Throughout the 1940s’ and 50s’, young people especially women were expected to get married right out of high school and begin a family. However, young people are have been exploring other options for themselves. Marriage is no longer the only option. Delaying marriage (pushing the age of marriage into the late 20s’ and older) is an increasing trend in the United States. Marriage is one of the most important commitments to be made in life. When a person marries someone, it should be a mature and responsible decision. It should be a long-lasting commitment; be a happy and fulfilling relationship filled with communication, love, and respect. Many young people view marriage as a commitment they don’t want to commit because they have a priority …show more content…
list that leaves marriage to the very end. According to the US Census Bureau, “Young people may delay marriage but most still eventually tie the knot. In the 1970s, 8 in 10 married by the time they turned 30. Today, not until the age of 45 have 8 in 10 people married.” From the 1970s’, young people have been delaying marriage because more of them are attending college, students loan plays an important factor in the getting married decision, and more of them are focusing on their career rather than their relationship, In 1970s’, a man could count on finding a blue-collar job that paid an honest wage, where he could continue to work until he retired on a comfortable pension. At that time, a quarter of Americans, almost all of them men, still worked in the manufacturing sector; another significant percentage were in sectors requiring little formal education, like construction, mining, or utilities. The large majority of workers had, at best, a high-school education; college was financially unrealistic and largely irrelevant to their stable, decent-paying job. By their early twenties, or even their late teens, they were ready to support a family. Now, this world is all but gone. Good jobs for less-educated Americans have withered on the knowledge-economy vine. For years now, men without a high-school diploma have had little hope for a stable job that could support a family. A post-secondary degree is needed to fully support a family because in today’s era an honest wage doesn’t make the cut. Jobs that do support a middle-class lifestyle require more training, and many more years of it, often in the form of a college degree. The number of men and women who attended college rose steadily through the 1980s. Then, men's rate of enrollment began to plateau as women continued to climb. Today, women earn more college degrees than men. That helps explains the increase in age for both sexes, since attending college pushes back marriage timelines. Young people are putting their education before anything else because high-income lifestyle in most case require a college degree. Many want an education to have better future for themselves and their families. Many young people want to have a stress free live with a stable career and income. Having a post-secondary education makes this reality easier to obtain. According to the article Study: Income Gap Between Young College and High School Grads Widens by Danielle Kurtzleben stated, “Among millennials ages 25 to 32, median annual earnings for full-time working college-degree holders are $17,500 greater than for those with high school diplomas only.” Therefore, many young people choose education and delay marriage since 1970s’ because it gives them a great incentive to wait. Young people attending college has being the main reason they have delay marriage, but with acquiring a post-secondary education it has the norm of student loans. Many young people cannot afford to pay for college and use student loans as a way to pay for it. Almost every college graduates with some type of student loan debt. According to the website Student Loan Hero states, “It’s 2018 and Americans are more burdened by student loan debt than ever. In fact, the average student loan debt for Class of 2017 graduates was $39,400*, up six percent from the previous year.” After graduating you would think they are ready to settle down and get married, but the reality is that having student loan debt furthermore delays marriage. Many students who take out loans view their debt as an obstacle to marriage because it takes an income out of their paycheck that cannot be use for anything else. These students spent years paying the loans back which morally makes them less prepare to start the marriage life. The only though in their mind is to find the fastest way to pay back the debt. For those who aspire to high-income, high-status occupations—doctor, lawyer, journalist, academic, scientist—training and apprenticeship can stretch well into the midtwenties and even thirties.
Under these circumstances, marriage is not usually a first priority. Many of this profession require years of education and training. For example, to become a doctor a student is require earning a bachelor’s degree which takes about 4 years, attending another 4 years of medical school, and completing a 3- to 7-year residency. After the residency program, they many apply for a state license to practice medicine. In total, it takes 11-14 years to become a doctor in the United States. Therefore, many young people priorities are not on marriage because their focus is on finish their education. They only have time to focus and dedication on completing the high demand course work to become a doctor or any other high-profile profession. Completing a high- profile profession has its cons and the main one is delaying …show more content…
marriage. Many people argue that attending college and wanting a high-income profession is no impediment to getting married young.
