Marriage is a necessity for a stable family life. My wife and I have been happily married 42 years. My older son is married with two wonderful children, and my younger son is due to get married next spring. There are plenty of jobs out there for men, who are willing to work. Maybe not great jobs, but jobs nonetheless that give them the first rung on the ladder. I see a lot of immigrants, many Mexicans, yes, who work very hard in kitchens, landscaping etc. Why are these jobs below, I hate to say it, the feckless men, who won't work. I recommend Hillbilly Elegy for examples of men who won't work.
79
Another stain on the great society. Not one mention of responsibility or lack of in this gibberish.
This is the cause of an overbearing welfare state. Text book Sowell.
36
Marriage isn't a mark of privilege, as if you had lived in small town America over the last 40 years, and observed that fact the females wanted to leave the children with babysitters, and in day care, as most of them didn't have what it took to stay home and raise their own children. Once they went off to work, and it mattered little to them how much they were making, or they finished degrees, and got jobs, it was no looking back. After a while with a job, they felt confident in getting divorced easier also. Then, the more generous welfare benefits in Cottonwood County, and the state of Minnesota, as those living in it tend to be compassionate, and Christian, they voted in more money for health and human services in the state, which resulted in the easy ability when pregnant to set up your own household without a man. Since these younger age woman would start having husbands by different men, they didn't care, as the state was there to give them a welfare check, housing voucher, free healthcare, daycare, travel money and education money if they wanted it. This has played out in America in one form or another from small town USA to big city America and the suburbs. Few see any need for a man in their life when the government can provide. The children suffer as a general rule, as no one is home raising them most of the time, they are raising themselves, and academic interest has waned, but society can't fix the ignorance of policy driven by all of this.
42
With too many women, over decades, dissing males; and where the preponderance of elementary education (6 or 7 years, depending on how or what you count), being conducted by females, doing all they can to promote junior females into professions outside of motherhood—no wonder, so many males and their psyche's are messed up!
Let's see if we can be or become even more effective with dissing and dismissing males from higher education, and turn the civillzational table completely upside down.
My mother, who had 8 children (me being her 6th, and only 1 of 2 boys), never had more formal education than high school, educated herself in both doing massive amounts of reading, and pondering.
I would say her successes are hardly rivaled by any woman today. Seven children successfully and enduringly married (zero divorces). Youngest never married, but has her bachelor and MBA degrees—a successful Mining Engineer, taking professionally after our father, in that way. Grandmother of 41, and great-grandmother of 85.
Even among grandchildren, there have been only 3 couples divorce—so far reaching was her influence, as well as that of our father.
Traditional roles need not be limiting. My mother-in-law gave birth to 10 children, beginning at age 29 (she was the 2nd wife of my father-in-law, after his first wife began her husband hopping ways). Co-parents of 12, my father-in-law, still alive at age 101, has 63 grandchildren (none ever incarcerated), and over 144 great-grandchildren.
23
Free contraception (especially long-term) for teenagers and young women would solve SO many problems and save SO much money . . . as well as significantly reducing abortion rates. Why is that SO hard for SO many people in power to understand?!? It is SO Incredibly frustrating.
136
People are simply gravitating towards more selfishness. The endgame of Self-Centeredness is, by the way, SUICIDE. People are increasingly lovers of their own selves.
It's at the root of numerous religious, social, economic, cultural, and familial difficulties.
17
“A bad economy lowers the cost of having bad values — substance abuse, engaging in crime, not looking for a job right away,"
Isn't this a literal "value judgment?" Not only are certain things not an option, one should never question another's choices because you do not know what their motivations are.
14
Marriage is a "privilege" for those with means?
Like, what, country-club membership? Flying first class?
Who knew that county license was so pricey!
35
Forget economic status. The biggest reasons for the decline of marriage is the secularization of America and unwillingness to call out certain behaviors as sinful.
43
The writer seems to have ignored the history of marriage. It's hasn't always been about love and happiness. Society is changing so must all of its institutions including marriage.
45
Rather ironic that extreme wealth distribution created by the GOP''s incessant tax cuts for the rich will destroy the institution they so cherish: marriage.
43
> Unemployed men are less likely to be seen as marriage material
I thought we wanted men and women to be equal? Why are men supposed to provide everything? Do we only believe in equality if it benefits women?
40
Wow! I'm not sure of what is more stunning, the article or the comments to it. All seems to be written in the 50's at least... Talking about "marriage material", women who has to be asked for marriage...From an european perception, all that seems really odd and out of time. I'm a non married woman, who has three children and a house with my partner for 24 years. For us, we are the same as married and do not need any official paper that states our commitment. If you cannot stay together without papers, really you better not marry, that's what we think.
In Europe, people feel less the need to marry. There are more and more people living alone, and more people not marrying just because there is no need to. In the old days marrying was needed to secure the man as a provider and the woman for house and child care. Now that's not the situation anymore, and it's normal that marriage percentage changes accordingly.
64
You might have missed the point of the article: the decline in marriage in the United States is more pronounced among low-income people.
26
This article, much like our society, has a huge blind spot when it comes to thinking about men and their contributions to marriage, assuming they are only economic. If we give them a chance, men can be every bit as competent and caring parents and homemakers as women. But instead we put them in this silo where their only value to a family is making money, and so of course when manufacturing and other working and middle class job prospects decline, men's value in marriage, and marriage itself, declines. And meanwhile women are stuck with whatever jobs they can get plus the second shift of "women's work" - picking the kids up from school, taking them to the doctor, making dinner, keeping house. What if we allowed men to play those roles in the family, and actually valued them for doing so? What if we taught our boys that cooking and tending to children is as important for them to learn as their sisters? We've loosened gender roles for women, but still keep such tight restrictions on men that we prevent them from realizing that they can be loving, successful husbands no matter whether they work outside the house or stay home with the kids.
92
The other thing the article missed was that women no longer feel the absolute need to be bound to a man somehow -- either father brother or husband -- and less are willing to put up with spousal abuse, gambling, alcoholism and other problems aside from unemployment that women used to bear because not being married was so unacceptable.
92
Looks to me that employers may be missing a trick by not hiring non-degreed people. Hiring them would reduce labor costs without necessarily any loss in productivity. In many jobs a degree is not needed but it seems companies are too lazy to look beyond the superficial credential of a bachelor's degree. I say this as someone with a master's degree in engineering, so this is not self-serving bias. I have worked with some very good non-degreed people doing technical work for which a bachelor's is usually sought for.
32
Employers used to be far more invested in on the job training. Now they want to take short cuts, and one is simply hiring people with degrees that those people really don't need for the job. The flip side is there often are not enough jobs for which the degree is necessary, so someone with the credential has to end up taking a whatever job they can get. If more college educated people found work that used their entire education, there would be less college educated people available for jobs for which no college education is really necessary.
28
At the lower end of the economic ladder, Government rewards females handsomely for not marrying, and severely penalizes men for marrying. The middle class receives benefits, tangible and intangible, such as a lower cost of individual living (shared costs) for marrying and staying that way. The upper classes find the cost of divorce prohibitive.
Financial incentive across the board
34
Take home point: Once the economic side slips, the cultural side slips. And even if the economy rebounds, the culture never returns to its previous high standards. This is what we are witnessing today. A culture where broken homes are the norm. This won't change even if the good jobs return. Truly sad.
17
I don’t understand the problem, rather than being a “privilege” marriage is being taken more seriously than in the past, with couples choosing not to enter into it if they are not well situated financially. That’s a trend we should be celebrating.
25
I would agree with you if the choosing not to marry were accompanied by the choice not to bring children into a fatherless family. If a man will marry he will likely be a dad as well.
11
That is all well and good until children arrive. Unfortunately the same people are not waiting until they are well situated financially to have children.
17
I find it interesting the thought that women don't want to marry men who cannot provide financial security, but they evidently will sleep with them based on the numbers of out of wedlock births in those lower income brackets. It is sad that our social structure for aid promotes nonmarriage. Too many children have grown up in situations where marriage is not valued and may even be denegrated.
On another note, while statistically marriage may be more possible for my socioeconomic sphere than others, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy to do. I'm not some highly successful go-getter , but i have a graduate degree and a secure job; meeting guys to share that life with is difficult.
46
Women without high-paying jobs get married all the time, but men like that can't manage it.
Maybe that's because women without good jobs make themselves valuable around the house, nonetheless, by WORKING around the house and making themselves useful.
If men would do that, they would find that they could get married despite the decline in their income.
I think almost all women would be happy to have a man who, despite being unable to get a good job, got a lot of childcare, shopping, maintenance and general work around the house done, thereby making her life easier and more enjoyable.
But, if a woman works all day, then comes home to a man who expects her to work all night doing all the childcare, shopping, cooking and cleaning, too, she isn't going to want to marry him UNLESS HE MAKES A LOT OF MONEY.
Maybe enough money that she can hire someone to do a lot of the work around the house -- and also eat out a lot.
This is why marriage is falling apart among the "lower classes" -- not that men don't make enough money but that men who don't make a lot of money refuse to find other ways to make themselves useful and wanted, the way badly-paid women have always done.
189
À man who doesn't work... I don't think so! There are community colleges everywhere.
What's the idiocy here of people conflating a big expensive wedding with entering into legal matrimony?
You don't want to blow a fortune on a big party? Who's asking you to? A marriage license is not expensive. Get sandwiches after.
Over the years I've known a number of couples who'd lived together for several years and then entered into legal marriages. They all said it made a meaningful if intangible difference to their relationship. You know, like a serious commitment...
28
Smart men don't get married.
They have no incentive to get married. Wife can quits working forever. Bored wife files for divorce. Lifetime alimony. Lose your assets. Work until you drop dead. No thanks. There is literally not one reason a man should sign a marriage contact. Zero sum game.
Signed,
Never married. Happy as a clam with an incredible life.
27
Wow.
That's a sad reflection on your life.
Married 35 years, with both parents married over 50 years.
Just sad.
22
a major part of the blame goes to out of touch liberal elites who projected their lives onto all women and made it nearly impossible to discuss the very real effects of single parenthood. for decades, it was held up as some form of choice. as if all single moms were Murphy Brown. and because of that liberals focused policies to "helping" single moms instead of jobs for men so at least some of them could leave that group. I applaud researchers getting the focus back on what many single moms' lives are really like and ways to make them better. Union membership is still associated with higher levels of marriage among men, btw.
20
Yes, union membership is a critical component of financial success for men and women alike. It is not the liberals who have sought to dismantle the union system, however, but the party of "family values."
60
Why the assumption that people want to get married just to be married? Catherine the Great was the most powerful person on the planet in her day. She had a different (young) boyfriend every couple of years until her death at 67. From her point of view virtually every man on the planet was "not going to be able to provide anything" (the sociologist quoted).
So if it is true that people aren't sentimentally motivated to be married and you remove the social pressure to marry one would expect to find that people don't marry unless they can get paid for it (by marrying a high-income partner). That's essentially what this story is reporting. But it isn't any more surprising than a story about how nobody is going to work every day at a boring desk job unless they are paid.
18
To marry, each person must contribute something. It doesn't have to be exactly the same thing or in exactly equal portions, but a willingness to put one's shoulder to the grindstone and pitch in is necessary. As for Catherine the Great, many of us who are not "the most powerful person on the planet" find ourselves fairly content with more mundane arrangements.
16
The government takes away the economic and social incentives for women to marry. Take away child support laws and you will marriage rates rise and unmarried birthrates drop.
7
It's a snowball effect. An entire cohort of children raised in single-parent homes, especially boy raised by single mothers, have no idea what it is like to be or to experience a responsible male in a marriage. So, they don't. Nor are these men raised by women alone desirable to women, who can sense they will have no clue about how to be a responsible male. It's too bad, because the best indicators of success in life are to finish high school, don't have children until you are married, and get married after age 21. If a person does all three of those things, race is largely irrelevant. African-Americans who do those things are far out earning and out-succeeding white folks who don't.
44
Those three things are not the best indicators of success but of avoiding serious long term poverty.
5
"African-Americans who do those things are far out earning and out-succeeding white folks who don't"
Perhaps so, but that doesn't make "African-Americans" white folks.
4
The reason marriage is becoming so rare is because we have become unaccountably selfish as a culture. We've forgotten what a marriage is even for. We think the point of marriage is to make us happy. Wrong! It is meant to give two people the strength and resources to help build society, be that through their work, their homemaking, their childrearing, their community service, their worship of God, or you name it.
You cannot go into marriage with the mindset of "what's in it for me" and expect it to survive. Both partners have to approach it asking every day, "How can I serve you? How help you become the best husband/wife/father/mother, etc. you can be?" Rich or poor, educated or not, people can make a marriage fruitful.
48
If each feels they're making 75% of the effort in the marriage, that works out about even.
3
Spot on! Servanthood has lost its place at the 21st century table at all levels of society. Until it comes back we are in a downward spiral.
9
This comment is the smartest thing I have ever seen written on the subject. Thank you.
5
University professors, government bureaucrats and most journalists have NO CLUE regarding life on the streets. I've worked with and lived with very low-income people for many years. Legal marriage is financially foolish for them, because they would lose too many government benefits. It's that simple.
33
You mean to say that it's *not* because the lower orders are lazy, shiftless, and without morals?!
4
Not to mention that the converse of women not wishing to risk going with an unemployed man, men are more reluctant to go with a female without a prenup - for exactly the same reason: there is too much at risk if you choose wrong. Women shouldn’t mind a prenup if their intentions are pure since it would then never come into play. (Assuming everyone has good intentions)
5
The most worrying aspect of this trend is that the single strongest indicator of whether somebody lives in poverty or not is whether they live in a single parent household or not...and it's not even really close. It's a stronger indicator than race, sex, or even level of education.
The other thing that is troubling about this is the fact that while girls outnumber boys on college campuses by nearly 50% -- and have for almost 2 decades -- our school systems have nothing in place to correct this. In fact they still have programs to encourage girls to go to college (in spite of their current numerical dominance), but nothing specifically for the badly lagging boys.
24
A big problem with the success formula "degree, job, marriage, child " cited in this article is the "degree" segment. Academic degrees are currently required for a host of good jobs for which knowledge and general competence are all that is needed to do the jobs well. Rather than continuing to raise the percent of the population who obtain academic degrees, additional means of demonstrating competence should be devised, and the widespread requirement for a degree as sine qua non should be challenged in court.
15
According to Forbes (~2 yrs ago?) employers are actually starting to favor non-degreed applicants for the kind of jobs you describe. College graduates are perceived as having baggage (debt), unrealistic expectations about their worth to an employer and serious entitlement attitudes.
4
Hire based on degrees and you won't get sued. Test applicants for competence and you'd better have good lawyers ready to defend you against disparate impact claims.
2
I have been married for 49 years to the same women and as we approach our fifty year anniversary, I would do it again. Our children are Gen-X'ers. My son has never married and my daughter just got married. (we are so happy). This downturn in marriage is a generational thing, and perhaps it will swing back to more and earlier marriages, or not. Bottom line, we are in our seventies and I would rather face our last years with my partner than alone.
36
"fifty year anniversary"
Are you old enough to recall when that was called the "fiftieth anniversary" or the "golden anniversary"?
How can this article be written without a discussion of benefit cliffs? Marriage protects the wealth and assets of a family unit. But what if there is no wealth, only bills and expenses. That's where government benefits come into play and marriage often leads to substantial cuts or elimination of benefits. A single mother usually qualifies for Medicaid these days even if the mother is living with the father. Get married and the couple might get a subsidy for their insurance payments but there are substantial copay and deductibles that can run into the thousands. On Medicaid, there are no out of pocket costs. Couples who want to get married can't afford not to wait until after the baby is born.
33
And if an adult with a disability marries, they lose SSI income if they were deemed entitled to it...unless the spouse is also disabled and drawing SSI. Where is the sense in that rule and how much does it discourage marriage?
28
You are right, Sean! I've worked and lived with with low-income people for many years, and legal marriage is financially foolish for them. They would lose too many government benefits.
9
Once again there is a terrible mess created by those who presume to be social engineers.
6
Really interesting. The calculus of having a husband to provide probably does not enter into many young women's decision process: they plan on a career and a life for themselves -- in addition to a loving partner.
There is a great gap in STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) skills, knowledge, abilities, and aspirations of American school children vs. what companies require to successfully compete. How many highschool grads at your local school had the basics needed to pursue a college education in science, engineering, technology? How many kids even wanted to do so?
4
College educated and I probably am considered the upper end of middle class and have never been married, and hopefully never will, and know many in my age group and "social economic status" that have never married as well. I do not dispute the numbers that state that marriage rates increase with higher social economic status, but the question is, regardless of class, do couples stay married. Money buys time and convenience, and perhaps college teaches reserving judgement and temperament, but years later, for most people separation seems eminent.
Plus today people live longer. Back "in the day" with men off to war, disease, epidemics and famine among the population... and women that died more often then than today of complications of child bearing, we are on a new frontier of extended relationships: and maybe in these modern times our DNA has not caught up and not prepared for this....
10
America is not better for turning out K-12 and even college-degreed students who have no salable skill and are unable to run a cash register and make accurate change.
I am immensely grateful for having been blessed with two committed, married parents who raised six of us on an income of less than$6000 1950s dollars a year. Everyone worked from age eight up, babysitting, mowing lawns, pumping gas, waiting tables, and any other honest jobs we could find.
I am additionally grateful for having found a brilliant and beautiful life partner of great accomplishment and a full appreciation of marriage as a partnership. Our four children, in turn, are all married, paying taxes, and raising families in which books, learning, conversation, and achievement are honored.
I think education and a committed marriage make up the cornerstone of human success.
37
So tell Congress and the elitist left to quit destroying the 'American values' that created that kind of life, putting it farther and farther out of reach. Unfortunately, they hate America and that is exactly what they want.
6
The lifestyle expectations of younger adults are wildly unrealistic, which keeps many from marrying during their prime childbearing years. This is particularly true for young women, who are often focusing on their careers and waiting until their 30s and finding that the men who are still available aren't "marriage material."
Also, young couples no longer feel societal pressure to marry because they're expecting a child. I see this happening all around me. The children and grandparents are often the ones who pay the price.
16
Bad economy? But I thought we had unmitigated economic success during the Obama years. Get your narrative straight.
20
What is the point of marriage? Honestly there is no difference between marriage and living with someone. God did not create marriage..man did.
4
...yet another reason to take a knee - privilege-based marriages magically disenfranchising others from getting married too.
13
Many are disenfranchised whether they get married or not. Money and security are the keys.
4
The article talks like it's all about what the lady wants. But it takes 2 to tango. Notice the streets are not lined with men in tears b/c they can't get some woman to marry them.
Marriage has been revealed to be a serious financial hazard for men. If women say, "Why marry a broke man?", that pretty much lets the cat out of the bag in terms of their motivations. Rarely do we ask of a man why he would marry a woman with few assets, do we?
If women are dodging marriage b/c they can't make bank on it and don't want to do what men have been doing for millenia: supporting their spouse and kids -- then remember, men are dodging marriage for the same reasons. For most men, women/women-and-children represent a liability, an investment promising no return and carrying great risk.
That's "the rest of the story," NY Times.
31
No the men aren't lining the streets crying because they're too busy on line "going their own way" which basically means not doing anything other than complaining about how women aren't doing what they want them to do.
What you don't mention is that by women "doing what men have always done" and supported a partner and children, is that it means she's doing everything. When men were the only ones making money for the family, they didn't have to do anything else. Women who work full time are mostly STILL doing most of the housework and child raising, Why should they do it all and on top of it be stuck with someone who will likely be unfaithful.
Sorry, but women get the shorter end of the stick when it comes to marriage. Most of them are still being raised to want the fairy tale that doesn't exist.
28
The article ignores the greatest factor for poor single mothers. You risk a lower welfare check or possibly loss of all benefits and subsidies if you have a husband.
34
You are totally correct! I've worked and lived with low-income people for many years, and for them, marriage is financially foolish because they would lose too many taxpayer-funded benefits.
University researchers and journalists have no clue regarding life on the streets.
4
You cannot raise a family on public assistance. It offers a life on an edge in which children cannot be adequately provided for in the world today.
"Entitlement" means exactly how it sounds. It's designed to keep food on the table with supplements from "food banks." That is no way to raise a child and no parent would do it willingly.
9
You are correct in the assumption that the single parent (which in the overwhelming majority of cases is a mother) will struggle to raise her children on public assistance and rely on additional assistance to survive. However, these single mothers will much more often than not choose not to marry the father even if the father is periodically present in her life because the father cannot be a steady provider or even a marginally better provider than public assistance. Now if there were more secure jobs for poor men who father these children they might be viable candidates for marriage.
8
The laws are biased. What is supposed to be a voluntary "civil" arrangement puts MEN at risk of actually going to jail for a half dozen different reasons, often on a woman's say-so alone. Those risks far outweigh the benefits these days.
9
The real scourge of families today is the medieval child support system. Drain a parent of money and then expect him or her to be a great absent parent. That system does nothing more than ensure that an absent parent will not have a relationship with a child.
6
It would make a great deal of difference if ALL forms of birth control were absolutely free for the asking, especially the long-working forms like the IUD. Nature pushes us to have children when very young, but nothing wrecks a young person's future like a baby that comes too soon. With the stork under control, THEN you could teach the "degree, job, marriage, baby" sequence.
49
Give me a break Planned parenthood etc makes it virtually free to get birth control.
6
No, it doesn't. And Planned Parenthood is under attack from the GOP.
20
How about it is easier to love a child unconditionally than an adult whom you can't help shape?
12
Not sure about this class thing but being single or married has a significant impact on economics especially when people are getting older.
Case in point, there is the tax implications. And various benefit eligibility. It was said that some older folks divorce each other because of the medical benefits. However, if one is divorced with fewer than 10 years of marriage, your ex-spouse will not be eligible for your social security benefit.
Obviously, it is also possible society norms and social mores are changing. The trouble is that there are many conclusions researchers can draw depending on their frame of references but leap from correlation to causality can be a tricky thing
6
Very interesting! I would also like to see how access to contraceptives has changed in different areas since 1990.
4
I've been to many wonderful cities, of which Shanghai and Madrid were the best, but nothing beats having a family. Nothing.
Not every day is great and it's often boring and it doesn't always turn out the way you planned, but I can't imagine not being married and having children.
The economy should make this possible for everyone, not just the rich. In my opinion, lack of a family is the cause of so much unhappiness now. Obesity, opiates, and Trump and just the symptoms.
16
I can't imagine the stress associated with family life these days. Happily married 35 years and we've never once regretted not having children--and neither have any of our childfree friends. But we have several friends--all male--who say they wouldn't have children if they had a chance to do it all over again. . .
19
Men have less reason to marry the cow if the milk is free. Up to women to do something.....don't know what.
