all spheres of life and that their roles, including those of marriage, are completely interchangeable (Wallerstein, Blakeslee 155).
Ember and Ember (1997, ) situate stable mated relationships as the basis for marriage. These relationships are said to be universal because a stable union solves the problem posed by the division of labour. In other words, because men and women are likely to do different tasks, whether due
From the past to present, people all over the world have determined to live together, which is called “get marriage” in another word, so that they depend on for living each other. Nevertheless, some couples are unable to maintain their relationship; therefore they choose divorce, which is one of the solutions to cope with problems between husband and wife. Furthermore, most people think carefully before they get marriage. However, the divorce rates trend to continually increase nowadays, thus it might be argued that divorces can be taken place easier than the past. There are three main causes of divorce: changing woman’s roles, stress in modern living and lack of communication, which are highlighted below.