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Meaning and concept of marriage
Meaning and concept of marriage
How and why the divorce rates have changed
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Divorce laws in the United States are significantly more lenient today than they were many years ago, especially during that of the WWII era. A marriage defined by Merriam-Webster is a legally sanctioned contract between a man and a woman to be together for life. This definition is not so far from that of the religious definition of marriage. From a religious stand point, however depending on your specific religion, marriage is meant to be a union of a forever relationship even through eternity. Though both the dictionary and religious definitions of a marriage seem similar enough and straight forward enough to understand for those who are willing to take that forever leap into an eternal bond there are those who depend on the easier legal definition of marriage, which is simply defined as a civil contract between two people who meet the legal requirements for getting married established by the state in which they live. However unlike the harsh reality of how divorce was seen in centuries past it is now an easily seen loop hole in the lawful definition of marriage because as like any other contract made, it can always have the possibility of being broken. The statistics speak for themselves on how high the divorce rate has become, what it doesn’t show are how many people are affected by the outcome of this easily dissolvable union.
According to the American Divorce Reform data for the United States shows a shocking, yet familiar statistic of 50% of marriages ending shortly after they begin. Since the early 1960’s, marriage and divorce have been going through intense changes which have significantly changed the meaning of marriage as it was once seen, making the chances of it ending in divorce greater because of the issues atta...
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Works Cited
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Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11 ed. Springfield,MA: Merriam-Webster, 2005.
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Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and Their Driving Forces." Journal of Economic Perspectives 21 (2007): 27-52.
Wilson, Bruce "What's Good? What's Bad? and What's Puzzling?." Huffington Post 9 Nov. 2010. 1 Mar. 2011 .
The correlation of divorce and unemployment rates or the relationship between marital satisfaction and employment status have relevance to anyone interested or affected by a marriage. This includes married couples, children, relatives, family friends, psychologists, councillors, lawyers, judges, employers, realtors, tax payers, etc. In other words, practically everyone in Canadian society is affected by divorce; and though divorce has also been seen more commonly throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century than any other point in history, are Canadian divorce rates really on the rise? According to the statistics, the divorce rate of Canadian marriages has been more or less decreasing for the past twenty years. In fact, the number of divorces in Canada for every 100,000 people has decreased from a high of 362.3 in 1987 to 220.7 in 2005 (Wyman 1). Yet when we exclude the large and sudden jump of the
finally the opportune moment for individuals to build a stable family that previous decades of depression, war, and domestic conflicts had restricted. We see that this decade began with a considerable drop in divorce rates and rise in marriage rates, which is often assumed as the result of changed attitudes and values. However, this situation cannot be only just attributed to women’s
Bumpass LL, Sweet JA, Cherlin A. 1991. The role of cohabitation in declining rates of marriage. Demography 53:913 27
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.
Batchelor, John. "Marriage and Divorce." Ainujin Oyobi Sono Setsuwa. Tōkyō: Kyōbunkan, 1901. N. pag. Print.
First of all, America has the highest divorce rate among western nations. Divorce rate increased after every major war, and decreased during the Post-World War II economic boom. The divorce rate has more than doubled since 1940, when there were two divorces for every 1,000 persons. Now for the same number of people, there are over five divorces. Studies indicate that there is more divorce among persons with low incomes and limited education and those who marry at a very young age. Teenage marriages are much more likely to end in divorce than are all other marriages. And women who marry when they are over age 30 are the least likely to become divorced. There has been a decline in divorce in the number of couples who have children under 18. Almost 45 p...
Zimiles, H. (2004). Schismatic studies of divorce: Essay reviews of for better or for worse: Divorce reconsidered by e.m. hetherington and j. kelly and of the unexpected legacy of divorce by j.s. wallerstein, j.m. lewis and s. blakesfee. Human development, 47(4), 239-250.
Cook, Joe. "What Should We Do About Divorce Law? No to Covenant Marriage." World & I. Jan. 1998: 302-317. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 04 May. 2014.
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).
One tough thing about today's American family is divorce. In 1816, one marriage out of one hundred ended in divorce. Then between the years 1869-1888, divorce increased up to one hundred and fifty percent. And the worse, between the years 1960-1980, the divorce rate increased up to two hundred and fifty percent. Divorce rates peaked in 1981 and then started to decline a little during the mid 1980's. However, divorce rates now are as high as they have ever been. Now fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. There are five reasons for the increase in divorce. The first reason is in modern societies; individual happiness is regarded to be important so when people are unhappy with their marriage, they break-up and split. The second reason is it is easier to get divorced financially. The third reason is that women's economic independence has contributed. The fourth reason is the stigma of divorce has lessened so people are not
Lach, Jennifer. “The Consequences Of Divorce.” American Demographics 21.10 (1999): 14. MAS Ultra – School Edition.Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Ahlburg, Dennis and Carol J. DeVita. “New Realities of the American Family.” Population Bulletin. Aug. 1992: 20-28. SIRS. Family, 4, 96. Andrews, Jan. Divorce and the American Family. New York: Library of Congress Catalog, 1978.
Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, “half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.” (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, “until death do us part,” uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by true love, or, quite simply, the couples mistakenly have different relational expectations.
Amato, P. R. (2000). The consequences of divorce for adults and children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 1269-1287.