6
This is baloney. Women want to get married--it's men who don't. And, if working class men feel that they have to be 'providers' to get married sucks boo to them--they need to get their head's straight.
The fault isn't the economy--it's working class male sexism.
20
Agree. It's ridiculous how they portray women deciding solely on income, and disregarding other pretty key factors such as how men treat women (ex. when there's drugs and alcohol abuse, which barely mention at the end of the story) and whether they refuse to pull their weight in terms of child care and house chores. The authors of the study have an agenda of pro marriage with women as homemakers and the reporter failed to present the full picture.
22
Marriage has become a white privilege; 90% of black children are born into single parent households. Guess no one lets blacks get married anymore. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, black households had a higher marriage rate than white households.
12
If 90% of black children are born to single parent households -- which increases their odds of growing up in poverty -- whose fault is that? Who tells people not to finish school, not to get married, not to have a commitment to a spouse? Invoking 'white privilege' is the mother of all cop-outs.
5
So what's your point? Are you trying to imply that giving people voting and housing rights resulted in fewer marriages? That's ridiculous. I guess you don't understand the difference between causation and correlation. More people wear jeans today. Does wearing jeans cause people not to get married? The article clearly states that marriage declines with lower income and why.
5
I do think that the article should have a stronger focus on the importance of child rearing and marriage. As someone new to parenthood I could not ever imagine raising my daughter without the help and guidance from my husband (who had experience
With helping with baby sitting duties as the eldest of five). Those early gauntlet weeks when you take home the baby from the hospital can test your mental and physical mettle. Sure you can get help from relatives but relatives leave and if you don't have each other's back then baby bliss can become baby hell. No one talks about the strain that parenthood has on marriage. And the struggle is real! plan for it is the best advice. Pay no attention to the wedding industrial complex forget the wedding dress. Ask your self on two hours of sleep and a throbbing migraine am I still chipper will i have a tantrum will my partner show patience?
The economic and physical costs of child rearing are seldom addressed in our society . You can give back a ring but a child is forever!
22
Patience, Sunnyside1.
When you first experience your own little child, exhausted, pulling it together long enough to mumble "I love you Mommy' and falling asleep - you will have your first real grasp of the meaning of life... and in those two seconds you will be changed forever.
1
And not a peep about the big elephant in the room......men don't see the need to marry, with all the responsibilities, when sex is easily given out by women who have been taught they should just join the crowd and have abundant sex. The hookup culture. Before the 1960's society frowned on men who wouldn't commit to a relationship or who chased cheap women in bars for sex. The natural urge for males to have sex drove them to find a partner, get married and settle down, with children naturally following. No longer. As the old saying goes, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free". That's why young men don't work, drink, do drugs, play video games, and then go out and get all the free sex they want. Why would they want to get married? But the left won't allow that fact to permeate the argument.
22
What a tired, ridiculous argument. If marriage is an access card for sex, just like all other gratifications, to those who see it as little more than that it will likely become less alluring as the years pass: it doesn't matter what your biology says. North American culture, scared to death of acknowledgment of the existence of sex as a routine (yes, fun and sometimes recreational) part of being human also loves its gendered double standards, and I am glad to see them wither. Better education and demystification would serve us well to plan pregnancies that either or both parents are ready for, if we're talking about "children naturally following." The idea that men are unable to think and behave independently of sexual drive absolves them of responsibility in their relationships only contributes to those double standards. You list evidence of choices that may be related to failing to be an adult/decent/responsible person, rather than moral fallout from "free" sexual gratification.
(Women don't have sexual agency or significant drive? Enough with the gag order on female desire. I've had more "free milk" than my husband. It didn't affect when I decided to get married. Meeting the right person, seriously considered mutual emotional commitment, and living abroad in an uncertain economy did.)
Sincerely,
A young married woman with a strong libido, university degrees, a successful career path, no mortgage, and zero children
(Women don't have sexual agency or significant drive? Enough with the gag order on female desire. I've had more "free milk" than my husband. It didn't affect when I decided to get married. Meeting the right person, seriously considered mutual emotional commitment, and living abroad in an uncertain economy did.)
Sincerely,
A young married woman with a strong libido, university degrees, a successful career path, no mortgage, and zero children
21
Marriage is now a "privilege"?
Here we go...now "white privilege" will be associated with marriage.
You want to know the #1 reason marriage is off? GOVERNMENT.
Thanks to government, we have welfare, which tells women you don't have
to have a man around to have "a child". We'll take care of you, we'll feed you, heck we'll even give you more money if you have more children! Men, don't worry if you have a child with a woman out of wedlock, "we'll" take care of them! Then you have the (un)education system, throwing out ANY reference to our Juedo Christian way of live how this nation was founded, taking out any responsibilities, taking out manners, respect, traditional
family values. And then they write an article on how no one is getting married? Another in the continuing reason why the NYTimes is on a downhill slide.
16
Or maybe we women DONT want to have kids or be married..I for one don't want kids or be tied down to a man..marriage is nothing but a contract that will cost you your limbs if you want to break it. I prefer to just be able to walk away from someone I don't want to be with without having to be stuck to that person because kids are involved..this is the real reason people in my age group late 20s early to late 30s are not marrying we don't want that kind of stress or responsibility. Divorce rates are so high in this country because people are rushing to get married with only 2 to 3 years of knowing each other.
6
My town in an area that voted for Trump (barely), I personally know 9 guys through work, barber shop, golf etc, unmarried, with kids to care for barely making ends meet and blaming their predicament on liberals et.al.
10
Barely maing ends meet and golfing. Interesting.
11
Some blame goes to the pintrest wedding industry - the event has to be lavish and photo ready as opposed to being a step together into a long term united future.
9
My opinion and my experience,
Im a 40 year old man with a above average income.
I could easily support a family. Almost Every girl I have ever dated wanted to get married, and put pressure on me.
I belive its men who are rejecting marriage. Almost every woman I know is desperate to get married.
I will never do it because,
1.)the average American marriage last 8.2 years.
2.)75% of all divorces are initiated by the woman.
3.)The woman gets payed out by the man 90% of the time in a divorce.
4.)outrageous child support for the woman way above what the child cost to take care of.
5.allimony. pay your ex wife $2000 a month forever after a 10 year marriage. So you could pay that for 50 years.
6. She will probably get the house you owned before you met her if you have kids.
7. she will get half your retirement for sitting at home or working a part time 7 hour a week job.
8. 95% of the time she will take your kids from you. You can be the perfect guy, she might be mentally ill on medication., the courts will still give her the kids.
I should do all this for what?what do I get out of This?
A woman is offended to do house work or cook, as a man I can cook better then any girl I have dated, i have to help them lern.
A modern woman dosent bring anything to the table anymore, except the chance of financial ruin.
Respectfully GP100
13
I am a modern woman I am 31 and I do everything in my home I cook, clean and I work 9 hours a day 5 days sometimes 6 days a week, while he works he doesn't do ish at home. This is one reason I won't get married because men think that just because they work that they don't have to do anything at home while we have to work..clean..cook..and be ready for you whenever you want it..my parents have been married for 42 years and still going strong, my father help my mom with household chores..bills were paid equally..they were a united front when it came to my siblings and I..they never fought in front of us. If I can find a man that is half the man that my dad is I would consider marrying him and maybe and that's a big maybe have a kid. I think men and women now and days have their priorities twisted and some women think that it falls on a men to be the provider when it should be equal.
6
I don't think you have to worry too much about marrying a decent woman.
12
The judicial system in Seattle is far from what I have experienced in
Southern California. Child custody is 50/50, child support is rarely awarded in 50/50 custody decisions, both parties are expected to work, and spousal support is limited both in amount and the time allotted to receive it. A home wholly owned prior to and during the marriage, and not paid for out of community funds, remains the property of the original owner. A marital partner who maintains the home and cares for any children while the other party works outside the home deserves half of all income made during the course of the marriage. Historically, research has shown that it is the woman who fares the worst financially. That may have begun to change now as women are more commonly employed outside the home and are less commonly solely homemakers.
Perhaps you might want to consider that your understanding of marriage does not meet with the concept that today's women wish to adopt. In your case, you will likely be happier remaining unmarried.
12
Marriage a mark of privilege….. makes me think of 'Dammit Janet' from the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'. I like marriage, I guess that is why I've been married three times :^) First time at 19, we made a go of it but divorced after I had been in the military a couple a bit. I had been on my own since I was 16 but it was her first time away from home. Second time a few years later, lasted longer but we still ended up divorced. No kids from either one, I had come from a stable family early in life and the relationships just didn’t seem like we ready for family. Third time a few years later, we've been married over thirty years and have three kids.
Leaving home early I never finished the tenth grade, my first interesting job was working in a genetics lab as a research assistant. Later on I ended up in high tech and have been a self-taught engineer for years. Some family, friends, and the kindness of strangers helped me along. Working at a company site in Spain I remember that we joked that something was in the water as a lot of the young couples got married, set up household and started having kids. Most had known each other since school or earlier, and they were just waiting for a good job to get started.
I hear the struggles of others thru my kids, friends and family, and pin a lot of blame on the export of jobs that didn’t require a degree, as well as 'more traps' for people in the form of drugs.
7
One thing I've noticed as I read these comments, a lot of "traditional" men here seem to have problems with women controlling their own sexual lives. They seem appalled that women actually have (and enjoy) sex without being shackled to a husband.
34
Yes! Thank you..I love being on my own and the feeling of being able to take care of myself..and explore my sexual options.
7
Yep.
7
This article dovetails perfectly with the "take a knee" movement. Yes, most black families are struggling in poverty. Why, no father and husband. These poor women are in trouble as soon as that baby is born - trying to work or live on very little money with no back-up resources in the way of a husband. But the liberal media, in all their conversations about injustice - no one has brought up the topic of 72% of all African American children being born out of wedlock. Government cannot replace a father and a husband - it's impossible and leaves men feeling unneeded and women just plain angry at all they have to shoulder by themselves. Where is Al Sharpton on this? NFL players?
18
So, what I get from this article is that dumb people lead dumb lives?
How about, instead of letting sociologists always think of men and women as apes stalking one another, examining each other's pocketbook, we consider that the "norm" of marriage is disappearing?
Cohabitation is becoming the norm. Women are choosing not to get married. Gay rights have liberated people from sham marriages. Millennials have shown time and time again that they are tossing aside "normal" behavior.
As for low marriage rates amongst the poor and undereducated - you left off how easy it is for people to get divorced if they have no assets nor impulse control.
My read on the typical 'Murican after 72 years is this: the poor are under-educated, almost militantly ignorant, and have poor impulse control. The latter can explain dropping out of school when things get tough, crawling into the lap of drugs and booze when they can't handle life, and getting into types and levels of debt that us typical citizens who "play by the rules" find unimaginable.
As an aging liberal, I can start to see the mentality of the conservative rich, just wanting to wall themselves off from the lower reaches of society. As someone famously said - You Can't Fix Stupid.
15
And now the poor--and all the rest of us, too--have a president of the United States who is the Platonic Ideal of poor impulse control.
10
Speaking only for myself, I'm far to the Left, and my partner and I have solid tech jobs. We have been together for over 10 years, but we don't really see any reason to get married. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea, with all the old-fashioned traditions (such as wearing a white dress for purity etc). I also don't really want to be on display all day, or spend tons of time and money for a party that doesn't mean much to us. We'd also pay more in taxes if we were married, which is fine, but seems fundamentally unfair. We're both atheists. We may or may not have kids someday and don't really think that has anything to do with marriage, especially here in liberal SF. Why bother to change our legal status after 10+ years of being happy and in love?
15
Possibly Social Security flexibility and pensions, although not so much any more for the latter. Or employer subsidized medical insurance. I was not enthusiastic about marriage having done it once when I was 20 years old. But when my partner of many years was going to start to draw a pension I saw the sense of being able to draw survivor's benefits if he predeseased me. Didn't know that it would happen so quickly. Married in 2014. Started drawing survivor's benefits on the pension and his Social Security after his death this year. (I'll draw my own SS when I turn 70 since the benefit on my own account grows at 8% a year that way.)
8
you do not need an expensive lavish party or wedding dress to get married. Just a clergyman or judge. A decent set of clothes would show your respect for the serious step you would be taking. My parents were married in the clergyman's study...she wore a simple every-day dress, he wore his army uniform. They were married for 53 years and never regretted a single day.
11
We have a larger share of men with no provable skills to make a living than any democracy has ever had. This is a gift from Lyndon Johnson's tends of trillions of dollars in redistribution schemes built into the Great Society giveaway & vote-buy racket of 1965.
When millions of poor mothers had the offer of a free meal ticket when Uncle Sugar replaced fathers and husbands, the death of individual initiative was built into the American way of life, and it is a bit of a miracle that the United States has lasted even this long as a result.
Boys with no parenting grow up with heads full of video games, drugs, and a soulless lifestyle and offer no personal assets to prospective wives with an eye to raising children.
Add to this a media-entertainment culture determined to rip the family structure to shreds and you have a hopeless country full of takers who are cut off from a religious alternative.
When millions of poor mothers had the offer of a free meal ticket when Uncle Sugar replaced fathers and husbands, the death of individual initiative was built into the American way of life, and it is a bit of a miracle that the United States has lasted even this long as a result.
Boys with no parenting grow up with heads full of video games, drugs, and a soulless lifestyle and offer no personal assets to prospective wives with an eye to raising children.
Add to this a media-entertainment culture determined to rip the family structure to shreds and you have a hopeless country full of takers who are cut off from a religious alternative.
17
We have turned our back on God. As one peasant woman told Alexander Solzhenitsyn after the fall of the Soviet Union, that all the pain, suffering and slaughter of over 40 million people came upon them because they had forgotten God. How very perspicacious she was.
4
Thank you for reminding me why I thoroughly enjoyed being in Boulder back in the Seventies, but would never even consider visiting Medicine Bow. Actually, I thought Medicine Bow was in Wyoming.
3
Not, unfortunately, an unusual situation. I worked with a younger teacher whose boyfriend "loved" her as she put him through medical school. Once he had his degree, he admitted that he had been seeing his real love and threw her under the bus. She was devastated but had enough self-esteem to quit the job and move back to her home state. A few years later, she was happily married.
I won't say what I hoped happened to him...
4
So, people who are smart enough to recognize the value of going to class and doing their homework, will go to college and will "operate with more of a long-term perspective". Gosh, you'd have "thunk it"!
People who are less intelligent tend to make multiple poor decisions over their lifetime if there is no one guiding them. They are impulsive and DON'T think of the long-term consequences of their behavior. In the past, these people had parents who did a very good job of guiding them to make good decisions (such are marry first, children later).
Now, even educated parents seem to feel that is no longer their job. "Imposing" their values on their young is "wrong" and "suppressive". Well, let's see how that works out in 20-30 years. I think we'll see the middle and upper middle classes making the same poor decisions as the poor and working class. We're already seeing this in middle class families.
But I can guarantee anyone promoting what Mr Wilcox suggests - "degree, job, marriage, baby", will be pilloried in any academic setting today. Just look what has happened to Professors Wax and Alexander when they wrote an article saying much the same. They have been labeled as racist and anti-semitic, those being the "kinder" labels attached to them.
It's not really that hard. At least get a high school diploma and a job before marrying, and be sure a baby can be supported/cared for, before producing one. People did this for centuries and it worked pretty well.
14
The average cost of a wedding in the United States is over $27,000. When half of marriages fail, there is little incentive for low-income people to blow such a large amount of money on something that may only be temporary.
2
My wedding cost $500 and we're going strong over 26 years later. No one says you have to spend an idiotic amount of money.
9
It doesn't cost that much to go to city hall or just have a mass at church.
13
The cost of a "marriage" is not the problem here, poor life choices are.
10
I think the reasons are far more complicated than what I read here. To be more blunt, a lot of the assumptions are ridiculous and offensive. Classist certainly, but even perhaps racist by implication.
I would not downplay the influence of pop-culture icons, who seem to be popping out babies constantly, without marrying or even committing to their baby daddies. (Kardashian, anyone?) It's considered not just okay to do this, but kind of cool -- and that is true across all income levels. Another factor or consider is that, depending on what state you live in, an employed woman (mother or not) with some savings might not want to join her finances to those of a mate (unless that mate is comparatively wealthy?) because she might lose a good portion of her assets in a divorce. There is a kind of asset-hoarding mentality prevalent among the younger generation these days, that did not exist when I was young. That does not mesh easily with marriage.
If you're looking for a socioeconomic explanation for a decline in the rate of marriage among the lower classes, why not look at the marriage statistics for their parents' generation? Were there more divorces or single parents in one income group than in another? Children from stable, intact homes with two parents may or may or may not be more likely to seek the stability of marriage. In my case my home was superficially stable but deeply unhealthy beneath the facade. Never assume privilege based on facade alone.
5
It is striking, for a French reader, that the article identifies "children born from married couples" with "children living with both biological parents". In France, close to 60% of babies are born out of wedlock, but this does not mean that they live with only one parent ; actually, 80% of the children live with two parents, married or not.
19
I have heard similarly for Denmark. Kids born out of wedlock do not necessarily live with a single parent but are raised by both parents in a committed relationship.
15
Marriage became a mark of privilege and stature when people began competing to see who could be most victimized. Being married is a badge of victim hood, so naturally it's held in high esteem. It's like being LBGT.
5
Both my parents have been married and divorced 3 times each. I have had multiple step brothers and sisters. Everyone always ended up suing each other for assets. Why would I ever want to be part of such an insane institution of marriage? There are too many people on this planet already anyways.
7
So the moral of the story is that when men were primary breadwinners it was desirable to marry, but if you remove financial support variable, they are no longer good enough to marry.
I would not be looking forward to marry women who would love to be supported but are unwilling to be a supporting party.
Some would call it "being practical" . I would call it hypocritical.
7
When I was coming up it was degree, job, marriage, promotion, house, and baby. When you drove down the street the mothers pushing the baby carriage were all in their early to mid 30s.
6
I recently listened to a Freakonomics podcast in which much to the surprise of the investigators who conducted the study, in regions with an economic boon due to the fracking industry, suddenly having more men with good incomes didn't increase the incidence of marriage, even though it increased the birthrate. You can listen here: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/fracking-baby-boom-retreat-marriage/
8
Here's the American "deal:" Education and economics, or lack thereof, rules: "Less educated people are more likely to move in with boyfriends or girlfriends in a matter of months, and to get pregnant at a younger age and before marriage."
75/50/25%, the percentage of Black, Latino and White women who have children outside of marriage. Does one need a partner, when the State can enforce child support? No. But a card-carrying parent of a single child, conceived with a partner who is present, mindful and loving, it sure is nice!
8
Many teen/young adult pregnancies are unplanned. Having accessible, free birth control for all is essential. De-funding Planned Parenthood is a huge step in the wrong direction.
28
There are plenty of birth control options, stupidity and laziness are not excuses for unplanned pregnancies.
5
From my own experience, I can also state that a remarkably bleak worldview among many traditionally marriage-age individuals predominates.
Not just concerns about money (mostly student loans and the expense of raising a child) but also climate change, the morality of bringing children into this world, maintaining job performance. Not to mention the existence of plenty of other pursuits that might give joy like any of the usual hobbies or passions: traveling, games, etc.
Overall, I think the economic environment of a person looking to get married or even date seriously has been completely undermined. Underemployment or lack of a good wage are common complaints for many young people.
17
Perhaps the quintupling of college tuition since 1980 has meant that college graduates are now self-selected to be only those with money/self-control/the forward-looking view/a nice apartment in a hip neighborhood.
12
"People with college degrees seem to operate with more of a long-term perspective" - no surprise there. But I think this issue is far more complex. Previous reasons for getting married no longer exist. Anyone can have a baby without a partner these days. people change jobs and relationships more frequently and it is widely accepted to do so. Sex is accessible in varying ways now. I just wish we could cap the number of children tax payers have to pay for due to poor choices and no long term perspective on the part of many in our population.
19
I agree. I got married instead of continually living with my mate at the time, because I didn't want to upset my family (mother and aunt). Lived for many years with my ex-husband but divorced him when I found out he was sleeping around with other people of both sexes.
1
It's all about economics. I grew up in the '60s in the rural Deep South. When the rule for getting welfare mandated that no husband could be present in the home, marriage was gone among the poor. The man/father still lived in the house, but marriage was no longer on the table for financial reasons. Today, single mothers often are eligible for subsidized housing, food stamps, free health care and a college education. The cycle continues.
16
And poor men were even further disenfranchised because they could never compete with welfare money controlled by women.
1
We married with a justice of the peace, in a friends house and my boss paid for the party alcohol and food -at s restaurant. I have my masters and my husband his High school diploma and years of hands on experience. We've been married for 27 years where he shouldered most of the child care. Our marriage works because we love each other and wish to be with no other person more . I could care less how much money he could ever make. I make the money for our family and am thankful to do so.
15
Ditto. I do not need a man to support me. My husband has followed my career because I happened to get lucky and land a great job. He has always worked, but I've made more money. And we could both not care less - we love each other. It has worked for over 26 years of marriage, 28 years together, and still going strong.
5
Privilege is the key word here. I agree, those who are married are privileged, but not necessarily in the way described here. Those who are married for the correct reasons are privileged by each other who, after carefully considering their spouse and their place in the rest of their lives, have displayed the most powerful expression of love known to humankind.
To mate for life. To promise to keep oneself emotionally and physically set apart for the other until either passes away. The phrase "Till death do we part." Is spoken at almost every wedding ceremony, and yet today it carries so little meaning.
Politics and lack of self control have brought rapid rates of divorce to this world and we have come to the point where nearly every man or woman who enters into the marriage relationship keep divorce at the back of their minds -- a thought of comfort to those who deny themselves the long lasting benefits of a lifelong marriage and instead choose to see marriage as a convenient display of temporary affection until times get tough and the other is not as appealing as they once were. What's worse, and to me by far the most deeply disconcerting part of all of this, is that those who contributed most to the downfall of this most powerful display of emotion now blame it on something as petty as social class.
11
"People with college degrees seem to operate with more of a long-term perspective..."
Long-term perspective is un-American! We want what we want when we want it, and we don't worry about not being able to pay bills or not having coastal cities underwater in a few years.
8
First, I agree with you, and you should have extended your list to corporate management and the culture of not thinking beyond the next quarter.
Maybe it will all turn out like coastal cities claims. Go look at the claims that were made ten years ago about the future of the planet - a vast and funny collection of hysterical wrongness by supposedly educated people.
I am 71 years old and have never had a child. My first husband was an alcoholic ne'er-do-well whom I loved with all my heart. I thought we would be together forever and I wanted children badly; hormones are screaming at that age. Two of my friends had children and I was jealous. But, I did not want to end up on welfare the way they did and have a hard-scrabble life. I wanted to finish university and was economically blocked by circumstances. I never thought of this but I did not want a child to suffer through what I had. Economic insecurity would have made a poor mother of me. I applaud young people who have the sense to avoid the pitfall of having children too early.