This people argue that there are also several benefits of being married in college, and capitalizing on these benefits will not only increase marital satisfaction but can also benefit academic performance and stress levels. They argute that marriage affords the opportunity for a stable, meaningful relationship, and this intimacy can help reduce the emotional stress of college. A marriage provides this kind of full-time, readily accessible support, which can be useful in a variety of college-induced stressful situations, including managing workload, time management, and even simply venting about a stressful day. In addition, your spouse can help increase academic performance in several ways. A spouse can help in studying, help brainstorm research ideas, provide critical feedback of academic work, and provide encouragement to persist in endeavors. Use your built-in support system—after all, most of college students do not have this
luxury! Balancing the college life is difficult as is and adding a marriage to that picture just makes it more complicated. The responsibilities of being both married and a college student are difficult to balance. Marriage can pose additional challenges to the day-to-day life of a college student. People argue having a spouse to can help reduce the emotional stress of college because the partner provides support, but a friend or a counselor that a student can ventilate to has the same benefits. They also argue that a spouse can help increase academic performance by helping to study or brainstorm, but many campuses provide facilities for students to get help on any subject and to create better assignments. Getting marriage young and attending college is possible, but has it negative aspects of it because it is not easy to balance. Marriage is no joking matter because it is a critical decision that must be though through. It has many responsibilities and the couple needs to be mature to the commitment of marriage. Since the 1970s’, young people have been delaying marriage because more are enrolling in college, student loan debt prevents them to commit to marriage, and they value their careers more than marriage. Many young people have priority list that leave marriage to he every end. They value education more and want to have a better future for themselves. There is nothing wrong with delaying marriage because everyone enters the marriage stage at different times. Society should pressure young people to get married because it differs for induvial to induvial and only themselves can tell if the ready for marriage.
Marriage in the 20’s was different from previous years. The 1920’s became the start of something major for women as they gained the right to vote with the help of the 19th amendment. Women gained freedom and the norms of the house started to change after that. Traditions were starting to be left in the past as women weren’t forced to do the “housewife” role. The women in the marriage were allowed to do more than sit and tend to the house. She could help her house or venture out and find work of her own. In Delia’s case, things did not become 50/50.
Some historians have argued that 1950s America marked a step back for the advancement that women made during WWII. What contributed to this “return to domesticity” and do you believe that the the decade was good or bad for women?
There are different structures of families in America. In the nuclear family arrangement, partners and their children constitute the primary relationship. In the extended family arrangement, relatives provide the fundamental relationship. The man is, usually, the head of the family in such family arrangements. Gay families constitute of marriages between parties of the same sex. Other structures of the family include a single parent family, peer families and relationships based on the idea that both parties are equal.
The era of the 1950s was an iconic era in American history. The American dream of freedom, self empowerment, and success was growing. After world war 1, the ideals of american culture changed. The country saw the aftermath of the war in the countries of western Europe where communism was beginning to take hold, and the U.S tried to be the opposite. Marriage was propagated to be the opposite of the war torn families across the world, where women were working in factories and children fending for themselves with no home. The American “nuclear family” strived to be one where the father supported his family, the wife stayed home and provided for her children. Family became a national priority, and women were taught that a happy marriage and home
“In the 1950’s, 86 percent of children lived in two-parent families, and 60 percent of children were born into homes with a male breadwinner and a female homemaker” (Conley 451). In contrast, “in 1986, fewer than 10 percent of U.S. families consisted of a male breadwinner, a female housewife, and their children, a figure that has since fallen to 6 percent” (Conley 455). Modern families come in all shapes and sizes. They no longer follow the strict nuclear family layout. There are many reasons why the nuclear family is no longer the most common family type. Some of these reasons include increased divorces, increased acceptance of different sexual orientations, increased amount of couples choosing not to get married/common-law marriages, increased amount of people choosing not to have children (rise of birth control methods), increased amount of families with both parents working/needing to work, etc. Personally, I do not believe the decrease in the nuclear family model is a bad thing. By definition a family is just a group of people who are related or married/in a relationship and it can still be a healthy and well-functioning unit no matter the size or combination of people it is made up
