Peer Marriages

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.