20
Only problem is what happens when the usual success sequence: degree, job, marriage, baby doesn't work in that order. I graduated in 2006, and worked low-wage jobs until the economy bottomed out. Around that time I met my future wife and very soon to be ex-wife. Life doesn't always give you structure, as my wife took seriously ill and was ill for 9 years. I took to writing hoping for a better future, but that too proved futile. Now we're splitting because of financial strain and just differences in opinions about life; namely what marriage should be like. I feel that culture far outweighs everything else when it comes to marriage and if you're raised in a family or community that doesn't have many marriages, it will be hard to convince people to get married or go to school especially if they don't see anyone thriving with their college education.
14
I've seen more than enough people who got married to someone without a job - or without a reliable one - and they drain the more responsible partner dry, use their credit to buy toys - by the time a divorce happens, massive damage has been done.
It's not unreasonable to choose not to pool your assets and your credit legally with someone who doesn't have a reliable job, a career, or isn't on the path to a career.
34
What an odd thing to call it "privilege." That suggests an unearned benefit. Last time I checked, choosing to get married or not, to live together or not, or to have children or not, was a free choice in this country.
30
It could be a privilege in the sense that you may have been born in to a middle class or wealthy family that had assets. Who could pay for you to go to college, to meet eligible like situated men, to get an entry level job with little to no student loans, where your parents are helping out economically by paying some of your living expenses. Where you can climb the corporate ladder and meet other eligible men of similar backgrounds. Where you can start dating them, hold off on living with them because you were partially subsidized by your parents and can now pay your own way. To be at the point where you choose to marry someone of a similar background and plot out your family planning to not derail careers.....If you don't have any of these things in place, only a few will have had the opportunity to work towards something comparable and be similarly situated....But yes marriage and children are based on choice and for some marriage is not in the cards for all the reasons laid out in the article, while poor family planning and sloppiness end in children being born...
3
They article doesn't say that marriage is a privilege, but that it has become a mark of privilege.
It's like having a tan. There is nothing inherently special about having a suntan, but in second half of the 20th century, having a tan was a mark of privilege, because it meant that you had enough free time to sit around doing nothing in the sun, unlike the pasty-faced masses who had to work indoors all day.
2
But a potentially dangerous choice. Much thought should go into a marriage decision.
I love reading reports by sociologists. They offer fascinating insights. For example, in the referenced 2014 piece by Ms. Miller, I discovered that I probably didn't love my wife at all. An economist stated that since we were married in the 60's I had most likely married her looking for a housekeeper with benefits. We will celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary in December. And of course my mother and father had most likely not loved each other either. The current article offers no great insights from economists into affairs of the heart. I take that as progress.
25
The ability to delay gratification is distributed on a bell curve like intelligence. It is the key to understanding the issues raised in this piece. Herrnstein and Murray do an excellent job of discussing the causal factors in "The Bell Curve".
15
This was all predicted in the first 2 minutes of "Idiocracy" back in 2006. What the article doesn't point out, is that while college graduates may marry more than those who don't have degrees, those without degrees are procreating more, albeit, out of wedlock, perpetuating and expanding the ranks of the lower middle class and poor, while the ranks of the middle and upper middle class decline because couples are opting to either have no children, maybe one child or two, but God forbid 3 or more.
28
So... you're saying people should have more children than they want? How could that be a good idea?
In most of the world, marriage has ALWAYS been a mark privilege.
If we look at the history of civilization, most couple never got married because they couldn't afford to.
In fact, the main advantages of marriage are all legal and economic.
E.g.:
Children's fathers acknowledge their children legally.
Married couples get huge tax breaks compared to single people.
And in the church, married couples get increased access to God and prestige in their communities that is often denied to single and divorced people.
I guess for me, one of the main advantages to marriage is knowing that should I become vegetative, my wife will turn off the machine. And I have promised my wife to do the same. So we don't have to rely on a court for this.
11
The hardest thing for me, as a woman who came of age when the pill became available, is why so many young women are getting pregnant outside of wedlock or after a year of two of marriage when they promptly drop out of the workforce, putting big pressure on their husbands to produce the money or else. They say they don't like the way the pill makes them feel or it makes them gain weight or they skipped a few or they got pregnant on the pill. It's terrifying and irresponsible to have sex without birth control. The second thing that's hard for me to understand is why young people who have small incomes don't get married and start building a life together on a combined income for several years before starting a family. I married at 21 and it was 14 years before we could afford a down payment on a home and to get pregnant! It's not only doable, but fun! We ate lots of inexpensive meals, packed our lunches and took our clothes to the laundromat. They were some of the happiest years of my life!
42
What if people just don't want to get married? Why do we have to do this social engineering with people's lives. If someone wants to get married great, if they don't that's OK too. What is really unfair is how things like the tax code treat unmarried people. I was married for for four years in my late 20's got divorced and never wanted to remarry because I didn't want to have children. That's what broke up my marriage. I didn't want to go through that again and have been perfectly happy as single person who is now 62 with rescue dogs. I have a Master's Degree so it has nothing do with education. I just don't want to be married. I don't understand all the hand wringing over this. It's not my job to fulfill someone else's idea of what is socially acceptable/responsible. There are too many people on the planet anyway. Why should I add to that problem?
28
Or, if you want children, have only one. That is what I did. My only son also had only one child.
1
The three biggest precursors to attaining financial stability are: 1) Finish high school; 2) Wait until you are married to have kids; and 3) Don't get divorced. The divorce rate has been fairly stable over time, around 50%. The cache that used to come from having a 4 year degree now requires a graduate degree to achieve the same prestige. Depending on the cultural group, the child-born-out-of-wedlock rate varies from 40 to 70+% This is devastating to entire groups where fathering or bearing a child are now seen as a rite of passage into adulthood and not as the start of responsibility and stability. Until this is under control, there will continue to be widespread dependence on the government for income in these groups.
10
Actually the divorce rate in the US is currently nowhere near 50%, plus that was anomalous.
3
It doesn't make sense to have kids with someone you are not committed enough to marry. Children are a bigger commitment than marriage.
92
It make perfect sense. More than half of pregnancies are unplanned.
2
I totally agree. I'm always baffled that people will create another human soul with someone, but can't bring themselves to commit to marriage.
9
Thank you. If someone is not worth marrying then they are even less worth having a child with.
8
Marriage has always been a mark of privilege: while the postwar economic boom may have made marriage *appear* to be "the default way to form a family," transient poor and transient working-class Americans (i.e. people who have to move around a lot to find employment and housing) have always struggled to build a nuclear family. The problem just becomes exacerbated whenever the economy goes bad.
2017 might look markedly different from 1990, but it doesn't look all that different from 1930.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-years-of-marr...
2017 might look markedly different from 1990, but it doesn't look all that different from 1930.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-years-of-marr...
14
That's an excellent point. It may be difficult to support and raise children as a single parent, but in some cases divorce complicates the issue -- both emotionally and financially -- much more than merely being single does.
At any rate, I hope we'll refrain from concern-trolling young adults over their supposed reluctance to get married. There are a lot of factors that go into the decision to get married (and stay married), and money is a major one. If we can do something about inequality in this country, it will improve life for everyone regardless of marital or parental status.
At any rate, I hope we'll refrain from concern-trolling young adults over their supposed reluctance to get married. There are a lot of factors that go into the decision to get married (and stay married), and money is a major one. If we can do something about inequality in this country, it will improve life for everyone regardless of marital or parental status.
10
"…money is a major one…"
One elderly, religious, guy I knew who had a high-school diploma married when he didn't earn much.
He and his wife are having a wonderful life with eight married children.
Somehow he managed to earn a very good living.
His helped his wife with the children and the apartment they lived in.
Their sacrifice in building a family was worth it. Now he has a house and reward with moral children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, who visit them often.
Special occasions are enjoyed and shared by all his progeny.
Somehow when a person commits to live a decent life God provides sustenance and pleasure.
He is almost 80 and anyone would wish for a full life he and his wife enjoy.
As the saying goes, "Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be."
A spiritual commitment to marriage brings harmony as well as rich material success as well.
6
After eight years of a strongly anti-growth, anti-employment president, this can't be any surprise.
1
I have a bachelors while my wife never went to college at all. My wife owns a small business and made $100,000 more than me this last year.
College isnt the answer. College is pretty much only a great way to get into so much debt that you can never own anything.
Oh, and I went to MIT. Worst decision I ever made. I wish so badly that I had taken the full ride to CU. I wish!
College isnt the answer. College is pretty much only a great way to get into so much debt that you can never own anything.
Oh, and I went to MIT. Worst decision I ever made. I wish so badly that I had taken the full ride to CU. I wish!
11
Interesting comment. I thought one should be proud to go to a great university such as MIT.
1
I wont marry my wife because I have $126,000 in student debt. She owns the house and makes more money than I do. She runs a much more successful business than I do. She is also 10 years older than I am, so shes had a bit of a headstart. She also never went to college, so she can take her master electrician money and buy things like hot tubs instead of watching it disappear every month.
If this sounds like a cishet story, its not. My wife and I are both polyamorous pansexual transgender women.
Also, you dont need to actually get married to call someone your wife or husband. Its just a word.
8
Well, actually "marriage" is a bit more than "just" a word . . . it is a statutory term in every U.S. jurisdiction. This means it has a legally defined meaning and one that, in the past 10 years has changed as courts and legislatures have recognized same sex marriage.
9
perhaps you've hit on the root of the problem. Marriage is now "just a word."
5
There are those of us who choose to be single - and to eschew this constricting and dominant paradigm definition of success: the success sequence: degree, job, marriage, baby.
22
And I think it's fine to choose to be single, but I don't quite understand why the "dominant paradigm" must then be criticized and stereotyped as "constricting." Yep, I did degree-job-marriage-baby (though when I set out as an adult only "degree-job" seemed to be anything I felt I could plan at the outset and have any control over; marriage was simply a wonderful development, and baby came along many years later). But FAR from being constricting, it has been liberating, for both my husband and I. We support each other and balance each other. As I appreciate singles can and do for their friends and others. Marriage/single status, it's all what you make of it.
13
A good marriage is not constricting. When marriage partners are respectful and considerate of each other and share goals and work together toward them, marriage can be great.
5
I think it's constricting when you feel like that's what you're *supposed* to do, that's what you're *expected* to do--and when you feel pressure and/or feel looked down upon, or lesser-than, because you didn't choose one or more steps in the sequence--particularly the last two. If every step of "the success sequence" happened in your life serendipitously, then good for you! No need to be defensive.
5
“Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything,”...
That's funny. There was a time when men thought the same thing of women without jobs...only they married them anyway.
That's funny. There was a time when men thought the same thing of women without jobs...only they married them anyway.
9
Ha. Men used to marry women without jobs because it was a given that she would spend her life from waking to sleeping doing the unpaid labor of household chores, childbearing, and child raising without much help from her husband, who went off the clock when he got home from work.
Households now can't usually survive on one income anymore though, and women still do the majority of the housekeeping and childrearing. If we're already working full-time jobs, why take on a man who isn't also working and most likely still won't cook, clean, and raise the kids?
Households now can't usually survive on one income anymore though, and women still do the majority of the housekeeping and childrearing. If we're already working full-time jobs, why take on a man who isn't also working and most likely still won't cook, clean, and raise the kids?
44
Hmm. Except these women were expected to manage the household and children, which is a great deal of responsibility and work. Yeah, I'm sure there were women who let the house slide and the children go feral...just as there are guys today who lie around and watch TV drinking beer while the women go to work and support the household.
11
Thank you for posting this. While everyone talks about the 50s and early 60s as the "good old days," the entertainment and media were filled with "jokes" by men who deeply resented their wives - women who were forced into idleness by a culture that was automating much of traditional women's work, but didn't want women to work outside the home either. One thing we don't hear anymore are "jokes" about wives who can't drive a car, can't fold a map, can't cook, spend all day watching soap operas, etc etc. etc.
Most adults - men and women - want a partner who carries their weight. For most families in our current economy, that means two full-time wage earners. As your comment illustrates, housekeeping hasn't been a full-time job in over 50 years, and it's been even longer since it was respected work.
Most adults - men and women - want a partner who carries their weight. For most families in our current economy, that means two full-time wage earners. As your comment illustrates, housekeeping hasn't been a full-time job in over 50 years, and it's been even longer since it was respected work.
12
The success sequence is still valid. It is about planning long term for stability, with "baby" coming last because of the incredible resources--personal, financial, and cultural-- required to raise a human being, more so now than ever before. And as another commentor noted, planning ahead often means delaying immediate gratification.
Unfortunately, the "degree and job" part of the sequence, the very foundation for stability, marriage and baby, has become harder to attain for all of the reasons the author has noted. The culture around marriage and baby has changed to reflect that reality. It's not the culture that needs to change, it's the reality.
Unfortunately, the "degree and job" part of the sequence, the very foundation for stability, marriage and baby, has become harder to attain for all of the reasons the author has noted. The culture around marriage and baby has changed to reflect that reality. It's not the culture that needs to change, it's the reality.
11
Whatever else marriage may be, it is the prime vehicle for the inter-generational transfer of wealth to one's children. And this is hardly limited to inheriting money after the deaths of one's parents, as in better-heeled homes the latter routinely give children money to go to college, put a down payment on first homes, and start and contribute to 529 plans for their grandchildren--all measures beyond the means of the poor, the working poor and the increasingly dispossessed "white working class." It's no surprise that the divergence measured by the study's authors dates from 1990, when the disastrous effects of Reaganite "trickle-down economics" were beginning to take their toll on working people. Before then, marriage rates were higher among the less privileged because they honestly believed in post-war America that, through their hard work, their kids would do better than they did. Few believe that any longer.
59
Never mind that - how about two highly-paid professionals teaching a 3-year-old how to behave properly? That sort of thing would generate a lot of billable hours on the open market.
4
There is another aspect to all of this. In my mother's day, she had total responsibility for the household and the childcare. My father brought home the living. My generation (boomer-age) males expected the wives to work AND still be responsible for all the household work and childcare. Many of my females peers reported the same thing. So in essence, women got an extra full time job, and men didn't want anything to change - dinner on at six. I recognize not all men were this way. Some really were open to doing their part (that that rarely translated to half, in my experience.) For me, divorce became a case of simply having one less "child" for which to care for on top of my already grueling schedule. It isn't, as one poster said, "We got tired of our husbands." It was that we broke under the load that many of those husbands expected us to carry.
257
So right! I did everything around the home as well as worked my job outside the home: cared for the child, fixed meals, cleaned, etc. and he worked his job. I felt like I was alone in my marriage.
17
Marriage isn't a mark of privilege. What is misidentified as privilege is often the result of a disciplined life. Privilege exists, but success is not the indicator of it. Success without work or discipline is the indicator of privilege. Success itself is often the result of a habit of making good plans and carrying them out.
Finishing one's education, establishing one's career, and getting married prior to having children are steps, in order, to avoid poverty. These steps have been identified in multiple studies. They're simple and the information is available to anyone with an internet connection.
Finishing one's education, establishing one's career, and getting married prior to having children are steps, in order, to avoid poverty. These steps have been identified in multiple studies. They're simple and the information is available to anyone with an internet connection.
55
A-freak-ing-men. I was born in poverty. Got a job at 14, worked through high school and put myself through college with scholarships. Had five part-time/odd jobs my full-time senior year. I couldn't have gotten pregnant before marriage because I wasn't sleeping around, the seemingly impossible formula for many. Married my high school sweetheart at 22, worked my butt off (still do), and scrimped our pennies, shared a car, had no extras, etc. We're approaching our 30s and are ready to start our family—and it blows my mind that I'll have to shell out thousands in delivery/medical costs, while the costs for women who choose to have baby after baby with no plan to care for them, are totally paid with my tax money. I'm penalized for being intentional, responsible and picking a dependable, committed, hard-working man for my child's father. It's not privilege if you can do it too, but people won't, because they need instant gratification. It's okay, at least I can sleep at night knowing I'm doing the right thing.
9
/I couldn't have gotten pregnant before marriage because I wasn't sleeping around/
So you have to "sleep around" to get pregnant? How do married, monogamous people ever manage to become parents?
So you have to "sleep around" to get pregnant? How do married, monogamous people ever manage to become parents?
1
Rachel, I'm guessing you're appalled by the left in this country too. Nothing like real hardship to clarify one's thinking on social issues. Please do have kids - the country desperately needs grownups.
2
There has to be a huge role played by the fact that the average wage for men hasn't increased in over 4 decades, and is now lower, in inflation adjusted dollars, than it was in 1972.
Manufacturing jobs were supposed to be replaced by well paying service jobs, but those service jobs have turned out to be generally low paying and insecure.
And jobs that were once unionized--and could support a family--now routinely pay much less with no benefits. They also tend to be much more dangerous than they used to be.
34
Title: "How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?"
Remind me again why someone who delays marriage until financial stability is privileged?
Check your privilege?
22
Why is it privilege to delay marriage until financial stability is achieved? Uh, to start with, because it often takes two incomes to achieve financial stability.
Also because through no fault of their own, financial stability is so far out of reach for some people as to make this milestone unreachable even with a partner. Financial instability is sometimes the result of bad choices, but is more often the result of the accident of one's birth.
Financial stability may be out of reach may because of the station in life that one was born to, as the result of disability or injury (mental or physical), or it may be just plain bad timing.
To hinge one's suitability for marriage and parenthood on this milestone, privileges those people who did not suffer the above misfortunes.
Also because through no fault of their own, financial stability is so far out of reach for some people as to make this milestone unreachable even with a partner. Financial instability is sometimes the result of bad choices, but is more often the result of the accident of one's birth.
Financial stability may be out of reach may because of the station in life that one was born to, as the result of disability or injury (mental or physical), or it may be just plain bad timing.
To hinge one's suitability for marriage and parenthood on this milestone, privileges those people who did not suffer the above misfortunes.
3
Or you could grow up in poverty, work hard, get married when you're 22, with a $5,000 wedding, with low-income jobs—and be happy and successful, like I did. I suffered some of those "above misfortunes"—and anyone can decide you don't want those misfortunes (barring medical/injury) for your children, and hence follow a proven pattern to give them the best shot at avoiding them. I'm not saying there aren't outliers, I'm saying they're the minority. Pretending that it's "privilege" is unfair to people who should be encouraged towards taking control of their life, instead of misleading them that they're impossibly hindered and so should continue in their poorly disciplined life.
1
Sometimes they want to marry, because they know their parents and/or other relatives would be upset if they don't marry.
Oh great, one more thing that the victim class thinks people should be ashamed of.
23
People who can't afford to have kids out of wedlock....are having kids out of wedlock. Thus they become dependent on the welfare system. If you have two parents that are employed, you are much less likely to be dependent on the welfare system.
23
I'm a highly educated middle class, middle aged single female. find me a sane, emotionally healthy single male who's willing to marry a female his own age and well, .... I'd probably die of shock before I knew what I'd do anyway.
139
I'm divorced now but originally wanted to marry, because I knew my mother and other relatives would be upset if I just roomed with someone.
1
I do not like vast over generalizations, whether of women or men. There are plenty of great men out there, who are emotionally healthy, sane and interested in women of their own age. I am married to one and my sister is married to another. Maybe your sour attitude is driving off men who are emotionally healthy enough not to take on a bitter woman.
2
I'm with ya sister. Educated, single, stable, sane (though admittedly a little nihilistic) male here just as sick of trying to find a sane, rational, stable woman in my age bracket who doesn't judge a man by his wallet, his waistline, or his interest in raising another man's children. Which is of course only exacerbated by being a hold-out "normal" person living in the People's Republic of Kalifornien. Be strong, you're not as alone as it might seem.
2
It would be nice if the women who don't find certain men to be marriage material would also not find them to be parent material.
129
And it would be realllly nice if men who don't find certain women marriage material would also not find them to be parent material. Boy, that would solve a whole lotta problems.
54
Many women yearn to be mothers.
Women born into poverty who see no way out of it (either on their own or by finding a man with a good job to marry) are unlikely to resign themselves to perpetual childlessness.
They yearn for children despite lectures from conservatives who truly believe that America's millions of impoverished people should know better than to "breed."
11
ML Chadwick - Fine. Have your out of wedlock child. But don't expect me to pay to support your child. Your choice, your child, your financial burden.
3
Nothing new here, but it is good that the NYTimes finally has gotten around to it. See The Education Solution, published in 2015 for a more complete explanation.
5
That's easy -- when "single" moms could claim welfare, rent vouchers, Medicaid and food stamps -- plus entree into well stocked food pantries. Why bother with a dead end low wage job when you can get more - much more from welfare.
10
When I was a social worker years ago job hunting was a requirement to receive checks and support.
2
So if you have a college degree you can't be working class or poor even if you have no money. Got it.
18
I received a Master's Degree when younger, because back then scholarships were available for graduate schools offering foreign language studies. I have studied 5 foreign languages and needed to know some Hindi in order to navigate 9 months in India.
2
I have a college degree. I put all of my eggs in the Education Basket. What I learned, at the beginning of the Reagan Administration, was that most employers don't much care what you know in terms of Art History or English Lit, as long as you can type or work an adding machine. Kills me that my parents were right.
1
“Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything,” said Sharon Sassler........
Really? Then why are they having babies with these men? That's a huge risk.
Perhaps the role of Federal and State programs that cater to single mothers may have something to do with it - i.e. W.I.C., Earned Income tax Credit.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted this in 1965.
Who need a responsible man when government has become a substitute husband?
26
The problem is not the government but the lack of contraception and sex education. Unfortunately, far too many girls, especially in highly religious communities, do not have any idea what it is that they are not supposed to be doing. Teens are going to have sex. That is true in a puritanical community and in a secular one. Giving them the tools to behave responsibly is key.
3
Moynihan's embarrassing critique of the Liberal Welfare State does not get enough attention these days.
I highly doubt that single women are having children to gain some peanut butter, milk, bread and eggs through WIC. Nor for the measly Earned Income Tax Credit described herein "The maximum amount of credit for Tax Year 2016 is: $6,269 with three or more qualifying children. $5,572 with two qualifying children. $3,373 with one qualifying child."
3
“Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything,” said Sharon Sassler, a sociologist at Cornell who published “Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships” with Amanda Jayne Miller last month." If this were true, there wouldn't be so many feral children running around.
6
“Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything,” ? What a surprise, female hypergamy is a leading cause of men choosing not to marry gold diggers?
Female desire to marry is on steep incline, male desire to marry is on steep decline. Let's pretend it's because men immature and refuse to "man up" for gold diggers and watch the marriage decline accelerate.