The Cult of Domesticity is an offensive gesture; however in the 1950s’ there was validity this gesture. The rise of feminism has created a society in which there are more single mothers than ever before, long side more children born out of wedlock. The United States Census Bureau states, “During the 1960-2016 period, the percentage of children living with only their mother nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent and the percentage of children…” (1). The article the Cult of Domesticity indeed points out the valid flaws of Ideal duties/expectations of domesticity in the 1950s’; however, I would like to state that anything man-made idea or material mechanism is not without faults. The agreeable points of the list were that there should be a genuine respect and act of service shown to our husbands each day. However, the list made a hard-left turn in suggesting that women are not to question the motives of their husband, and/or the location of their husbands if they chose to be late after work. Lastly, if husbands choose to
Teenagers in the 1950's are so iconic that, for some, they represent the last generation of innocence before it is "lost" in the sixties. When asked to imagine this lost group, images of bobbysoxers, letterman jackets, malt shops and sock hops come instantly to mind. Images like these are so classic, they, for a number of people, are "as American as apple pie." They are produced and perpetuated by the media, through films like Grease and Pleasantville and television shows like Happy Days, The Donna Reed Show, and Leave It to Beaver. Because of these entertainment forums, these images will continue to be a pop cultural symbol of the 1950's. After the second World War, teenagers became much more noticeable in America (Bailey 47). Their presence and existence became readily more apparent because they were granted more freedom than previous generations ever were.
The social perception of women has drastically changed since the 1950’s. The social role of women during the 1950’s was restrictive and repressed in many ways. Society during that time placed high importance on expectations of behavior in the way women conducted themselves in home life as well as in public. At home the wife was tasked with the role of being an obedient wife, caring mother, and homemaker. Women publicly were expected to form groups and bond over tea with a slice of cake. All the while government was pushing this idealize roll for women in a society “dominated” by men. However, during this time a percentage of women were finding their way into the work force of men. “Women were searching their places in a society led by men;
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.
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...
The debate on whether to get married or stay single has been raging for a long while, with both sides of the coin having their own pros and cons regarding the matter. Many proponents of either marriage or single life have strong individual convictions, and it is difficult to reach a definitive objective conclusion. Is the married individual happier than his/her single counterpart, or is getting married just a comfort seeking ritual that people believe they have to fulfill at some point in their lives? It is necessary to dissect this issue in the light of four factors: health and other medical factors, the economic and finance front, mental and emotional wellbeing and lastly, the social factor.
Marriage is one of the oldest cultural institutions in the world. Its status has changed drastically over the years, and in the last few decades alone has gone from being a social expectation to simply an option for most people. In the 1920s, marriage was generally considered an expectation for all young women, lest they dry up like cacti before they bore children. Today, marriage is generally recognized as a commitment that may satisfy some, though many choose to forgo the process. The differences between the cultural perception of marriage in the “Roaring Twenties” compared to today have manifested themselves in many different ways.
Getting married is the most important event in our life. From time to time, they always say, “Single life is a sweet dream and marriage is an alarm clock.” This proverb could make young people afraid when deciding whether or not they marry. However, there are differences that indicate pros and cons of both single life and married life. In general, single life can bring us freedom to experience life all by ourselves; at the same time, it also brings loneliness and detachment. In contrast, married life can fulfill us with love, care, and a sense of belonging; however, it also requires us a great deal of shared responsibilities. Understanding the differences between single life and married life especially on finance, emotion, and responsibility
While the age of marriage is generally on the rise, in many countries, especially among poor, migrant or displaced communities, early marriage – marriage of children and adolescents below the age of eighteen – is still widely practiced. Tremendous number of couples enters marriage without any chance of exercising their right to choose. Some are forced into marriage, others are simply too young to make an informed decision about their partner or about the implications of marriage itself. Studies have shown that teenage married couples are often less advantageous, may come from broken homes, may have little education and work, low status jobs in comparison to those that marry after adolescence. It could be very encouraging if our community established a prohibition on the early marriages, giving a room for young couples’ relationships to grow. I propose to ban early marriages because they bring a lot of flaws in our society and make the young couples face imposing obstacles during their life path.
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.