Blogger Stephanie Coontz recently wrote a post about how she thinks marriage is becoming obsolete. After receiving information from a public opinion poll on CNN, she found that 40% of Americans no longer believe in the sanctity of marriage. Also, 25% of unmarried people are not actively seeking a spouse.
Stephanie argues that marriage was considered essential in the past because of social and financial demands. In the 1950s, marriage was considered an investment for the future. Investing in a wealthy husband was even more important because woman did not yet have their place in the workforce. Additionally, marriage was just another part of growing up. If a girl was older than 22 and remained unmarried, she was the village freak.
Sixty years later, the social norms have changed drastically. Now, women go to college, hold their own in the workforce and are not encouraged to marry until age 26. With these new social norms, women also have a new found independence. Women place the focus of marriage on love, rather than money. And as a result, find it harder than ever to meet that perfect partner. There are plenty of guys out there that we can tolerate to live with for a few years, but it is much harder to find that guy that you can spend hours with that feel like mere minutes.
While the statistics do look ominous, I think that all of these changes have been beneficial for the sanctity of marriage. In the past, women would marry so that they would have financial stability. Now women can marry men that they have fun with. I think that if you can marry someone that you can have fun with, or that is your best friend, marriage will last longer and there will be a lower divorce rate. Also, by waiting a few more years, women can really have the opportunity to figure out who they are and what they like before they jump into marriage. Hence, I do not agree that marriage will ever be obsolete, I just think that people will be more secure in the marriage decisions they make.
No comments:
Post a Comment