6
Why are you pretending "not be able to provide anything" means "not be able to provide everything?" I wonder if it has anything thing to do with your attitude towards women?
4
What we have here is a failure to understand the difference between correlation and causation. Clearly, a subject not taught in journalism school.
12
Marriage doesn't matter much, it is whether you have kids or not. After a certain age you become a social zero without kids or (at least) a spouse, or at least nuclear family nearby to toggle you along. All conversations turn to kids, and if you've got 'em you're in, forever. Try being an older single male without close relatives or kids. Noone knows what to say to you, and noone cares about you. You go virtually everywhere alone, you create fear because everyone senses the anger in you. Your life is completely up to you, and your choices are limited.
9
Find a nice older single woman and see the world together. Good companions relieve loneliness and good friends can be closer to you than relatives.
2
Not much different for a single, middle-aged female without kids. I do have relatives--in another state that I left and hate will never move back to; besides they're not so young anymore (no nieces, nephews, etc) either. I don't know that I create fear in anyone, more like pity. I've made my peace with dying alone in my apartment only to be discovered when the stench becomes unbearable, LOL. BTW, didn't go to college, have always worked those "dead-end" jobs, but had them steadily for decades. Can support myself, but I'm still poor. No chance I would have married "up" and life would have probably been a lot harder financially if I had married and had kids.
6
Patrick, get some more interesting and educated friends. Or move to the coasts where single folks are not looked upon with contempt.
3
How did marriage become a "mark of privilege?' Google Gramsci and the long march through the institutions.
4
A real bunch of total shocks here. Birth control works. White people would rather have less or no kids (while they throw tantrums about being a "minority" -finally). A guaranteed 40 hour a week job is a myth not a reality. The "quality" of your life usually takes a nosedive if you spend it trying to feed growing human beings and raising them 24 hours a day. Every year of my life I am told it cost one bazillion dollars now to raise a kid through high school - and having raised two I feel like it was two bazillion. And there is the whole do you want to raise a kid in this world argument. Does it look kid friendly to you?
15
The world is decidedly not kid friendly or friendly for anyone for that matter.
2
Why would a woman WANT to marry a PeterPan gaming addicted man child? Women are right to want something better. Men need to look at themselves in the mirror. Get some self discipline and get moving, stop whining! There is no secret to a successful life, it's just hard work.
51
The woman's movement is bearing fruit.
8
Marriage has declined because its a bad deal for men. Why commit to a woman when she will cheat on you, have you raise some other mans kids, and then divorce you and take all your money. Until that is fixed, marriage will continue to decline. But that is the goal, isnt it?
7
In every divorced couple I know, it was the man who cheated or met a much younger woman.
8
And men are always faithful, of course, and would never leave their wives for another woman...
3
Why is it a choice between that and a Stepford wife?
3
Financially it doesn't make sense for us to get married. My man and I are better off tax-wise to leave the knot untied. We're just as committed to each other, if not more so----we stay together by choice, not because we're legally bound to.
76
That was an excellent reply. I married simply because I knew my family would be upset, if I just lived with my future husband without a marriage certificate.
4
Personally, I do not understand why those leading a hand-to-mouth existence themselves feel they must bring a helpless baby, another human being into that misery.
Also, do alimony laws of a country have implications on its society's outlook towards marriage? And, I wonder how this study's dynamics play out in case of same-sex relationships...
2
"Personally, I do not understand why those leading a hand-to-mouth existence themselves feel they must bring a helpless baby, another human being into that misery. "
Because they need some meaning, love, and comfort in their lives, and see no chance for these anywhere else. All the other reasons proffered here(values, education, foresight) are also correct, but that's the big one.
Because they need some meaning, love, and comfort in their lives, and see no chance for these anywhere else. All the other reasons proffered here(values, education, foresight) are also correct, but that's the big one.
8
However tempting it might be to think that having a child will give you the comfort you are seeking, children are a drain emotionally and financially, even at the best of time. Having a child when you are the needy only makes it worse for both.
8
I don't know how it is in India, but there are women in this country who get pregnant in the (vain) hope that the fathers of their unborn children will man up, get off the couch or out from behind the computer, get a job, and propose marriage.
1
This is news? That smart people plan and not so smart people act impulsively and without forethought?
22
For the middle class marriage is too big of a risk. Both women and men think it is a risk not worth taking. The success stories are slim.
4
The bolsheviks were right about that. The only problem is that Ayers missed the "necessarily" amount by 100 million or so. They aren't just gonna roll over be extincted. So, what's the "final solution"?
Conservatives have a lot of nerve citing the decline of moral values in the destructiom of marriage. Let's take a look at the man they're following now as their national moral leader -- the POTUS, Donald Trump.
His first marriage ended when he brought his mistress along on a family ski trip to Aspen. She got into a very public confrontation - well-covered by the tabloids - with his wife. The divorce was waged in the tabloids as well, with many nasty bullying comments coming from his side.
After that, he married his mistress after she became pregant, and then divorced her during after another public tabloid adultery scandal.
His current wife is his third. She had to face the Billy Bush tape, where her husband made himself look like a man who has to grab onto the genitals of every woman he meets and greets.
He has five children by three different women now.
Conservatives have lost their minds if they're moaning about declining moral values ruining marriage, after this man is what they have elevated to the highest and most respected office in the land.
What a great role model he's going to make for their kids when they start thinking about family and marriage.
102
To be fair to the Donald, I think his child with Marla Maples was born before they married.
Yes, she was.
"A big reason for the decline: Unemployed men are less likely to be seen as marriage material."
What?
The reason for the decline in marriage is more obvious to those who have chosen to notice the cultural decay of the last 50 years. The overabundance of "free love" coupled with abortion on demand, are the root causes/contributors. Poor men have always been able to marry in days of yesteryour, but now feel no "need" to actively seek a monogomous relationship based upon the marriage contract.
As my blessed mama used to say, "No man will buy the cow if he can get all the milk he wants for free." And that is the truth. Deal with it!!
1
Yet that doesn't begin to address why educated, upper-middle-class men and women, presumably 'getting the milk free', are willing and able to marry and stay married, whereas the lower classes aren't.
12
"Poor men have always been able to marry". ??? Not really. Poor men in my grandma's time would not think of proposing marriage to a woman if they could not make enough of a living to support a wife and children.
Of the women in 1900: Of the women in 2011:
about 10% were widowed about 8% were widowed
about 30% were never-married about 30% were never-married
about 60% were married about 50% were married
a negligible amount were divorced about 12% were divorced
These are from "Marriage: More than a Century of Change" from the NCFMR
Family Profiles , Bowling Green State U.
The biggest change from grandma's time seems to be that there is more divorce today.
2
So, your point is that the sole reason a man would marry a woman is for
sex. Or "milk" in your charming analogy. Why would a woman want to marry a man who would only do it so he could have sex ? What a cynical view of marriage. And love.
sex. Or "milk" in your charming analogy. Why would a woman want to marry a man who would only do it so he could have sex ? What a cynical view of marriage. And love.
5
Yet another perversion of the term privilege. Decades ago, being raised by an intact family with a mother and a father was the norm for the majority of people. Then out of wedlock births skyrocket, everyone waits to get married, and now suddenly if you come from a two-person family, you're "privileged." Ridiculous. This is all some P.C. nonsense because we don't want to refer to the disadvantaged kid coming from a broken (or never-existent) family as "underprivileged." That's a pejorative term and, no, no, no, we can't have that. So we recast the language so this child is "normal" and now it's the rotten kids from the two-person families that are "privileged." And we'll also imply that they didn't earn that privilege so they should feel bad about it. Absolute nonsense.
31
Dave, read the article. It makes clear that families with two parents were once the norm but are not as prevalent today. The article also notes that today the distribution of two parent families is quite skewed and it presents several different hypotheses from different political viewpoints for why that is.
5
Parents help pay for birth control? Is the birth control (condoms) that's readily available at CVS or wherever beyond the financial reach of millenials?
4
I am an older millennial and came of age pre-ACA. Lucky for me, my birth control was coved by the insurance my mom's job provided. I was able to stay covered as long as I was in school. I couldn't have afforded birth control without it and was incredibly lucky to have that resource.
2
Parents can keep children on a group health plan until children are 26. It's the ACA.
1
How did marriage become a mark of privilege? That's easy. I don't even need to read the full article...
Obviously, Democrats see opportunity in a newly designated class of victims. In fact, this very article is likely serving as an means of recruitment. Just look at the underlying message; 'Are you unmarried? You may be a victim...'
And of course, what good is another victim class without identifying the perpetrators. Like I said, I haven't read the entire article, but I could certainly venture an educated guess as to the general makeup of the soon-to-be-leveraged privileged class.
9
It seems to me that lately it has been the Republicans moaning about how they are "victims". Which is kind of ridiculous because they now control all 3 branches of government.
4
I'm confused. You mean there was a time when an unemployed man was considered marriage material??
40
Hey women, I got an idea. Why dont YOU provide for some man?
I mean, Im a transgender woman in a common law marriage to another transgender woman. I watch ciswomen talk about how the men in their lives wont provide for them, but in the next sentence they talk about feminism and making sure that women can get great salaries.
Women refuse to marry men who dont make more than them. As more and more women start making more and more money, there will be less and less men that are "marriagable" in the old sense.
Here is what women need to realize. If they want true equality than 50% of the time they will make more money than their husbands. Once they have kids, the women who make more money need to continue to work, and the men need to quit working and raise kids.
Women need to start taking care of men. Women need to be the breadwinners. Women need to take responsibility for making the money and give child-care responsibilty to their husbands.
The other answer for us poor people is to become polyamorous. My wife and I are polyamrous, and its definitely easier to pay for a house or a kid if 3 or more people are involved.
6
I’m missing something. Poor and working class women don’t want to get married because it’s a bad economic decision given their marriage pool is full of losers. That I get. However, they are willing to have at least one child without a father to provide economic and social support? Seems like a much worse economic decision to have a child alone than to marry a bum. So maybe this isn’t driven by economics?
17
Because they don't see that they have much of a future in any case and most people do want kids. Does it make sense? Not economically, and probably not for most other reasons, but I've seen it all my adult life.
4
It's a lot less laundry, housework, a bit less cooking, etc, and you are still free to meet the right man (one who will accept your child.)
I can't imagine waking up every morning knowing that you are legally bound to the bum in your bed, and if you divorce him, you will have to give your hard-earned money to a lawyer, and maybe as alimony to that bum.
You call it economics, I call it self-respect.
6
But it IS driven by economics .. they "work the system" so the government pays for baby food, milk (WIC), food stamps (and also bulk foods), medical aid (Medicaid) .. then there is also a monthly government allotment (check) for other support. So you see, poor and working class women really DO have it better if they don't marry.
Also many utility companies (Seattle, for one) offer a 60% discount to low income people (for electricity, gas, water, sewer and garbage). And the list goes ON!
2
I don't understand why uneducated women can understand that marrying a man without a higher education or job is foolish for their future, but cannot understand how to use birth control. Getting unattached from a bad marriage without children is certainly easier than being a single mom whose kids have a deadbeat dad.
11
wow. The NY Times reporting on society through the lens of class rather than race? I'm honestly shocked.... That said, this millenial usage of the term "privilege" as a tool of shaming and guilt peddling has exhausted its ability to convey the message you want without drawing in the baggage of those other arguments.
14
As things stand now a female can have a child with no involvement from a man other than a few minutes of pleasure. A man, on the other hand, cannot have a biological offspring without a very high level of co-operation from a female. Thus, the female holds the power. Social and technological change will eventually make it possible for males to have offspring without the co-operation of a particular female. Then for many males it will be Hasta la vista baby.
8
“They say, ‘If he’s not offering money or assets, why make it legal?’ ” said June Carbone,
_____
We were told by women in the 70s that, unlike men, who focused in their selection of mates on externals like physical attractiveness, women looked at "the person". In that, they were supposedly more humanistic and holistic, and generally nicer people, than men.
It appears that the term "the person" was considerably more elastic than originally thought.
3
Money makes the man!
1
In addition to the economic issues that influence women's decisions about marriage, I would posit that men's lack of socialization as dinner-makers, house-cleaners, caretakers of children and elders, also contributes to changing marriage patterns. There is plenty that a man who is not employed outside of the house can bring to a marriage; yet many American men are not being raised, educated, or claiming this important work.
19
As suggested by Jacqueline in CO, I have had two eight-year relationships in which I, the woman, was the primary breadwinner.
With the first, he worked only sporadically. The second had a mental disability which prevented him from working (he receives SSDI that is barely enough to cover the cost of his meds).
In both cases, neither man was willing to take on role of primary household caretaker. It was easier with the first; he'd never experienced anything but a bachelorhood of doing everything for himself and so at least he cleaned up after himself.
The second man had been the sole breadwinner for his first wife and their children (before his disability struck), and had expected his favorite foods in the house at all times, a homemade dinner every night, a homemade lunch to take to work, his laundry done and his kids raised. He was raised as a Christian fundamentalist and learned that wives should be obedient to the end, and he still expected these things of me despite the fact that I worked full-time while he lazed around the house. He resisted the truth that I had two full-time jobs.
I did not marry either man; the first wanted nothing to do with marriage because ...reasons. I did not marry the second because as the years went by, it became more clear that he was a child in a man's body, and it was never my life's dream to be a childcare provider.
Don't get me started on what the fustercluck of polyamory.
With the first, he worked only sporadically. The second had a mental disability which prevented him from working (he receives SSDI that is barely enough to cover the cost of his meds).
In both cases, neither man was willing to take on role of primary household caretaker. It was easier with the first; he'd never experienced anything but a bachelorhood of doing everything for himself and so at least he cleaned up after himself.
The second man had been the sole breadwinner for his first wife and their children (before his disability struck), and had expected his favorite foods in the house at all times, a homemade dinner every night, a homemade lunch to take to work, his laundry done and his kids raised. He was raised as a Christian fundamentalist and learned that wives should be obedient to the end, and he still expected these things of me despite the fact that I worked full-time while he lazed around the house. He resisted the truth that I had two full-time jobs.
I did not marry either man; the first wanted nothing to do with marriage because ...reasons. I did not marry the second because as the years went by, it became more clear that he was a child in a man's body, and it was never my life's dream to be a childcare provider.
Don't get me started on what the fustercluck of polyamory.
7
Does Darcy Do Dishes? No. He hires someone else to them and perpetuates income inequality on the way. I'm not persuaded that men who advertise their stay at home bona fides--"Yes, I change diapers, pick up kids from school, go shopping AND rub your feet after a long day" will get ANY offers. Stay at home guys have marginal careers. Women are still living the fantasy of finding a Darcy who does dishes.
4
As a father of 3 daughters and 1 son I totally agree with the statement made, “Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything”.
And yet millions of children are born out of wedlock to men that are total bums and not worthy of marriage. How is this not taking a risk on a male partner who could be a bum?
Marriage is not for just the privileged. Marriage is for anyone. Especially loving partners who will become loving parents and who want to defy the odds of a difficult life.
7
~Every~ woman who marries and/or has kids is taking the risk that her partner will not turn out to be an unworthy deadbeat bum.
Some of them take several years to show their true colors (or are changed by time and circumstance), and by then, the children are already here!
By eliminating the 'marriage' part of the equation, it's easier to DTMFA if and when those true colors become evident.
4
You speak of lower-income men as if they were some lower species of mammal. This attitude pervades your assumptions and sends you off in the wrong direction.
The reality in many cases is that these men can see the truth in front of them; without a significant income and generous health insurance marrying and fathering children will lead to misery and disappointment for everyone involved. These men are not chronically unemployed drunks and junkies, they're decent people intent on NOT doing the wrong thing. Many of them have jobs which once would have been "middle-class" but which no longer pay anything like a "middle-class" wage.
Some of us are trying to reduce the angry divisiveness in our society. Perhaps, next time, you could re-consider your assumptions before you slander your fellow Americans.
16
"You speak of lower-income men as if they were some lower species of mammal"
Where? I didn't get this impression at all. Please point out to me the parts of the article where this is so.
They did say that women may look down on working class men who don't have a good job, but that is neither the Times nor the researchers speaking, it's what unmarried women have told them. Researchers looked into this problem because it is alarming for society. They wanted to know what changed in society in the past 25 years that caused marriage and legitimacy rates to go down.
Part of the answer is that working class jobs are rarely full time nor do most pay well. personally, I could use a good plumber, but can't find one because we don't have technical schools training plumbers, electricians, heating/cooling technology. We're in a "gig economy" nowadays and the people who make out the worst are the untrained working class.
I consider myself working class and the jobs both my parents held -- with medical and dental benefits, full time employment, a 40 hour work week, sick pay, vacation time, job security and pensions -- no longer exist.
This is a very important piece of why marriage is suffering as a social institution.
Where? I didn't get this impression at all. Please point out to me the parts of the article where this is so.
They did say that women may look down on working class men who don't have a good job, but that is neither the Times nor the researchers speaking, it's what unmarried women have told them. Researchers looked into this problem because it is alarming for society. They wanted to know what changed in society in the past 25 years that caused marriage and legitimacy rates to go down.
Part of the answer is that working class jobs are rarely full time nor do most pay well. personally, I could use a good plumber, but can't find one because we don't have technical schools training plumbers, electricians, heating/cooling technology. We're in a "gig economy" nowadays and the people who make out the worst are the untrained working class.
I consider myself working class and the jobs both my parents held -- with medical and dental benefits, full time employment, a 40 hour work week, sick pay, vacation time, job security and pensions -- no longer exist.
This is a very important piece of why marriage is suffering as a social institution.
1
The real reason why the lower classes don't marry is because it is better for a mom of two or three or more to get on welfare, food stamps, and housing assistance and then let her live in guy work for a living, either off or on the books. The combined benefits and his income make for a nicer life than for them to marry, and her to have to work a menial job, and then put the kids in daycare and lose all the free money. This is basically white rural welfare at it's finest. That is what is skewing the numbers. I'll get heck for this comment but I've lived in those areas and it really does work this way.
15
I wouldn't say they get more from welfare, but I do believe that welfare and SNAP can be relied upon pretty, whereas a man might not be able to find steady employment. Which would you choose? To have someone sitting around the house not earning money or to get a guaranteed set amount of money each month and Medicaid when your kids are sick?
If men had good, steady working class jobs like they did years ago, then I think you'd see more marriage. Uncertainty is everywhere today. Will I get another job if I'm fired? Will my kids get steady work? Will kids who spend $100k for college be able to pay back the debt?
People are choosing what they think is best for them. It may not be what's best for society. But you can't take away the social safety net or we'd have people starving, like during the depression. Because society is not measuring up these days. Too much money is being permanently taken out of the economy and hoarded in offshore accounts, where it's not being taxed or spent.
5
I agree. There is also the incredible cost of the Iraq war (the loans and the interest on those loans). We are hopelessly in debt so that we are unable to do the things that need doing.
And they are talking about tax breaks for the 1%?!
2
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
13
Sterile, liberal, NYT liberal viewpoints in this article. "Poverty" is arbitrarily defined by the researchers as an arbitrary percentage of the population, even though those in "poverty" tend to be overweight and have money for chemical vices, while still enjoying things like air conditioning and cable TV. The reason that lower income people have no impetus to marry is primarily due to the fact that the Govt steps in with $300 per month or more to support the kids. If they married, the support wouldn't be there. It's an economic decision.
The average fertility rate of the college educated women I grew up with is less than 0.5. They are being out-childbirthed by low income women by at least 8 to 1. This is having a dire, long term effect on the US economy and culture.
8
[quote] Poverty" is arbitrarily defined by the researchers as an arbitrary percentage of the population,
No, poverty is not "arbitrarily" defined as an "arbitrary percentage." It's based on income, family size and location, among other things. A good salary in Idaho may not be a good salary in Connecticut. A salary might be fine for two people, but not for five people.
No, poverty is not "arbitrarily" defined as an "arbitrary percentage." It's based on income, family size and location, among other things. A good salary in Idaho may not be a good salary in Connecticut. A salary might be fine for two people, but not for five people.
2
Poor people would still be poor if they never had A/C or cable TV, fattening, filling food is a lot cheaper than arugula & radicchio, and some of us (more than you think) have never been on public assistance.
Interesting, the "analysis" of "marriage" is just for heterosexual couples?! What about the rest of couples being married? They are unworthy to be considered in the equation?
3
If a woman isn't willing to be legally bound to a man because he isn't seen as a good provider, why on earth would she have a child with him? Maybe the problem isn't the lack of a degree so much as a lack of common sense.
5
I'd agree it's a privilege to have three wives. Ain't that right Don? Newt?
6
In my generation there used to be a tax incentive to be married. Not anymore. Also, women found out they can support themselves, make their own decisions and yes have sex without a boss. That came about during the war when they needed us to man the factories while the men were gone. We found out that we had a say in how we were treated. Not pushed around, mentally and physically abused. I'm not saying men aren't abused too, but women were more subjected to it at the time.. if a man said JUMP, you asked how high. If you got a loving man, you were fortunate.
17
"Researchers found a corresponding increase in births to unmarried mothers"
Maybe we should stop paying them to do it through social welfare programs if we want less of it.
6
Maybe we should get the government out of the business of encouraging reproduction altogether, not just for poor people through the welfare office.
The tax code also encourages childbirth with EITC and other child tax credits. I think there should be only regressive child tax benefits. People who birth more than two children are polluting the planet with people, and they should not be rewarded with another tax benefit each time they do.
4
Oddly-in this new age- the writer does not discuss the economic advantages of marriage for same sex couples, let alone social/psychological benefits. Marriage is also important when children are involved for same sex couples.
3
Can someone please reconcile "Americans across the income spectrum still highly value marriage...But while it used to be a marker of adulthood, now it is something more wait to do until the other pieces of adulthood are in place — especially financial stability" with "Less educated people are more likely to...get pregnant at a younger age and before marriage." What do even the most unintelligent, uneducated people think, marriage requires financial stability but raising children does not?!?! I mean seriously.
6
I was a young man during the rise of the two-income family, and remember soon thinking then that we were all being played for fools, again. At first, couples with two incomes felt they’d gotten ahead. Then the rampant inflation of that time soon followed, no doubt to absorb all the “surplus” income — the late 70’s I believe —- so that within about ten years two-earner couples were no better off than one-earner couples had been just ten years before. But now families were trapped. In order to have the “good life “ in America both Mom and Dad HAD to work, and things have just gone downhill since.
9
maybe the reason people do well financially is because they get married, not the other way around.
government has taken the place of low income husbands.
the pill (female sexual freedom).
women in the workforce (female financial freedom).
more women than men in college.
no longer societal pressure to marry or even have children.
so are we a better or worse society for all of it?
my opinon, only my opinion, worse.
Married men are happier than single men, but unmarried women are happier than married. women. This is because men doggedly refuse to share the burdens of housework and child care, and women are realizing this. I was a single mother in a serious relationship some of the time. It was often like having an extra child. I didn't have time for that except on weekends.
18
That doesn't make a whole lot a sense. Basically you are saying "I'm not going to get married, because I might end up doing 90% of the childrearing and housework if the guy turns out to be a bum, so instead I'll become a single mom with said bum and GUARANTEE that I'll be doing 100% of the housework and childcare. " If women were boycotting pregnancy across the board, it would seem your point might be valid, but this seems more in the vein of: "I refuse to cut the lawn with a lawnmower because it is so heavy and time consuming. So instead I got this great pair of hand shears, and do it with those in only 600% the time."
2
My husband and I were rebels with nothing to lose when we got married at 22, in '98. Everyone told us we were so stupid. But looking at our lives I can see all the ways marriage helps people: my husband acknowledges he would not have gone to university without my encouragement, would not have gone to grad school at night if not for the grinding financial pressure of our early years. We would not have saved so much for the first house and so on.
People think you need to have everything together to get married, but marriage will help you get everything together, too. Also you probably don't need tons of self-knowledge or the perfect person to make it work. Yes, my husband and I were matched in intelligence and looks, but we were from different backgrounds and we actually have nothing in common. We were good people who were attracted to each other, and that's enough. We grew and developed to fit each other. More people should consider youthful marriage. It's a lot of fun and it gives you some stability.
214
You make a good point, but it's not easy. I married young too, and largely through the support of us both working semi-professional jobs, I was able to complete undergrad, grad + Ph.D. However, because we were working class when we started. it took forever. All other couples in our cohort who married relatively young divorced, with and without kids. My husband was a specialty printer; that trade is all but gone in this century. He's a SAHD for a very late in life son we had after the Ph.D. Though we are still married, our 30-year journey has been hard.
We have property and stability, but did not prosper for the first 10 years. It was all struggle. The second decade was better with school behind, but the economic contraction and technological expansion that has characterized our adult lives have brought both feast and famine simultaneously. Even with an education and awesome career, economic stability is never guaranteed. Entire professions have disappeared. So marry young if you will, but realize you are going to battle against tremendous odds. Sticking together is tough in the face of adversity.
2
You and your husband have *nothing* in common? That simply cannot be the whole truth.
4
Well put.
Read the book Bowling Alone. This is as much a socio-cultural problem as anything else.
There is overwhelming evidence showing the disintegration of institutions that bring people together, give them a shared sense of identity, and provide a context around which people derive meaning and engage with their societies.
Religious institutions, cultural traditions, trust in government, thriving civic centers, lifelong residency in one's community or neighborhood, a sense of national identity, and yes, marriage, are all declining... though the new upper class is thriving, culturally.
I see this as a post-modernist dilemma: when everything is relative, what is stable? Where do we find meaning and purpose anymore? In the old days, society would dictate the conditions upon which individuals would matchmake and eventually get married. Today, the average person resembles more of an island until himself or herself, essentially alone, tweeting out to the cosmos.
We must rebuild a sense of civic meaning, and repair our trust in our influential institutions. We must be willing to take a stand for certain values as a culture, and perhaps be willing to build social structures and rituals around these values. And we must learn the lessons of the 20th century: that such structures and institutions can cause harm if managed unwisely.
Our slide into relativism is unbalanced and is causing us too much harm.
9
This is why Trump was elected: to bring back good paying jobs. Let us hope he succeeds.
1
Trump told you that was what he would do, however, he is the consummate liar. Trump only cares about himself, his family and how he can become richer. He cares not one whit about good paying jobs. He cares not one whit about you or your state. Secondly, he does not have the capability to bring back the jobs of days gone by. Automation is here and it is not going away. He is cutting funding for what few job training programs that do exist. He lacks the intellect to formulate a program that will bring about economic change that will benefit the middle class and our country at large. His efforts are concentrated on increasing his wealth and the wealth of his cronies.
2
The authors of the study have a very short horizon and ignore the fact that the general availability of legal marriage is more or less a product of post World War I societies. In 19th Century Europe, marriage prohibitions were widespread and affected in particular the lower classes (who could not marry without consent of , e. g., their domestic employer, etc. ). Note also the persistence of „common law“ marriage concepts (a now all but forgotten Institution) in many US states, rooted also in marriage prohibitions for Afro Americans in the US during the time of slavery, which were enforced by 17 states in the US until 1967 ! (After being struck down by the Supreme Court -
Other interracial marriage prohibitions were eliminated somewhat earlier in the US). Anyway, what I want to say is it that marriage, for the one or other reason, was always a privilege; and that the fact that it becomes less prevalent now may indeed indicate a rising pauperization of the US population.
14
Thank you for reminding others that marriage was not always available to everyone. Even a preacher or justice of the peace were few and far between. People often "declared" themselves to be married and it was acceptable. Another reason for the existence of "common law" marriage.
3
Insightful! Thanks Mr. Mix.
It is truly fascinating that in times past, it was women who were desperate to marry, for financial reasons, and cultural ones, since a woman without a husband and children was often seen as a failure. Men had the luxury of remaining happy bachelors until they were ready to settle down with the best woman they could find. Now, it is the women who are picky, perfectly willing to forgo marriage until just the right man comes along, while men compete with each other for the few remaining good jobs.
11
No, this article is all wrong! Yes, there is many deadbeat men out there, but lets not forget that many women in todays society have done their fare share of contributing to the decline of marriage. I have watched many of my male friends (hardworking good guys) get taken to the cleaners just because their now exwife became bored. I am single, wartime veteran, and a college graduate that has no problem finding a date. I also do not have any kids running around because I am responsible with my reproductive organs. The problem is, I enjoy what I worked for, and getting married is just not worth the risk because my wife decides she is done with me. It is also a fact that women are the ones filing for over 60% of divorces and most walk away with far more than what they contributed. Do not even get me started on these single mothers, I will not even take a second look at them. I use to date single mothers but have since learned a very hard lesson.
6
That's an interesting perspective. My ex-husband told himself I left because I "was tired of him" too. The truth was more complex. He expected me to raise two children with almost no help with the household or the childcare, AND work a full time, consuming job that brought home almost, but not quite as much, as his job. When I hinted that maybe that was too much for one person, he simply said, "You are not staying home and popping bonbons all day." That's what the exhausting work of keeping a household was to him - "popping bonbons." And for what it is worth, he got the lion's share of our joint assets, while I got two children to raise without his financial support.
19
Jared, perhaps you could answer this for me. Why is it that when guys in the Northern states skip out on child support, they all seem to turn up in Florida?
5
Women don't want to marry an unemployed man because he can't provide for them, but they don't mind having babies by the unemployed guys?? Do they think those non-committed guys are going to provide for their babies? Good luck with that.
People aren't getting married because of economic factors?? Reality check: It is less expensive for two people to live together as a married couple than to maintain separate financial lives. Housing, food, insurance, etc., are all less expensive when you're married.
One commentator mentions the high cost of weddings. Give me a break. Just go down to the courthouse or to a justice of the peace and get married for a few dollars. You'll be just as married. Or have an informal backyard wedding with close friends, family, and someone to officiate.
It's not the decline in jobs or the economy that has led to the decline in traditional household structures. Traditional household structures were alive and well during the Great Depression. However, the decline in traditional household structures has most assuredly led to the increase in dysfunctional young adults--those who are immature, impulsive, not committed, without a sense of self-responsibility, with little appreciation of the value of education, and with drug habits or criminal records--who would rather get "free sex" than commit to another person in marriage. (As my mother used to so colorfully say, "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?")
3
and then there's the whole contingent of well educated adults who have actively chosen financial stability over having children in the first place.
11
Wait, a decline in marriage and no decline in childbirth doesn't mean children are necessarily living "in families without two parents and the resources they bring." There are many, many different models of families, including non-married parents who live together and decide to raise a child together (not to mention all of the co-parenting that happens in separate households, which typically have legal structures enforcing financial contribution). I also haven't the foggiest what "women...watching a generation of divorce" could possibly mean. That divorce rates rose over some unnamed period of time (they have, but what does "generation" mean here?) and that, somehow, made women not want to get married? And if so, why assume that's the result of money concerns, and not something more structural or emotional? This is a really loosely-stitched argument meant, as far as I can tell, to say that that heterosexual parenting (it doesn't bother admitting there's any other kind) isn't happening inside legally married, cohabiting coupledom as often as it used to. It completely elides the fact that more women work than ever before in service of a weak thesis: hetero marriage used to have males as primary breadwinners, and now more men are unemployed, so therefore less marriage... but if marriage were all about income, shouldn't marriage rates, by this logic, remain stable when females take over the role of primary breadwinners? Oh wait, sexism. Guess that didn't fit here, either?
4
Nowhere is there mention of a central factor driving unemployment and therefore unmarriageability: the fact that anyone who has ever been incarcerated is a felon for life and thus excluded from most jobs and all public benefits. If you want people to be employable, stop imprisoning them by the tens of millions for "offenses" that shouldn't be illegal in the first place.
12
Anybody who has spent a little time on internet message boards can't help but see that a decent percentage of men are misogynistic. The violent imagery, the name-calling, the "hey, it's internet I can say anything" attitude reveals that a decent percentage of men have a problem with women. If they are the choice, I'd rather be single too.
What I don't understand is why other men rarely call them out on it. A simple, "hey dude, that's not cool" would be so welcome to hear.
24
The root of the problem, I suspect, is that too much of the human genetic code is three million years old.
Marriage as an institution has to be re-examined. As a millennial male, marriage to me doesn't seem like a necessary tradition as mainstream culture makes it out to be.
Overhyped and overblown, only to fuel the marriage-industrial complex all the way down to the greedy divorce+family lawyers waiting to 'help' you.
Furthermore, the propaganda surrounding it (from Hollywood to the Religious Right) makes me highly suspicious. Women do not need men in the way the used to in the 1950's. In regards to the out of wedlock births, there are abortions and contraception it is 2017, The religious reasons for not aborting or using contraception are just non-sense.
And as a male, I've seen bad marriages ending in divorce bring men to their knees, primarily financial.
6
So two incomes instead of one is cost prohibitive?
1
I am a single mother with a college degree. I would like to marry again but the tax implications make it more expensive for me to marry the man I live with. Tax policy benefits an unequal wage structure in a relationship. If one of us made far more than the other then we would get a tax benefit. We make nearly the same annual salary and would, therefore, pay more tax to be married. Additionally, if I marry my boyfriend my student loan payments would increase significantly.
12
The complete injustices and imbalance in the family court system is causing many men to not propose to begin with.
And that is the opposite of what the author is attempting to portray; that women are the ones choosing not to marry.
1
Our federal government punishes married people. That's long been true and well-known for poor people who need help buying food or paying for childcare. On one income, they can get it -- on two they cannot. Obamacare exacerbated this reality by tying free or subsidized healthcare to income, with little allowance for a second adult. Marriage will means losing Medicaid and discounted private insurance. It's a loser if you want these things. I also have a friend who can't get married because his student loan payments would double; his girlfriend has no debt but an income similar to his.
In all the talk and push toward marriage equality for same-sex couples, America has made marriage a privilege for the upper classes by design.
10
I still don't get why poor women won't marry men because they can't provide or contribute economically, but they go ahead and have children as if that is a less burdensome commitment. The article doesn't explain why. If a woman is smart enough to stay away from one bad deal, why does she engage in another sometimes giving birth to more than one child out of wedlock? Why do we even make it possible for this to occur when we know such children are doomed to almost certain poverty? When people were materially poorer with just one car, smaller homes, and less money to spend on carry out they had higher marriage rates, so the cultural explanation for less marriage makes more sense. That plus the fact that government handouts to poor single moms may have sadly replaced the ever more unnecessary poor, male. While more education could be the answer, the reality is that even among the middle class not everyone is capable of finishing college. Thus we are left with few options: start making pregnancy out of wedlock taboo as it once was, start offering monetary incentives to poor women of reproductive age who do not have children, start paying low level workers a living wage now that illegal immigration is waning.
2
I have to disagree with the writer thoughts here- she describes the symptoms but not the cause- the unstated cause being people prefer to be irresponsible due to their moral and intellectual laziness, reinforced by Government promises to provide assistance of all sorts as long as you remain unmarried.
Marriage is both a symbol of willing responsibility to each other (doing what it takes to make it work), as well as for your children, and, a willingness to obey God who instituted marriage (only between one man and one woman BTW), to begin with.
“Women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything,” ....
My anecdotal observations suggest the reverse is true as well. Men, even well educated successful men, don't want to take a risk on somebody who won't provide anything. A comparison of one-income households 1970 vs today might provide further insight. Bottom line: it takes two incomes to have the standard of living one income provided 30 years ago.
11
Yes, this WAS news twenty or thirty years ago or more. That's when Daniel Moynihan realized that WELFARE had made it so that many women couldn't afford to get married. Then they'd lose their welfare money.
If we simply stopped luring people here from other countries that will work for less, these so-called unemployable American men would suddenly be employed. And their wages would be higher than a comparable job pays now. Supply and demand, you know.
5
There have been multiple theories published about he state of marriage. There was a recent book called the Dream Hoarders that comes to mind when reading the article.
For most upper middle and upper class single women what incentive is there to marry only to see your personal fortunes or savings dwindle while supporting kids and a husband?. No one wants to regress economically. It takes a lot more resources to raise mentally balanced and capapble children today than it did in the 50s, 60s or whatever idealic mid 20 century setting being regurgitated by the current administration.
9
The kinds of obligations people are willing to get into is to some extent driven by what they have to go through to get out... if it turns out to be a mistake. The legal system has provided enormous support for the gold digger wife -- who is more interested in what she can grab on the way out than any commitment to a relationship. The drive to pair up and have kids is built into our biology. The drive to steal everything on the way out and leave the other spouse with years of crippling debt is not. What is sad is that this is expected.
1
The only gold-digger in my marriage was my ex-husband. Nah, that NEVER happens.
So many bitter men who think if they make even a penny more than their wives, they should be catered to and control the money and not do housework. Count me out.
I supervise a bunch of men. That has killed any desire to be around one in my free time.
4
In Iran, cultural values absolutely prohibit a child out of wedlock. But the norm,
as far as the stability of a family goes, follows the findings of the studies reported here. The woman's family 'give' their daughter to a man who has a
college degree; i.e. social status, as well as a good income.
1
What a drag it must be to live in such a country, where basic life-choices are totally controlled by the Morality Police.
1
Any woman who would knowingly raise a child (or children) out of wedlock and alone and presumably knowing the economic hardships that would come with that decision, is openly saying how little she cares about her children and those who will ultimately bear the burden of her decision.
5
When college is an out of reach dream whether because you lack the financial capabilities or willingness to listen to underpaid adjuncts or grad students talk at you for 90 minutes and your job is unfulfilling and underpaying, you look to other sources to make a meaningful life. My sister had a baby at 19. I can't pretend to know her reasons why, but if I had to guess it's probably because my mom kicked her out of the house and she had no financial support, didn't like her job, and wanted something worth living for. She works two low paying jobs to support her son as a single parent.
Her life is much harder than mine. I went to college and grad school, have a full time, decent paying job with benefits, and am getting married soon and have no children yet. We have enough money to pay for a wedding and honeymoon.
I'm not better than my sister. She's a loving person who does her best. She's probably never going to get married. Why would she add another liability to her life? If we're going to keep automating away people's jobs, we're going to have to find another way to give them meaningful life experiences if we don't want to keep supporting their kids through welfare.
159
"My sister had a baby at 19. I can't pretend to know her reasons why, but if I had to guess it's probably because my mom kicked her out of the house and she had no financial support, didn't like her job, and wanted something worth living for. "
Yep. Many, maybe most of the commenters here don't get this simple, clear fact. People have to have meaning. And meaning is hard to find in a culture that values health above all else when one is stuck in poverty.
Yep. Many, maybe most of the commenters here don't get this simple, clear fact. People have to have meaning. And meaning is hard to find in a culture that values health above all else when one is stuck in poverty.
6
Wait a minute here-- some of my BEST college instructors were underpaid adjuncts!
1
You are better than your sister. You decide to make mature, adult decisions and she is struggling for her immaturity.
Economic stability is important. While I was building my own business 40 years ago, I avoided any serious relationships until I felt comfortable with my ability to support more people than myself. As a result, I was 40 before marrying. I was not about to struggle just to have a serious relationship. I am encouraged by seeing that thinking today. Too many divorces because of faulty financial planning.
1
Single people would have more resources to marry if they weren't forced to subsidize those who are already married. Spousal benefits through work discriminate against single employees, as do Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax breaks (yes, there is more of a marriage bonus than a marriage penalty), plus marital discounts for all sorts of insurance and gym memberships.
It's funny how neoliberals buy the argument that rent control restricts supply of rental units but balk at admitting that married people hoard resources in a way that hurts other people's chances at marriage.
8
I've read through a lot of these comments, and not one so far has mentioned love. Love is the reason to get married and to have (or adopt) children and extend that love to them. Love is a driving force behind the desire to work, so we can help support those we love. And to build a strong community in which our loved ones can grow and prosper and find happiness. It all starts with love. Doesn't anyone take love seriously anymore?
14
Oh, Jay, so well said. I was thinking the same thing. I didn't marry until I was 35. I wasn't waiting for a good provider or until I paid off my student loans. I was waiting for love. We'll celebrate 23 years of bliss in January.
2
If only. I am with Tina Turner on this one. "Love" messes up a lot of things. Less romanticism is not a bad thing.
Privileged??? Any couple can be married, they can not have children unless they are prepared to be parents, they can be true to each other. There is no privilege, but rather commitment and rational decision making. How biased is the NYT that they would even consider it a privilege.
13
Everyone of sound mind 18 and over has the "privilege" to marry. Whether we choose to do so is a completely different matter. This is not "privilege". There are certain aid benefit advantages to being single if you're poor, however. That says to me it's a matter of economic choice, at least in part.
10
I immediately thought this article would be "politically correct" given the use of "privilege" in the first sentence.
"Marriage, which used to be the default way to form a family in the United States, regardless of income or education, has become yet another part of American life reserved for those who are most privileged."
But now I realize the article is just a little off-base. Marriage isn't really for the economically privileged as much as it is a way (shared costs, support, etc.) to become economically privileged. But you have to bring something to the party to get started. Men without jobs -- who aren't willing to move or get an education so they can get a job -- aren't going to bring much.
22
Come now it is a way to improve yourself, you don't earn a privilege, you just get it for free. Typical progressive thinking, half right then goes into la la land.
3
Marriage has certain economic advantages that only really matter if you are wealthy. For example, all assets inherited by a spouse (as long as they are a US citizen) are given a stepped up basis. In other words, no capital gains tax on assets that may have appreciated significantly. If you don't have assets this does not mean much. If you do have assets you get married.
2
How stupid, two paychecks is a massive advantage, not to mention having a reliable partner in life. Priceless. And if we eliminate the death tax this will also go away.
5
The "death tax" only affects the super wealthy which is a very small minority of the US population. Almost no one reading the NY Times would be affected by this change in the tax code if it were to come to pass.
3
This is unfortunate for so many reasons, but the bluntest is economic: a stable marriage is a wealth builder. In other words, those who are least likely to get married would benefit the most from it.
On the middle class front there is, also, a good deal of discussion among millennial men, and there are books to back it up, that there is no reason for men to get married anymore. Many refer to is as "taking the red pill" (a reference to The Matrix) but meaning that are seeing through the societal narrative that being a man requires home ownership, a spouse, children etc. And sex is pretty easy to find these days. I am in my 29th year of marriage, and the times they are a changing.
13
I sympathize with your disappointment
I am a single father with assets that will certainly become the property of my only child. I have told my daughter many times to never get married because it's too dangerous, both financially and from a life planning standpoint. Once you're married, how do you take jobs in Paris or Shanghai or wherever life might take you. It's super restrictive. You can do anything you want without a spouse. In fact, having a spouse might endanger your dreams. Marriage is archaic.
8
How do you take jobs in Paris or Shanghai or wherever life might take you?
With your spouse coming along, maybe?
Or maybe there would be something more important to your daughter than her career.
Please don't project your personal experience -- whether it involved the breakup of a marriage or your daughter's mother not being interested in committing to you both or if you hired a surrogate to bear a child because you wanted offspring but not a wife -- onto your daughter. Maybe living in Shanghai would be less important to her than having a life partner by her side.
1
I think you are referring to having a kid, not just marriage. They can be two separate events sometimes.
Assortative mating explains a lot. As advanced degree graduates, my wife and I had already proved some capability before we married. We discussed money, kids, careers, and planning for retirement before we married. So did our children, nieces nephews and cousins. It worked out for us over 36 years.
16
In the short-stay correctional facility where I teach GED subjects the average age of our male and female residents is 26. Almost all of them are parents, very few are married or even divorced. I would estimate less than 15 % are married. A third of all intakes do not have a high school credential. Most do not have stable employment and even if they weren't trapped in the jail-parole-probation-relapse-jail cycle, with felony records, they would have, at best, marginal jobs at minimum wage.
It has not been unsual, in the twelve years I've been here, to have had two and in some cases three generations of one family come though the agency.
You can blame the economy, obviously, for some of this, but I also fault poor parentling and poor decisions and a public school system which places higher value on a winning football team record than on the number of graduates who are truley college, or for that matter, workplace ready. (In all honesty, Ohio is trying to adress these issues but progress is slow.)
Here's one final fact that has bothered me for some time: Many of our GED candidates (about half end up getting the new '2014' credential) outperform their H S credentialed (diploma) residents on standard, timed assessments with higher grade equivilancies.
Something is badly broken, and it was broken long before Trump came along. Not that it appears to be getting any better.
38
But during the Depression, poor people still got married.
Mr Shultz, as you know our Education system is broken. I am 65 yo. I graduated in 1970 canton Illinois, which is by little Chicago, Peoria. I promised myself I would. I was the 1st, did my mother care no. But I did. I heard iin the radio in 1974 that 70% of the graduating class in Peora area was illiterate, could not read or write. I thought how can that be. Fast forward Colorado 2012 I believe. An article was written in the Denver Post, 70% of the graduating class could not read or write. I thought almost 40 yrs and nothing has changed. What are we going to do. They would rather throw them in jail use kur taxes and make money on em about 35,000 a year, than educate them, turn them into productive citizens that pay taxes, supports our social security system, builds rather than tear down.. I ask again what are we gonna do? Evenn a col.ege education was free when I was growing up, now it's out of reach and yet we will pay for a foreigner, rather than our own american children to go to College. Its 25,000 a year now..
1
“The rich get richer and the poor get - children.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"
30
How interesting that this article comes out as we have learned of Kylie Kardashian's pregnancy.
Don't laugh - she is perhaps the most visible young woman in the country without a formal education who has been seeing her boyfriend for only a few months. Press releases say that "the couple has no plans to marry". Young women look up to Kylie as beautiful and independent, and young men see in Kylie's boyfriend the perhaps ideal situation of fatherhood without commitment or responsibility.
Whether you like it or not, these are the role models now for uneducated people. I am not hopeful for change any time soon.
172
Role models for those without parents and family as their role models. It has nothing to do with education, at least not formal school education.
4
The Kardashians represent the trailer park culture. All of them. Mug mouths, horrid judgement. Absolutely no one should want to emulate those deplorable people.
1
and what about enlightened people who don't want kids because they see there are already far too many people on our groaning earth, and therefore, no kids, no need to get married. I have talked to quite a few 20-30 year olds who have no interest in having kids - also see the entire nation of Japan. We got enough humans. We don't need any more, if you have a choice.
27
DO you even see how this view -- that there are enough kids already, so why have any? -- is emblematic of your economic and social class? Do you really think there are many unemployed males who subscribe to this point of view?
1
I think the point is that if you're going to have children, a two-parent family is the most stable and can provide the most resources; the overwhelmining majority of children living in poverty live in single-parent arrangements.
The other takeaway here is that people who get a degree, get a job, get married and (maybe) get pregnant--in that order--plan their lives and futures a little more carefully: good for everyone.
1
yeah, a lot of young male Japanese, a lot of young male americans, a lot of young male europeans, You cannot be conscious today and not see the effects of overpopulation on the earth. Yes, perhaps in some cultures the prescription to have children is paramount, but that does not stop the rest of us from saying no more, no more, let the earth breathe.
2
I somewhat concur with Mr. Wilcox's suggestion that a bigger emphasis in high schools and pop culture on what’s known as the success sequence: degree, job, marriage, baby...if people follow that sequence, their odds of landing in poverty are much lower.” Most cultures tend to follow these trend, but I think that the economic status dictates the success rates of those people that get married and stay happily married. Cultural background may also bolster Mr. Wilcox's theory...however, most couples in today's society break apart or choose not to get married due to certain factors, such as, insecurities, trust, faith..etc. Oprah Winfrey is an example; she is rich, powerful, and choose to be single. In her case, maybe she hasn't found a man that is suitable or marriageable.
1
"..Equally unhelpful in terms of addressing the income and wealth inequality are those who emphasize various non-tax factors. Issues such as globalization, free trade, unionization, corporate outsourcing, minimum wage laws, single parents, problems with our education system and infrastructure can increase the income and wealth inequality. However, these are extremely minor when compared to the shift of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. It is the compounding year after year of the effect of the shift away from taxes on capital income such as dividends over time as the rich get proverbially richer which is the prime generator of inequality..."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1543642
9
As a teen, my crucial reason for wanting a career was so that money would never be a factor in marriage, only love.
Recently I remembered that impossible idealism. I hadn't thought of it in decades. The rueful smile one might expect, of course, but no disappointment.
I did not change, because I did not want to change and chose not to change, but society surely has. I still don't see how a person's most intimate relationship can be built on anything less, when you consider what life can bring. Certainly money is very, very important. Yet to make money the deciding criterion seems even riskier than being broke.
10
As girls, we used to ask each other, will you marry for love, or money? I never thought they had to be mutually exclusive, and often heard, "it's as easy to love a rich man as a poor one."
As it turned out, I didn't marry for money--but the benefits of a spouse who brings education, the ability to self-regulate, and the ability to take the long view have made a big difference in our marriage, our savings, and in the lives of our children. Money is never the sole criterion--unless you're, you know, a Trump--but when it makes the difference between having braces, piano lessons, and college for your children, or not having them--money wins, hands-down.
7
I think the perceptions of marriage have changed over time for women of all ages. I have a 77-year-old female friend who was widowed 3 years ago. She plays tennis and is very active in groups and gets a lot of interest from men her age, but says of men "they're just looking for a nurse and a purse." I'm a lot younger, but I cannot disagree with her.
96
At her age they probably are, but the same can be said about widows who are just looking for someone to support them. The elderly have no reason to be married again.
1
Sometimes when marrying later in life you find that your spouse is "married" to their job first.
Entrepreneurs who have started companies and met with some measure of success are loathe to leave their first mistress unattended.
A family that comes along later in life will have stiff competition for time.
That person is involved with their business in a way those on the outside have a difficulty in comprehending. Especially if they built it alone from nothing.
When a spouse criticizes them with "That business is more important to you than my children", that spouse would be correct.
If one is in a relationship with mutual respect and love, and neither desire children, why marry?
Especially if you have multiple divorces between the two of you.
5
I can only speak for myself in this matter. I graduated from college in 1976 with no debt but with no prospects either. As such, I was not a very desirable catch, as most of the desirable women I met dated up. I was 35 before I finally found decent employment and got my finances in reasonable order. But then, I was too settled in my ways to start a family, although I was able to date successfully.
If I had gotten a decent job out of college, I probably would have bought a house and gotten married. It was my economic state that caused the postponement.
17
The best path to stability is waiting to start a family until you are financially stable and have a committed partner who is the same. There are no short cuts.
31
In the state of Maryland, you are required to live completely apart for a year before you can even think of filing for divorce (minus factors like conviction for a crime). I know many upper middle income people who do not go through with a divorce because they can't afford to set up two completely new households around here, especially if things are contested and one spouse demands that things remain exactly as they are, living situation wise.
I'm in that exact situation. If I could afford it, the stats for my income level would tick downward.
6
Let's not forget another incredibly important piece of the puzzle: paying off huge student loan debt. Particularly for millennials (like myself), having excess student loan debt has led to putting off things like marriage, home ownership and parenthood.
63
You think your great grandparents or their age cohorts didn't have financial problems during the Depression? But they got married anyway. Because they fell in love and were willing to give and bond with another human being.
2
Good point. Gee, I wonder how public and private college administrators think about the long term impact of tuition increases and their evil twin student loan debt increases when deciding to add yoga rooms to dorms, replacing fried food with ethnic nights and kale in the student cafeterias, or paying HRC 100k and more for on campus speaking fees.
1
Those contemplating marriage and man many changes it can involve would be well served to objectively review the pros and cons, then if still entertain the idea draw up a pre nup and keep it up to date. Half of those who do elect to enter into this union divorce.
But a pre nup is not always effective.
I often read that women turning down men they find unsuitable is the cause of this phenomenon, but I have never seen a study about how often these less-desired men offer marriage but are rejected. I have my doubts that in fact poor and working class men ask a lot of women to marry them.
35
Once upon a time, a handsome prince met a beautiful princess and he asked her to marry him. She said, "NO!"
So he went golfing every weekend, stayed out late with friends, always had plenty of money in the bank, decorated his house as he liked it, slept with lots of other beautiful princesses... and lived happily ever after. The end.
Read "Men on Strike" by Dr. Helen Smith. I am in agreement with your post. Usually women saying "I haven't found the right guy" is code for "no one has asked."
1
Dave,
The situation you describe with the prince is not common on this plane of reality.
As to your claim that "Usually women saying "I haven't found the right guy" is code for "no one has asked me": it seems ... unobservant.
3
In my experience, marriage is about law and property.
I had been with my partner for 25 years. For a long time we didn't "need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping us tied and true". We stayed with each other and we continue to stay with each other because we want to. (Let's put aside the fact that for most of our relationship marriage was illegal for us.)
But when we had a house with equity and sizable savings and retirement accounts, it was time to get married. It was instant legal protection. When I die, he'll get pretty much everything, and vice versa. If we didn't have stuf, we wouldn't have done it.
If you want people to get married, make it easier for them to accumulate property. Make sure that getting food, shelter, education or job training and health care doesn't make a person destitute.
32
"If you want marriage..." Who wants marriage?? Our GOP policy makers emphatically say they do, to benefit children. Yet they ignore social science research that supports most of the arguments raised in this column, which have been out there and discussed often in the past. Much better to have the marriage rate decline so they can play to a base that demonizes those who don't subscribe... or simply cannot subscribe... to their religious values. What to do when marriage declines to the point that they have no base?
It is unlikely that what we know as marriage developed before agriculture. I suspect it has always been about property. Illegitimate children could not inherit... Marriage is about maintaining stability. It doesn't grant it to those who are unstable economically, socially, politically.
3
"It is unlikely that what we know as marriage developed before agriculture. I suspect it has always been about property. Illegitimate children could not inherit... Marriage is about maintaining stability. It doesn't grant it to those who are unstable economically, socially, politically. "
Utterly correct. In most societies, until the modern era, marriage was a contract between upper class families to establish alliances, secure wealth, and distribute property. Among the lower classes it was an afterthought, if it existed at all. Love was nice when it occurred, but it was not usually part of the deal. At the moment, we need to recognize that after three hundred years or so of modernism, we simply do not have a society that facilitates marriage as a universal default. Then we can decide what to do,
Utterly correct. In most societies, until the modern era, marriage was a contract between upper class families to establish alliances, secure wealth, and distribute property. Among the lower classes it was an afterthought, if it existed at all. Love was nice when it occurred, but it was not usually part of the deal. At the moment, we need to recognize that after three hundred years or so of modernism, we simply do not have a society that facilitates marriage as a universal default. Then we can decide what to do,
4
"While researchers say it’s stability, not a marriage license, that matters for children, American couples who live together but don’t marry are generally less likely to stay committed." It is still the family that provides the long-term stability that children need and any other arrangement leads to more problems in the long-run. Choices have consequences, and the "me" generation will come to regret the lack of commitment and stability in their lives.
8
Wait -- isn't the "me" generation in their 70s at this point? When is this regret going to take place?
1
I'm surprised this article didn't touch on the prohibitive costs of traditional weddings, which alone renders the marriage question a nonstarter for couples that want to marry as much for the ceremony as for the institution itself. In New York, at least, weddings can easily cost more than the city's median annual household income of $50K.
3
You are confusing the cost of a lavish wedding ceremony and reception with the cost of mmgetting married. The two are not the same. My wife and I spent about $4,000 on our wedding all paid fir without any borrowing or parental contribution. We laugh about couples who spend a fortune on their wedding and go into debt. You can actually get married for much less than we spend. There is no correlation between the sum spent on s wedding and the happiness or longevity of the marriage. One researcher found a slightly negative correlation. I think it's because people who spend a fortune on their wedding are focused on impressing others, or else they fight about the sent they've incurred after the wedding.
30
We got married in NY for the cost of a license, a judge and a brunch for a dozen. Cost? Maybe $200. The value all these years later? Priceless, as they say.
148
You don't need a fancy wedding, it can be very cheap.
6
"Less educated people are more likely to move in with boyfriends or girlfriends in a matter of months" and of course are more likely to have children. But apparently theyre less likely to get formally married. But that seems like a minor detail more than anything else. In my experience, the traditional family is more prominent at the less educated, lower income end of the spectrum. It takes a good deal of privelege to have the luxury of going it alone.
6
In my never humble opinion, I would say that less-educated people are more traditional BECAUSE they are less-educated. Moreover, I will add that my argument is not an example of the Post Hoc fallacy, because rejection of the traditionalist claim that they are "Right-Because-We-Say-So" is exactly the mindset which should distinguish an educated person from a yokel. Conservatives do not value education. What Conservatives value is indoctrination into their hand-me-down ideology.
1
Would be fascinating to see a study of gay marriages where the gender norms of old are not mixed up in the emotional and financial issues. I've seen young, working class women in my family say no to marriage because they just don't see anything in it for them - no better financial stability, but giving away more self-determination.
4
The premise of this piece is that marriage "is reserved for those who are most privileged." While it does a good job of documenting the underlying statistics, it also stratifies people into arbitrary class groups without critical adjustments, such as how they got there.
For example, many with a college degree come out of school with crushing debts. They will have to work long and hard to be truly "middle-class" as this piece uses only income measures but doesn't consider debt levels and net incomes. In other words, many with a college degree are improperly classified, as are many who don't have a degree but are aspirational and well on their ways toward a more "privileged" status.
Calling it "privilege" implies, wrongly that people considering marriage walked a straight line from their parents' middle-class homes right into the same status. This article doesn't tell us much we didn't already know, whether intuitively or by doing some of the same basic research. Implying that the privilege of marriage can be so easily understood starts from a fallacious assumption.
15
In Red State America there is now almost complete acceptance of teen pregnancy and birth. My sister and her husband moved to a college town in the rural south. They are well educated (one is a professor, the other a teacher) and are in the upper middle class. But their kids went to the local public schools and absorbed the "values of the region". This lead to one child getting pregnant at 16 and dropping out of high school. Everyone else in their school was doing it so why not them?
My kids go to an upper middle class school in CA. I have no doubt that some teens at their school are having sex, but there are no teen mothers and all kids go on to college. The power of culture and societal norms is incredibly strong.
I have no idea how to change the Red States.
My sister sent her other kids to boarding school in deep Blue New England.
283
The deep red states do not provide the same education about birth control, for example, that New England states do. Instead, they discuss sin, the religious and moral aspects of abstinence and the fire and brimstone that goes along with it. I'm not ridiculing it - just pointing out a fact. You are so right about the cultural aspects and it's why the deep South remains firmly mired, as well, in more poverty and less opportunity. It's as if we are many different countries when it comes to doing right by our children, in particular.
22
Birth control or an abortion is also much easier to attain when your parents are upper middle class and can afford to provide those things.
Pregnancy rates may in fact be the same across the board, the lack of access to birth control, the inability to pay for an abortion or the lack of another attainable goal on the horizon (college) could be the true deciding factor in resulting birth rates.
5
Yes, birth control and abortion are both more accessible in blue states. But more than just having these things available is the complete cultural acceptance of teen mothers. It will condemn the mom and the kids to a life of poverty, but that is not part of the discussion in Red State America. If BC and abortion were available would they be utilized? I would hope so but in this case they were not. The point I was trying to make is that even when you have parents who would pay for birth control and would pay for an abortion teens choose unprotected sex and teen motherhood, because that is the cultural norm in rural Red state America.
Those of us in the upper middle class Blue states live on a different planet. It is not just the availability of birth control.
8
Marriage has reverted back to what it was originally intended to be.
A social contract that involved keeping all of the money and riches in the right families or dynasties. It wasn't designed for the peonage.
42
To that I would add: Marriage was and continues to be orchestrated by the church to maintain its control over both the couple and their offspring, regardless of socio-economic status (although the poor and working class are far easier for them to control).
Marriage is EXTREMELY important to religious organizations as a means of perpetuating their message, and they don't hesitate for an instant to meddle in parishioners' marriages when they sense danger. Getting marriage advice from a Catholic priest is, of course, ludicrous on its face, but that has never stopped them.
Religious people and those who come from religious families tend to get married in far larger numbers than those who don't attend any form of house of worship or come from secular families.
6
I'm 68 and know lots and lots of middle and upper middle class married couples.
Here's how many seem happy: Maybe 20%.
Here's how many seem 'resigned to their fate' and have a difficult time imagining splitting assets and starting over alone or with someone new (ie. the marriage is being held together by inertia): More than half.
Here's how many are cheating on their mates (to my knowledge): More than half.
Here's how many often bicker in public (and I assume in private): About half.
People with decent incomes, a house, offspring, and savings tend to stay together because their standard of living would drop dramatically if they separated and had to split up their assets.
People also get married for the other partner's health insurance, or to have two Social Security checks coming in so they don't have to dumpster dive for food.
These types of surveys and articles don't take nearly enough factors into consideration, and come off sounding like a planted establishment plea for marriage to try to stabilize the society.
247
I'm older than you and when I was coming up, divorce was a rarity. But I would guess that at least half, if not more, of all long term couples were living in a state that would better be described as holy deadlock rather than holy wedlock.
Back in the day, women stayed in unhappy marriages because divorce was so stigmatized and because so many women were financially dependent on their husbands. Everybody knew of couples who stayed together "for the sake of the children" and as soon as the kids were grown, one spouse (usually the husband) bailed for greener pastures.
When I and my friends were in college, our mothers advised us to have a career to fall back on "just in case". All of us did, and out of all our marriages, only two lasted for more than five years. I've often wondered if there was a connection: knowing we weren't financially dependent gave us much less incentive than try to work through the difficulties that beset so many marriages. It was easier to just call it quits.
24
I'm in my early 50s. As a kid, it seemed like most of my parents friends didn't like their spouses very much. They didn't seem to enjoy each others company, they didn't do things together. A few seemed content, most seemed resigned.
I noticed that they socialized by sex, men and women in separate groups. They apparently dated the same way, one always went out with a date and then socialized separated by sex. Couples only spent time together on dates. It made me think they all married people they didn't know very well.
It used to confound my father that my girlfriends and I would go out together without dates or that I could go to a baseball game in a mixed-sex group, and not be dating one of guys.
Among my married friends, almost all seem happily married. The few who got divorced are happily remarried. Most didn't marry until their late 20s. And we all always socialized in mixed groups. There was no concept of needing a date to go anywhere. We all had and have friends of the opposite sex and socialize with members of the opposite sex.
I feel like my parents generation socialized and paired off in a very artificial environment. My friends and I got to know people of both sexes. We spent much more time with our spouses before getting married and I think we all knew our spouses much better before we got married. If you marry someone you don't know well, chances are much better that you'll end up unhappy and divorced.
7
Those people also likely did not invest in their marriage over the years and are now paying the price.
Good marriages don't happen, they take a lot of work. It's easy to sit at home every day after work, buy selfishly, and watch football all weekend. It takes more work to budget, take trips, and live a life worth living.
Single women are more educated-interested in pursuing careers. Marriage is not a mark of privilege, but a patriarchal viewpoint not shared by the 50% of the unmarried US population-incidentally 1/2 of the population.
30
For the poor and working class, marriage isn't necessarily a wise choice. Marrying a guy who's unemployed or underemployed is one reason marriage rates may have declined. But if the man is making somewhat more than the bare minimum, marrying him might mean that your kids will lose free or subsidized health benefits. Single-payer, universal health insurance could change these stats.
70
This article touches only briefly on what I believe is a critical factor in the decline in marriage rates for lesser educated individuals: the disruption to traditional gender roles that has resulted from the erosion in real wages for men with a high school education or less. I have read that highly educated men (successful in their own careers) tend to be less threatened by wives with equal or even greater career achievement. Lesser educated men who are suffering from such significant employment problems, tend to feel more threatened by women whose earnings exceed theirs. It's probably the case (although I have not read this), that women too continue to internalize traditional gender roles and so are reluctant to "take on" a spouse who may suffer with employment problems indefinitely. This is NOT due to their unwillingness to support and nurture, nor is it due to their desire to marry for money; instead, it is their lack of comfort with marital relationships that would be so different from what their communities have experienced historically.
As for policy prescriptions - fertility delay alone won't do it. We need more support for those working in lower paid occupations. Unions used to help but they have nearly disappeared. There has to be good reason to delay kids.
Is it any surprise that this group voted heavily for Trump - a guy's guy, a "real" man who asserts his manhood brazenly, and promised (falsely) a return to the "old days?"
20
I wouldn't want to marry a man who would be threatened or emasculated or resentful because I have a good career or because I make more money than him. I want a partner, not a competitor. I think a lot of women feel the same way. So they divorce or never marry a man who resents their success or earnings.
I know a male plumber who is happily married to a female PhD. He's proud of her academic accomplishments, not threatened by therm. I know a blue collar gut whose wife has an associates degree and wants a bachelor's degree. Once she gets the bachelor's degree, they'll make about the same amount. He wants her to get the degree because it's what she wants. He wouldn't care if she ended up making more money than him, he sees it as a good thing to have more money coming into the household.
If either of those men felt diminished by their wives' success or earning power, those wouldn't be happy marriages.
If men are going to behave like children and can't appreciate and support women's successes, they can't expect those women to marry them.
224
Retired executive and lawyer here. Married a carpenter the second time around. Those years before he died were my happiest ever. Pretty sure he felt the same.
13
The Tax code has rewarded people for staying single is as much to do with it as anything else.
7
Not true. For a couple with a large difference in (a working class) salary, taxes will be less if married. For couple with equal salaries (and taking the standard deduction) taxes will be about the same if married or not. There are also additional credits for married couples (e.g. child care credit is higher for a couple).
10
Exactly. My spouse and I get pushed into a higher tax bracket by virtue of being married.
The tax code encourages marriage.
1
There is also another cultural aspect to consider: women expected less in past generations. Every guy I know is divorced or separated. As a single guy and a professional why would I want that? Divorce is having all the responsibilities without the benefits.
5
Every guy you know is divorced or separated? I'm surprised, given that divorce rates are considerably lower now than they were in the mid 1970s. Marriages tend to fail way less often than cohabiting ones. Divorce rates are not high now, by historical standards, except in comparison to the 1950s.
21
Joan, I'd like to know where you're getting your stats from.
First marriages have about a 60% divorce rate now. People that have been married over 20 years are now commonly ending in divorce. The demographers haven't really given a logical reason for it.
First marriages have about a 60% divorce rate now. People that have been married over 20 years are now commonly ending in divorce. The demographers haven't really given a logical reason for it.
I find some of the article's assertions rather odd.
Firstly, it tries to pretend that people don't get married across class lines. While it may be true for old money East Coast families, I assure you, the class distance between most college educated professionals and non-college educated people is not that deep.
Secondly, the article kinda walks itself into a nice self contradiction: apparently, the said "working class" women, whatever that means, don't find their partners undesirable enough not to move in or not to have kids with - it's tying the know they have trouble with. Which begs a question: how does living together, having kids together, but not getting married, makes life more financially secure?
Thirdly, if it is labour market that makes men not "marriageable", then how come women still essentially start families with men?
I think this gets kinda ridiculous at this point. It looks like there are good explanations for some pieces of the puzzle, but the bigger picture is still elusive.
10
There is quality research in this field that establishes clear links between the employment prospects of men and marriage rates. Not coincidentally, overall marriage rates fall during economic downturns, suggesting this link.
Also, it is not the case that there is a ton of "mixing" across educational attainment levels. In other words, there are relatively few couples in which one spouse has a college degree an the other stopped schooling after graduating from high school.
Finally, while to the outsider, cohabiting with kids may appear to be identical to being married with kids - it is NOT the same relationship. Without the marriage contract, these relationships dissolve more easily and more frequently. Housing arrangements for the individuals involved change more frequently. The children experience less stable home lives and change schools more often and tend to attend lower quality schools. Indeed, other things the same, higher educated individuals tend to get married while lesser educated individuals tend NOT to marry. Being married is associated with lots of positive outcomes, most of which elude those who choose the cohabitation route. But for sure - this is all SO COMPLICATED and filled with nuance. The article focuses more on describing the current situation than offering solutions, primarily because solutions are tough to come by.
27
Here in Silicon Valley people are too busy working to even think about dating much less, marriage. Only about 10-15% of engineers will ever get into management and a long term career in software, because software companies champion "flat hierarchies". To be firmly established "in the next rung of the ladder" is something that happens about age 35.
That's about the same time one might have the resources to buy a starter home [currently about $1M] in Silicon Valley. Any potential spouse is likely to be someone from your work environment, and that's reinforced by the need to have two large engineering salaries to qualify for a modest starter house mortgage.
Wrapped around this are the complications of stating a family after 35. If couples work at different companies, there are issues with talking about work. Working for a Tech company is almost like having a security clearance. You can't say anything about your job or what you are working on, even to your spouse.If you ca't "share" your life, that's one less motivation to marry.
11
Why are you there...?
Two things most people need in life are a job (a good job), and someone they can trust.
58
Well-said. Trust is earned and people can lose their jobs, or become ill, but stay together because they are truly committed to having each others' backs. Life is never a straight line, be you monied or not, and it's your partner's trust, and your appreciation of it, that motivates doing what it takes to make a bad situation better.
17
My theory is that overall, it's women that have changed. In my mother's day, a woman was dependant totally on a husband. He earning potential was limited, so she "needed" a man to reach some level of security. Now, women are providing that to themselves, so it's not as necessary to marry the first guy who comes along. Delaying marriage also makes people more set in their ways and less adaptable.. a lot of marriage is give and take, constant compromise, younger generations aren't used to that the way their parents were. So that leads to dissatisfaction and divorce. It really goes back to women though. I doubt my grandmother was super satisfied in her marriage but what could she do? Leaving would mean poverty and public shame. Women now don't have to stick in bad situations. So they don't. End of story.
146
But the evidence and the article contradict this notion that delaying marriage makes one LESS likely to marry. Higher educated individuals tend to delay marriage - in the 1960s, the median age at first marriage for women was about 20 years; now that median age at first marriage for women is about 27. These women marrying are more educated and thus, more independent, yet they are MORE likely to marry than their lesser educated counterparts. And once these higher educated women marry, they are LESS likely to divorce than those with less education.
14
In our mother's day, a woman who dated too many men got a bad reputation. That bad reputation would shame her family and hurt her dating and marriage prospects. So I think there was pressure to marry before you'd dated too much, even if he wasn't the love of your life.
2
The most interesting statement in the article for me was:
"In 1970, about 82 percent of adults were married, and in 1990, about two-thirds were, with little difference based on class and education."
In particular, the clause "with little difference based on class and education"
convinces me that culture is a much stronger influence than economics.
There is perhaps a sub-culture of more-educated and a sub-culture of the less-educated, with the more-educated sub-culture having a greater 'bias' towards economic security and success.
6
In 1970 and even in 1990, the poorer half of the population had almost three times the share of net wealth that they do now. It was a small share but enough to give young adults hope that it could grow and that two (or three) could live and get ahead with hard work and shared responsibilities. Today, too many young adults have little but debt to share. That is no way to start a marriage.
29
What did poor people have to share during the Depression? But they still got married.
1
The government social net has made marriage a thing of the past. Women are 'rewarded' if you will, by bearing children without a husband, with increased assistance that would disappear should there be a wedded father in the picture--EBT, Medicaid, utility assistance, housing assistance, free school lunches and breakfasts, etc. In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birthrates for whites was 6%; for blacks, 7%. In 2014, it's 32% for whites, 54% for Latinos, 74% for blacks. Not only is there no social stigma for fatherless births any longer, now it is tacitly encouraged by the government--in trying to attenuate the hardship, it has now actively encouraged it.
Last weekend I was out in the wealthy tourist city of Deauville, in France on the English Channel. Listening to conversations, ... well, maybe they are married, but they aren't happy.
8
We spent the summer binge watching Midsomer Murders and various other British tv series, and while yes, I know it's tv, and yes, I know it's murder mysteries, still the overhwelming impression is that nobody in Britain is happily married except for the detective and his wife.
From the actual real world, many years ago we spent a perfectly awful weekend (from which we escaped, literally, by leaving early without telling anyone) at a "Marriage Encounter" weekend sponsored by our Diocese. It was billed as a way to "make a good marriage even better". The Catholic Church had a similar but separate program for the couples with "bad" marriages.
Well, trust me, if those couples we met were the good marriages, then I'd hate to see the ones with bad marriages. These people were so dysfunctional we felt like we were trapped in a marital Dante's Inferno. Maybe the decline in marriage rates has more to do with people in general feeling less moral pressure to be married and/or "make it legal", so they avoid hooking up with the wrong person just to have a socially approved status. And I say all this as a person who just celebrated 35 years of a wonderful marriage. But I waited until age 30 to marry cause it took me that long to find the right person.
Life is way too complicated to get married in your teens or 20's, and having children then only makes it worse.
2
Another clear sign that all is not well with the US economy, but will the Times stop heralding this jobless "recovery" and start reporting on the class war raging in this country.
46
Are you confusing the US with Venezuela?
A woman may need a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but it appears that she wants him to have a job with a stable income.
25
Also, he should be tall.
3
It is proven that the stability of marriage overwhelming helps people be happier over all, financially more successful, and "raise their station" in life.
.... want to be 'privileged'?
The data say: "Get married!"
23
Or are the cause and effect reversed? The article asserts that financially successful or privileged people are more likely to be happy (or at least less stressed) and to get married.
7
Or maybe there's some third factor or constellation of factors that creates both. Intelligence, a certain frame of mind and a willingness to work through difficulties may lead both to wealth and privilege and to the ability to sustain relationships such as marriage.
1
Seriously consider all the marriages you know and ask yourself how many can be viewed as "happy," in the context of, "would the two people be happier apart"?
My personal estimate is that not more than 1 in 10 marriages is "happy." Maybe closer to 1 in 20.
American society doesn't have values based on popular happiness. We have "values" based on feeding the State, placating groups that have victim status, and redistribution of wealth.
My personal estimate is that not more than 1 in 10 marriages is "happy." Maybe closer to 1 in 20.
American society doesn't have values based on popular happiness. We have "values" based on feeding the State, placating groups that have victim status, and redistribution of wealth.
I no longer remember the source of the statistic, but do remember reading that in 1960 50% of white brides were pregnant at the time of marriage. Does anyone remember the term, "shotgun wedding"?
14
Over the years I have come across several sources for that statistic. I am from Louisiana, and I distinctly remember from the state's official population reports based on the 1960 US Census that most Louisiana white women (generally teenagers) in their first marriage were already pregnant, usually about 3 months pregnant. In 1971 I was at Cornell taking a course in quantitative ecology from LaMont Cole, who was also Nixon's Ecology Advisor. Nixon had summoned him to Washington for two weeks in case his advice would be needed, and much of his free time he spent poking around the Bureau of the Census. He brought back both the raw data and the published figures for some very interesting matters. Since Ben Franklin ran the first US Census, it has been necessary to correct major errors in the raw data before publishing figures. Our final exam was entirely on a species we had not previously considered, humans. In the 1970 census as well, white women were normally pregnant when they got married.
We had to work things out mathematically, but here are some other questions from the test that some of you may wish to work out conceptually.
Why in the raw data were there more 6 year old girls than 5 year old girls in the censuses of 1940, 1950, 1960 and 1970?
Why were there more men aged 70-79 in the raw data of the 1940 census than there had been men aged 60-69 in the 1930 census?
5
I've never read the 50% statistic, but there IS research looking at the decline in so-called shotgun weddings. These days, when a woman gets pregnant prior to marriage, she is very unlikely to marry prior the child's birth. (But she is also in the education category that is associated with less marriage overall.) Back in 1960, most pre-marital pregnancies were "resolved" with marriage prior to the birth of the child. See the research coauthored by janet Yellen!
7
I think you just made that up. In fact, I know you did. You may not like marriage but it works for a good society.
“Success sequence” - last paragraph.
It’s to the “sequence” that needs to be taught. It depends on “delay of gratification.” Those who can delay gratification are able to finish education, take time to test a relationship and are more likely, I think, to hang in there when the inevitable troubles of life interfere.,
23
Actually, it has less to do with delaying gratification than the widespread use of birth control. Fewer unplanned pregnancies means fewer women having to get married and curtail their educational plans.
2
There is also the reality that the surest way to poverty is divorce. This probably has a lot to do with sharing housing expenses. Being married is also a good way to deal with the stress of rearing children. Having a mate is particularly valuable when children are sick or bring other challenges; like running away, being bullied, etc.
13
I remember reading some of the textbook for my daughter's college class Personal Finance -- when I came across this tidbit: One good way to build wealth is to marry and stay married. And here I thought it was to spend less than you earn, or to live below your means, and save. But maybe that was in there, too.
2
One of accounting professors said the same thing.
*my accounting professors.
"The cultural reinforcement, people relying on contraception and abortion, reinforces a norm, that you don’t have the kid with the wrong guy."
Yep. Don't have kids until you're ready - financially, emotionally - to support them. That's the middle class norm.
23
The biggest factor in " fixing " this: Medicare for ALL, including FREE Contraception. Abstinence Only Programs are as effective as praying for rain. And MORE of a huge waste of Money. Duh.
46
The article really tries to push a narrative with its title and lead paragraph stating that marriage, "reserved for those who are most privileged", is an option that is less available to those with lower socioeconomic circumstances. The rest of the article goes on to explain that maybe marriage just makes more sense for some more than others.
7
Men have taken the risk of (financially) unproductive wives for millennia...
One can contribute to the couple even if he or she does not work. After all, we marry for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.
Money helps, but to be a good husband or wife one does not need to have money or assets. Just love and cherish your partner and offspring.
So it is a cultural matter.
15
It may be cultural but it is not correct to "blame" the women alone. It takes two to get married and both the men and women struggle, I believe, to adapt to the new reality of more equality within the household. It is a tough transition.
5
I agree with your statement that "One can contribute to the couple even if he or she does not work." I think you mean: Work for pay. Or outside the home. Women did work -- at home, maintaining the home, preparing meals, raising the children, etc. The cost of outsourcing all these tasks is quite large. For example, I've heard recently that daycare costs for a pre-schooler are about $10,000 or more per year. So that's the economic contribution of a non-employed but still fully working spouse. Which means that that spouse is fully productive financially.
4
How do I recommend this comment a thousand times over?
Privilege? How about the result of making good decisions and being responsible?
29
Marriage is a partnership with both partners pulling their weight. The best part of being married was that in your hardest moment there is someone else to help carry your burdens and that in your partners worst moment you helped carry theirs. The most important thing my husband gives me is his full support. It's not fiscal. It's a concept that I can count on him to have my back and because of that I can be the best me I can be. He finds it very hard that I count on him more emotionally then I do fiscally. He has been taught that a males worth is tied to income. It's sad that this is something we teach because to me he is worth so much more than that. I wonder how many of the long successful and happy marriages have partners with this sam view
56
Thanks for the only comment I can relate to at all. You and your husband are lucky to have each other, and I am sure you know it.
1
You were lucky to have an emotionally supportive husband but I believe that they are not the majority.
To suggest that marriage was unrelated to income and education at any point in the past is both naive and incorrect. Even a cursory review of marriage trends in pre-industrial America makes clear that marriage was only possible if and when a man could afford to take on the fiscal responsibility of supporting a wife and children. In agricultural America, this largely meant owning land on which a wife and children were required to work in order to support the family. The industrial revolution began to change marriage patterns, but as long as women were mostly excluded from the work place, either before or after marriage, marriage favored a man who could financially support his family. Post WWII probably saw the apex of the single breadwinner and is often the reference point for many observers when describing the so-called "traditional" family. The advent of birth control and increasing levels of education for women have affected when and who people marry. Since at least the early 80's, the stagnation of wages has also made it almost a requirement that marriage be based on two incomes for most Americans. No wonder, then, that marriage favors those with the most education and highest income. Less certain is what marriage will look like in the future, but it will no doubt be different from what we recognize today.
20
Wouldn't it be the other way around--that those with the most education and highest incomes favor marriage? Yes, men with land or wealth were always a "good catch," and it's only fair to acknowledge that a woman with her own wealth or a prosperous family has never been exactly frowned upon by men--even if they refused to acknowledge that they might benefit from their wives' resources. But what of the majority of the population from roughly 1750 to 1900 who had very limited resources--small farmers, shopkeepers, factory or mill workers, etc? Though neither the man nor the woman brought much in the way of wealth to such unions, they nonetheless wed, in droves. It's naive to think that economics doesn't play a role in peoples's choices with respect to marriage, granted, but attitudes, values and a sense of norms or expectations precede and more fundamentally shape people's response to their economic situations.
5
My grandmother was born about 1900, and I remember her telling me that when she was growing up, in urban poverty, a young couple would put off marriage. Not the relationship, mind you -- they would move in with one of the other set of parents (in a tiny apartment), and maybe even have a kid or two before they were able to afford a place of their own. At which point, the priest would arrive, and the young couple would get married and move. She was letting me know that life in the 1960s was not so different from her life in the early 1900s.
6
One need only look at the temporary decline in marriage during the Great Depression to confirm Scott's comments.
1
Then please explain the decline of marriage in such economically stable countries as Germany, The Netherlands, Britain and Canada. Perhaps it is the lack of social safety nets that makes us so isolated, so unable to connect, and not the prevalence of birth control and womens rights. Both birth control and womens rights exist in abundance in Europe, so stop trying to tell women to sit down and be quiet, and instead tell the government to start to act like a real government and take care of the whole herd.
109
This study sounds like a promotion for colleges and universities. The cost of a degree can be just as offsetting as not having a degree at all. This study does not take into account the crippling debt that college students take on in their pursuit of their degrees. Students graduating these days require years to pay off the debt of earning a degree. As the many articles and news reports on this subject have shown, earning a degree is not a ticket into the middle class. That myth continues to be perpetuated and may be at the root of the economic divide in America. And while this discussion about marriage becoming a mark of privilege is taking place, there are thousands of jobs that require training, without a degree, that could provide a middle class living for workers. The unfortunate fact is that we are not training Americans for the future which, by the way, is here.
16
Class is as much a state of mind as it is an economic category. One sees that more clearly overseas, where many people we'd regard as impoverished see themselves as having middle-class values.
Poor African villagers who sacrifice everything to send daughters to school--despite not just economic privation but the actual physical dangers to young unmarried girls living in boarding schools--are thinking in the long-term.
Poor Pakistanis and Indians who sacrifice to pay for the education of their girls show more solidly middle-class values than the filthy-rich landowning class--like the Bhuttos and Zardaris--who consider Harvard-educated daughters to be valuable commodities in the further aggregation of family wealth.
It's hardly surprising when poor Americans whose growing families consist of a variety of half- and step-siblings don't do very well in life. It's not morality but brains that's lacking. Birth control is not difficult to arrange for. I managed to acquire and use it, almost fifty years ago--a variety of methods, until I found the one best suited to my lifestyle--and I only discontinued it for a well-planned pregnancy. I wasn't the most sensible kid out there, either, and have only a high school degree. My child has done better...
50
Great point. It's funny that in many developing countries the key out of poverty is education. But in the US in particular the promotion of education is a lightening rod a very divisive topic.
4
Morality too.
1
Why is there not one sentence written about why men are choosing not to marry?
Newsflash, women aren't necessarily "choosing" not to marry when in reality, they cannot get married unless the man actually asks them to do so.
24
It's not 1950 anymore, women could ask men to get married - the point is they don't want to ask because the available men are not ones that women would want to marry.
16
Actually, Jeff makes an interesting point. While it is certainly not 1950 anymore, why is the thesis regarding partner acceptability not also including the traits and characteristics that men are looking for in a woman?
6
Well, in fact, women are indeed choosing not to marry. Marriage is a mutual decision; the act of a man asking is a ritual for those compelled to go through quaint but outdated steps.
If you look at some racial and ethnic communities the lack of eligible bachelors and husbands for every hetero women is quite demoralizing. For most successful women , finding a husband who is at the same socioeconomic level that is willing to share responsibilities of child rearing and who (Better not be !!) on the ID channel is like finding the holy grail .
Good men are hard to find. In today's economy you really do need both parents working as both incomes resources are needed to raise competitive and well adjusted Children. Successful children are the end product of a successful marriage where both parents are equal partners. If your end goal is to raise a family you need to find a suitable spouse and why should women take a gamble on a husband without job prospects who ends up being another child to raise?
16
Why is it a requirement that a husband be on the "same socioeconomic level"? I think what you are really saying is, "same socioeconomic level -- or HIGHER."
Feminism did not end American women's views on hypergamy -- they still want to marry up. In many cases, WAY up.
If NYC area women are intent on marrying, they should move to an area like Alaska.... "Where the odds are good... but the goods are odd."
Feminism did not end American women's views on hypergamy -- they still want to marry up. In many cases, WAY up.
If NYC area women are intent on marrying, they should move to an area like Alaska.... "Where the odds are good... but the goods are odd."
1
Thought-provoking article, over all. But I could not disagree more with this line from the opening paragraph --marriage is "reserved for those who are most privileged." The article was discussing traditional (hetero) marriage. In that scenario, anyone of legal age can get a marriage license. No "privilege" is required.
17
There are forces in the world that for, whatever reason, would like to see the institution die. Sadly, the efforts of these forces at work seem to have been most successful among the poor and uneducated. They bear children who repeat the cycle.
7
The advice I gave my three kids when they were young adults might seem old fashioned but it sunk in: "Don't sleep with anyone you are not prepared to marry because if the result is an unintended pregnancy, you may have to deal with that man/woman for the rest of your life". Something to ponder at bar closing time.
112
The advice I gave my three kids: don't make babies (yet)
Did you also counsel your children on birth control and abortion? If not, why not?
4
The inter-generational consequences on children of the deterioration in traditional male roles needs attention. Children--both boys and girls--need fathers in their lives. Women make fine mothers, but poor fathers. I once was a single father raising my daughter. I was a pretty good dad, but a lousy mother. She survived me and is now a happily married college professor. I see both in data and my own family the importance of fathers to the development of boys and girls. Someday I would hope the feminists would stop kicking men around and become advocates for the education of boys to become strong partners to the strong women in their adult lives--to the benefit of their children.
14
Take this with a grain of salt. Apparently this is nothing new, the numbers were just cooked to support a thesis.
There was a study 25 years ago that found working class women who had children young were better off than those who waited until later in life. One reason was that they were, in both cases, less likely than professional women to have a stable male partner. But the younger women had still had family support. And they were better off starting their career after children were older. Older women, without family support and with more job responsibilities had their careers damaged by caring for very young children.
"College graduates are more likely to plot their lives methodically — vetting people they date until they’re sure they want to move in with them, and using birth control to delay childbirth until their careers are underway."
Where is the evidence this is true?
"Less educated people are more likely to move in with boyfriends or girlfriends in a matter of months, and to get pregnant at a younger age and before marriage. This can make financial and family stability harder to achieve later on."
Where is the evidence for this?
It is simply elitist prejudice.
7
The researchers come out of the universities. The universities have an obvious vested interest in telling women they will be better off if they have degrees. The conflict of interest is obvious.
The media and government has played right along with this agenda. And women are far less happy than there mothers and grandmothers were... but we're rarely told that. The suicide rate of women more than doubled under the Obama administration; that's largely been buried by the MS medial, also.
Too many answers go unquestioned.
The media and government has played right along with this agenda. And women are far less happy than there mothers and grandmothers were... but we're rarely told that. The suicide rate of women more than doubled under the Obama administration; that's largely been buried by the MS medial, also.
Too many answers go unquestioned.
1
I just cannot fathom why women in poverty and unstable homes, single or not, allow themselves to become pregnant or refuse to terminate if they do. Why aren't the negatives of parenting they see all around - huge sacrifices of time and money, and the eventual abandonment of partners and friends, more deterring?
31
When most happy and positive opportunities are denied to you, the promise of baby who will love you and depend on you is very powerful.
31
To follow up on Liz's excellent insight, when you have a child, you typically become the center of attention for friends and family. If you've been neglected or demeaned all your life, and then, suddenly, everyone is checking in on you, and people are offering their support and advice, and you maybe even have a baby shower, it can be heady, especially if you're very young and desperately in need of affirmation. It would also be less than realistic not to acknowledge the range of financial benefits, from both state and federal programs, not to mention family and community groups, that one becomes eligible for upon having a child out of wedlock at a young age. Sure, these programs actually offer very little in the way of support, but if you're seventeen or so and you've grown up in poverty, they can sound very enticing. And then, too, you may not be the only one in your community to be raising a child on your own--indeed, you may be exceptional for not having a child out of wedlock--and so you follow the pattern of your peer group, as people do, and become part of a community that may provide a sense of belonging. It's not at all difficult to imagine why people without resources or spousal support choose to have children, illogical though it may be. I chose to attend a small, relatively low-profile college because I liked its atmosphere better than some of the more prestigious, larger schools to which I was accepted. We're funny that way. And, just maybe, thank goodness.
11
Can you say "alcohol?" Or other drugs? One night flings?
Are women the only people who need to practice birth control? Many states have done away with birth control clinics in the past decade.
Safe abortions are becoming harder to get .. and to afford.
Many people still do not have health insurance in this country.
4
Please. Marriage is "reserved for those who are most privileged?" Any two people can get married if they want to. A marriage license is $35 here in NYC. I imagine it is not much more expensive elsewhere. That is all it takes to get married.
My parents emigrated to the US in the early 1970s (legally) as did a large number of their compatriots from their part of the world. They all came here pretty much penniless. Many of them keep in touch, so I can say with some authority, that they (almost) all got and stayed married and (almost) all succeeded here in the US, eg, became homeowners, business owners, children went to college, many became professionals, etc. These are people who came here not speaking any English, and few had any professional education. Yet, like many immigrants, they sacrificed and worked hard and succeeded.
Not getting married and having children, is a shorthand for being unwilling, or not having the discipline, to make and keep commitments. These same qualities usually determine one's success in life.
90
Bingo!
This article does not mention-- and only one comment mentions-- the (to my mind, ridiculous) idea that you can't get married without an expensive wedding. The wedding-industrial complex and its endless media reinforcement seems to have convinced an enormous number of people that they should have children with their "fiances" and not marry legally until they can spend a very large sum on a big party plus attendant pre- and post-parties. And that saved money doesn't go toward an education or a house down-payment-- it goes to an ephemeral conspicuous-consumption event that seems (based on the advice columns) to bring plenty of its own conflict, stress, and disappointment.
I don't think it's necessarily a large factor, but I've heard the reasoning that "we can't afford a wedding right now" too many times to think it has no effect. Blood tests, marriage license, clerk or clergy fee-- $100 or $200 maybe? I'd like to know if that was considered in this study.
40
I feel privileged to be divorced and able to support myself. No amount of money and convenience is worth staying in a bad marriage.
85
It's good you have a government welfare system, special FEMALE ONLY rights, affirmative action, social sympathy, and a pro-female divorce system to help you feel that way. I'm sure the "bad marriage" was 100% the guy's fault too.
interesting you are assuming I am on welfare. Nope just highly educated and well compensated for my efforts.
6
Its called welfare. The opportunity costs with the way welfare is structured create perverse incentives. People avoid marriage and avoid seeking employment. Not a popular thing to say but its a fact. Welfare needs to be changed so that people are not getting punished financially for taking a job.
12
Bingo. But a lot of the welfare recipients are in fact working, but they are working "under the table." The cash economy is HUGE in NYC, in particular.
No mention of how the crushing burden of college debt, particularly on the shoulders of young people who fail to graduate with a degree, makes men unable to support a family? No mention of how men can't afford health care in what used to be normal middle class jobs, which now don't offer insurance? No mention of how median incomes for 40% of the American population has dropped over the past half century?
Because if Ms Miller had mentioned those problems, she might also have had to explain that it is Republicans who have slashed wage support, attacked the ability to form unions, refused to raise the minimum wage, refused to offer expanded Medicaid to the men of many states, who have cut income taxes to the wealthiest, while cutting the social safety net to everyone else.
This isn't hard to understand. And it's not a matter of perception. Conservatives have actively undercut the wages and benefits of America's working men for decades. You might mention that, instead of burying the lede.
312
And it is the democrats who think the US can tax it's way to prosperity.
Taxes are twice what they were when JFK called for a reduction in taxes on Americans. The huge elephant in the room is the long term, unemployed white males in the US that have realized that working yourself to death in order to feed the American socialist agenda isn't worth anywhere near the effort.
Taxes are twice what they were when JFK called for a reduction in taxes on Americans. The huge elephant in the room is the long term, unemployed white males in the US that have realized that working yourself to death in order to feed the American socialist agenda isn't worth anywhere near the effort.
1
Low-Wealth, Low-Marriage and the Sins of the Fathers
Society’s problem is that children are almost always much better off living with both of their loving parents. The gradual decline of marriage and parenting skills is quickly passed to children and the results are apparent not just in declining income but also in family wealth.
Home economics has almost become a lost art. Only a fool would fail to pay off credit cards each month and only a bigger fool would borrow $50,000 to attend college when there is a very good chance of dropping out or completing in the bottom of the class (as they did in high school). The poorer half of the population gets by with just 1% of U.S. family wealth (a 70% reduction in share over 20 years). With so many attending college and both parents working it is pitiful that some gradual savings (family wealth) cannot be achieved by more. It seems that the richest 10% (with 75% of family wealth) have so much money that they are happy to lend at 18% or 21% interest (dispite with a 4% rate of consumer default). Colleges are happy to accept tuition from students known to have low IQ scores (including those who can’t play football).
The economic problems could be reversed with bold tax reform that lets low-wealth families lower their rate of income taxation and permits a tax exemption on long range savings for retirement, health care, and education. Annual tax credits should be replaced by monthly support to children of low-wealth, low-income families.
5
You can't save what you don't earn.
I married at 32 and it was the first time in my life that I was able to save - prior to that I was living paycheck to paycheck. I worked full time and went to school at night for 13 years - all before I married. I did not start a family prior to marriage and still as a single person I was living paycheck to paycheck and unable to save. A committed partner made all the difference. It gave me stability and a safety net. We also live below our means and plan our expenses...so that matters too..and we have been lucky.
12
The economic importance of marriage cannot be overstated. But there are actually three significant scenarios: Never marry, marry and succeed, or marry and fail.
The successful marriage is the ticket to prosperity: Two incomes, shared costs, happy life.
The next best thing is to never marry: If you have a decent job, you can still be okay.
The worst outcome is what I did: Marry the wrong person, have a child (or several) and divorce. Still only one income, all the costs, plus the alimony, life financially ruined.
Given that you can end up divorced without having a chance to do anything about it, I'd advise anyone to just go solo. Although it sure would have been great if it had worked out. But, just too much of a gamble. You win; you'll soon have a nice house. You lose; you end up with nothing, and possibly die in poverty.
21
I am one who married and "failed". However, I did not divorce until our only child had graduated from college and was living and going to graduate school in another state. I also was well-established in my own career. My parents, who were well-off, advanced me some money from my inheritance and enabled me to make a down payment for a condo (the house had to be sold; my ex got the profits from the terms of our split). So I was far more fortunate than many divorced wives. There were no custody battles or quarreling over spousal support (I asked for none). But the fallout was that our son has barely any relationship with his father because he witnessed his treatment of me while we were married. Thank heaven he has a good marriage of his own (27 years---to the same woman!), but he saw a lot of the bad side of life because of what my ex and I went through as a couple.
9
As the old saying goes, "You can save a lot of time and aggravation by simply finding a woman you despise and buying her a house."
1
This article ignores a critical cultural factor: the feminist revolution. In the past, many women were willing to take the chance that a troubled man could avoid alcoholism, violence, and poverty if given a stable, loving home. No more. In the past, married women branded unmarried women as failures and threats (the old maid, the seductive secretary). No more. Without the teachings of feminism, as revealed in movies, television, magazines, and books, many more working-class women would be willing to take the chance on marriage. The decline of good jobs for less educated men interacts with the new idea of women's autonomy in making marriage undesirable.
12
David, nostalgia for the good old days when men were men and women did what they were told and were lucky to have a husband, will not reverse the trend that young women want more in life. I know several high earning women that cannot wait until the kids are in college so they can get a divorce from their high earning husband. The outward trappings of affluence does not indicate a healthy and loving marriage.
13
So your idea is that women should care for men as if they are children (" take the chance that a troubled man could avoid alcoholism, violence, and poverty if given a stable, loving home")? Seems terrible for the women and demeaning/miserable for the men as well. How about instead of infantalizing men, and condemning women to raising such man children, if we assume both men and women are equally capable conducting their own lives and offer both similar levels of autonomy?
2
Laurie Jo, if in the good old days women were trapped doing housework, men were trapped in jobs they mostly despised for the sole purpose of providing a family income. No one told men they could be part time workers and stay home with the kids, much less stay at home dads. You and the feminists always forget about that fact.
There is also pure demographics at work. Children of married parents are more likely to get married. For several decades now, married couples are more likely to have higher rates of education, but get married and have children later in life, and also have fewer children than unmarried couples. So just doing the math results in a growing cohort of young adults in lower income brackets that grew up without married parents. And in the next cycle these young adults are more likely to have more children out of wedlock and sooner than young adults of the same age who grew up in married families. And so on.
8
My parents impressed on me and my siblings, that you go to school (or training, military, etc.) and get a job, find an apartment, save up money -- and THEN and only THEN do you get married. The idea of having a child first would have stunned them in its stupidity.
I impressed these same values on my own children, and I hope they pass it on to their kids.
But if the MOTHER has had her kids out of wedlock and lived on welfare for generations, even grandma on welfare -- the kids will quickly assume this is "normal" and the only question is how soon you want to lob onto that welfare stream of income.
Welfare makes young women with unwed pregnancies financially stable -- let's them be independent, leave home -- get away from their own mothers -- have an apartment, free food and free medical.
Many people do not realize how often a young woman on welfare is also SUPPORTING a boyfriend -- under the table -- and diverting the welfare & food stamps from HER CHILDREN to her boyfriend....to keep him "around". Some young men work this system so effectively, they manage to get money/food/sex from 2-3 or more women at the same time! (thanks to stupid taxpayers....)
4
I regularly refer to such brainwashing (both what your parents instilled in you and what you correctly point out in welfare society) as "social programming."
Dr Helen Smith in "Men on Strike" correctly points out that when the incentives (or disincentives) change enough for men considering marriage, they will opt out -- and are. In other words, their social programming meets the hard cold reality of a raw deal.
The divorce rate on first marriages is over 60%, higher still on 2nd and 3rd marriages. Men pay disproportionately for divorce, and hugely on child custody. And there are a whole host of other reasons discouraging men. Eventually, the old social programming gives way to new social programming. I have strongly discouraged my teen son from ever marrying.
Dr Helen Smith in "Men on Strike" correctly points out that when the incentives (or disincentives) change enough for men considering marriage, they will opt out -- and are. In other words, their social programming meets the hard cold reality of a raw deal.
The divorce rate on first marriages is over 60%, higher still on 2nd and 3rd marriages. Men pay disproportionately for divorce, and hugely on child custody. And there are a whole host of other reasons discouraging men. Eventually, the old social programming gives way to new social programming. I have strongly discouraged my teen son from ever marrying.
It seems the notion of marriage as the watermark of achieving adulthood is lost on most younger Americans - and that the fabric of our connections are built on fellowship and community in lieu of threadbare institutions.
2
Birth control and yes, abortion. I have many peers who in HS,college, law school (Ivies) and early career used birth control and in the event of an unintended pregnancy had an abortion. With frankly, little to no moral agony. Because we were taught our value and the value of our life goals from early on. Now most of us are in our 20th year or marriage to wonderful spouses and have healthy stable families. Perhaps if the lower and working classes weren't so burdened with lubricious attitudes about pre marital sex, birth control and abortion and took control of their lives this would be less of an issue.
181
It's unfortunate the peons and plebeians of society don't had the same "enlightened" value system as you, isn't it? The world would be so much better if you and your Ivy friends* could define the moral agonies we face, but alas we are not so lucky as a society.
*Im glad you pointed out they were going to Ivy League law school. Their opinions would be useless if they went to one of those low tier non-ivies like Stanford or NYU or Chicago. Gross.
1
"Now most of us are in our 20th year or marriage to wonderful spouses and have healthy stable families."
Sorry, I don't buy that. Maybe SOME of you have wonderful spouses and healthy stable families, but if most of you did, you would be a near statistical impossibility and outlier in any set of statistics.
I'm willing to bet there's a lot of personal darkness in all that wonderfulness that you don't see or want to admit to, Mr. or Mrs. Cleaver.
3
This is an interesting story, but what it characterizes as a trend among middle class and upper middle class people is probably more of a stage in a cycle. When my wife and I separated some years ago when both of us were around the age of forty, we were definite outliers among our group of friends and acquaintances. In the last few years, though, despite the fact that most of these folks adhered pretty consistently to the "degree, job, marriage, baby" sequence described in the piece, a lot of them have split up. Given that divorce is unhappy and expensive even in higher income brackets, it seems that, even for people with "more of a long-term perspective," happiness in a marriage is more important than practicality.
9
I think it's more than simply economics. I'm a financially successful professional and I've had a bear of a time trying to find other professional women who want to date long term, let alone get married.
Particularly once they are well established in their careers and on their way to success (generally in their 30s), I've noticed that many women have a list of criteria a page or two long. It might be a shallow LA thing, but it seems that FOMO, or fear of missing out, leads many women to hold out for someone better than the person sitting across the table from them. I may not be Ryan Gosling, nor am I a forest troll. Just an average-looking, yet professionally successful, guy trying to meet the same.
28
My sister, who lives in LA, once derided me for "settling" on my husband. She had, as you say, a huge list of all the things a marriageable spouse had to have. Fast forward 12 years to her turning 40 and no mate in sight. She gave up and adopted a family of 3, and finally grew up. She never married, but she much better understands that my husband (of 40 years now) was not a "settle". I suspect that in many parts of the country, not just LA, a similar dynamic may occur.
9
Don't give up! My own financial planner (a woman) married at 38 to a man who is a carpenter. They have a little girl and seem quite happy. Her parents were a bit upset because her husband has only 2 years of community college under his belt, and he is not the main breadwinner, but as far as I can see, she seems more than happy with her choice of mate. And yes, she is a GREAT financial planner!
9
Suggest joining an interest group.
Its very difficult to be poor.
One of the best investments, we as a society can make, is to help young adults delay pregnancy. We should be offering, free of charge, long-acting birth control to all women. Colorado offered such birth control to teenagers and poor women and the rates of pregnancy (and abortion) fell dramatically. Helping women delay child birth until after they have finished their education is one of the easiest ways to improve economic outcome.
When it comes to social services benefits, those benefits can be set up to phase out once a woman hits a certain earning level or if she marries rather than cutting off altogether. And the benefits I'm talking about are things like subsidized child care. If you have a poor woman with a child who is going to school to better herself, when she hits a certain wage level that child care subsidy cuts off and all of sudden she may be up side down. She's not earning enough money to afford rack rate child care, so her kids end up in dangerous situation or she drops out of school to care for them never getting to the point where she can fend for herself. Same goes for marriage, if she marries than her spouse's wages count and again they may be in a situation where they still can't afford rack rate child care.
227
Sammy: are you aware that under Obamacare -- still the law of the land -- birth control is 100% free for life? including sterilization?
You talk as if birth control were some super expensive thing, and women get pregnant because "a condom costs too much!" A condom is 50 cents -- birth control pills start at about $10 a month -- how on EARTH can a baby be cheaper than THAT?
And that study in Colorado is misleading. It was a relatively small group of girls, and 60% of them got pregnant DESPITE using LARC (long acting contraception like IUDs or Nexplanon). How did they manage to circumvent such effective birth control 60% of the time???
The truth is, most pregnancies are not real "accidents" -- they are "oops!" only in the sense that the women don't want blame for WANTING a baby. Also many of them want to test their boyfriends "love" and see if he commits DUE TO THE BABY. Most of them end up bitterly disappointed.
Obviously what we really want is for that hypothetical woman to get a job or education BEFORE SHE HAS A CHILD (or more). Once she does, she has a serious problem especially if the father (or her family) do not help.
However; it is unfair to talk about "rack rate" -- most upper class folks like yourself think every day care has to be a fancy facility in a fancy building. Most poor women use other mothers to watch their children in informal settings, and this is not that expensive.
1
There is a huge percentage of the population (lower income) that has kids at a young age because the government effectively subsidizes that decision. In effect, Great Society programs have displaced the father/husband, with all the social calamity that can be expected. And it's only going to get worse.
2
As usual with studies they have cause and effect backwards. People are not married because they are poor, they are poor because they are not married. With marriage the sharing costs and commitment and planning to common goals leads to economic success. Also the word "privilege" should not be associated with marriage. Everyone has the "privilege" of getting married.
56
Marriage is an open-ended commitment to be faithful to one another, to build a life together, if possible to bring new life into the world, and to nurture it. That is part of what we mean when we speak of ‘the sanctity of marriage.’ In today’s secular culture, we have kept the emotions but abandoned the commitment.
1
"they are poor because they are not married."
Right. I'm sure an employer would ignore that fact that someone never graduated from high school and hire him or her over someone with an education, because the former is married, and the latter is not. Right.
And I'm trying to think why I ever went to grad school, when I could have simply married and saved myself the cost and lost wages that I endured while working for that degree. How stupid! I could have just married someone!
3
A more nuanced discussion of the socio-historical data that this article relies upon is lacking.
If the question is posed as "How did class-divide become a mark of whether one marries," the presumed solution to poverty, and that is the point isn't it, posed by the sequence: "degree, job, marriage, baby," is clearly naïve. A few thoughts: to what extent is class (privilege) correlated with earning a degree? The research is unequivocal on this point. The data on obtaining a job, especially a middle-class or higher paying job, tells a story similar to that related to the class/degree connection. Marriage and babies and left; they are acts of free-will available to "all," regardless of class. If making the right decision in regard to marriage and babies are deemed to be the primary determinants of poverty do we not slip into projecting the notion that those who are poor, not married, and have babies lack the moral fiber that would have prevented them from having become poor? Somehow that notion diverts our attention from the possibility that we might be operating with the odd assumption that the poor simply lack the moral fiber that could be used to determine that they be born into a wealthy family, thereby enhancing their chances of earning a college degree?
Even inadvertently, posing solutions to poverty that rely on the moral assumptions of the 1950s is problematic.
12
This is a good example of unintended consequences brought about by the feminist waves of the past 100 years. When women are more independent, their socioeconomic status as single people rises. When men's jobs are taken over by automation (or in some cases, women themselves) their socioeconomic status as single people declines
So now we have women who are in the workplace and men who are not, causing the successful women to stay single lest they get anchored down to a man who in a previous generation would have been in their current job. Marriage rates decline and children born out of wedlock increases.
Children born out of wedlock statistically do much worse than children with married parents. The boys especially from a financial standpoint. So the next generation of men is even farther back behind their female equivalents. Repeat a few generations, and you achieve total societal breakdown.
Perhaps that was the goal from the beginning for the radicals.
22
You seem to be suggesting that women remain barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Until relatively recently, marriage was an economic institution: in exchange for financial support, women provided domestic services. Sometimes women were married off to unite two families or to keep a financially ruined family afloat.
We agree that as opportunities for women increased, the need for economically-based marriages decreased. From the perspective of women (at least), that's not a bad thing.
52
I am a happily married feminist because I married a man who shared the same values. Both of us wanted careers, and neither of us wanted children. We have been together for more than 35 years. Some people can overcome society's conventions, and the need for approval, and get on with the lives they want to live. Others simply blame others or sweeping trends and concepts for their inability to move forward.
20
I have serious doubts as to anyone, be s/he radical or stodgy, to plan far enough in advance to promote male generational descent.
Why is it that women must be less, simply so that men can be average? Consider the plight of women whose spouses are disabled, imprisoned or past the age of 50 (the corporate use-by date). Is it not better that those women put a sturdy oar into the water, so to speak, to support the family?
22
The personal characteristic that makes success likely in our society is the ability to delay gratification. Some people have more of this ability than others, and as a whole, the higher your class, whether defined by educational achievement or personal wealth (or, often, both), the more of this ability you do have. The poorer you are, and the less likely it is that you will succeed by dint of hard work, the less likely it is that any gratification will be delayed, which in turn reduces the likelihood of completing one's education, delaying child-bearing and having the skills necessary to hold onto a relationship and to a job. In a society like ours has become, where even entry-level jobs require a fair degree of education, those who fail to complete their education are pretty much doomed to poverty. We need more emphasis on early (REALLY early) education, to teach children to make the most of whatever their native capacity is to delay, to teach their parents and so on. The ability to maintain a structured day, and to control one's impulses, which are developed well before kindergarten age, is the necessary first step in rising in our society and making a success of one's life. We need to help parents help their young children, in order to break the cycle of poverty, made so much worse in today's America.
147
Let me agree but IMHO a middle class, not an upper class value. so it increases as class rises up to the upper middle class. How many billionaire kids become physicians or scientists? How many have to "delay gratification" ?
5
While delaying gratification is certainly one big key component, it certainly cannot create success on its own. It must be paired with opportunity somewhere along the line. Otherwise the delay is perpetual.
10
And more job opportunities for teenager. Workforce participation rate of 16-24 yr olds is plummeting. Traditional teenage jobs like lawn mowing, paper delivery, McD’s, etc., are increasingly done by adults. So kids never grow up with a habit of work.
1
A very telling article that describes the reality many of us in Cleveland have observed developing over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, a return to the stability which once defined the preponderance of American families may never occur because many Americans fail to appreciate the cause and effect of their actions.
25
I don't even know where to start with this piece, which is all over the place, and trying to show cause and effect, where in many instances, it's far more complex and nuanced.
75
Good, thoughtful writing like this piece will not provide simple yes/no, good/bad, cause/effect answers to complex problems. A number of scholars have made studies and presented their thinking on multiple trends among populations. As we learned in college/university, conclusions are left to the student.
2
If marriage is a mark of privilege, then the ability to be a "stay at home mother" is even more so. Most working class and poor men (as defined by this article) simply don't have the resources to keep a wife at home with children. If both parents work, they may not have the resources to pay for child care for preschool-aged children and infants. What often happens is that a couple remains unmarried so that the woman/mother can qualify for higher benefits and thus "afford" to stay home. I have seen this dynamic in action with members of my family. My father was working class (a mechanic) but managed to support us and even buy a small home, in which we kids shared a bedroom. My mother worked only part time and only once we were in school. Flash forward 40 years, and my nephew is unable to support his family (wife and two kids) on the same relative salary that his grandfather made. He absolutely cannot buy a home. He lives with his children and their mother, and government aid supplements the income he brings in. They are having a tough go of it, and I know it is a constant strain on their relationship and family life.
218
Stay at home mother(read parent) is also not a privilege. I'm a stay at home dad, because the situation required it, not because we can afford to do so. I really need to be working, and now that the situation has changed, I've been off work to long to get considered for most things I apply for.
6
Used to be that the ability for a husband to make enough money so his wife and children did not need to labor outside the home to support the family economy was a key marker for entry into the middle class. By that benchmark, the middle class has indeed slipped backwards (this does not include women who choose to work after marriage).
But historically, marriage has always been a sign of privilege and patriarchy. Men only needed to marry when they had wealth/land to transfer, via a wife, to male heirs. "My man," and "my woman"--names for common-law husbands and wives.
2
Which is why most men AND women today work -- most married couples BOTH WORK. A stay at home housewife is a pretty darn rare thing these days.
Even women who do not commute to a regular offfice job may be "working" -- doing things like childcare for other people's kids....driving for Uber....selling stuff on Ebay....part time jobs....telemarketing.
As you state, the reality is that a woman gets a full welfare package if she remains unmarried -- and if she DOES marry, she loses almost all of it. ONLY unmarried women with kids get welfare -- poor single people get almost nothing, just food stamps and not much of that.
I'm sorry for your nephew. Have you counseled him to get an education OR enlist in the military? he is on a very destructive path, that will lead to unhappiness, divorce & poverty.
3
Having universal health care provided and reduced or free state-provided tuition will go a long way to providing a stable society. As it stands now, the U.S. is a chaotic mess.
375
I agree with you about the tuition-- having $30,000 or $40,000 in debt makes people less likely to take you on as a marriage partner, but for all the other good it will do in other ways, universal health coverage may actually decrease the marriage rate slightly-- some people "make it legal" just to share one partner's health coverage.
(Don't tell the Republicans)
5
Or, it will just make having a working father in the house even less valuable and cause further the decay we have already witnessed. The lack of a working father in the household is far more detrimental to a child's health, mental and physical, than any healthcare plan can cure.
7
I graduated from a state university less than 20 years ago and it makes me sad to see the difference of what is offered to young adults graduating from high school today to the opportunities afforded to me.
I do not think that my generation is willing to make the long-term decisions to help those that follow us unfortunately. Not enough empathy, too little ability (or desire) to perform basic critical thinking to making decisions at the state and national level.
1
I don't know about this one. Maybe it is because I moved to France 9 years ago and people don't get married as much here. My French partner and I have masters degrees and we are having a baby out of wedlock which might shock my American Catholic family back home. But we both work long hours and don't want to spend time or money on a wedding. Real estate in Paris is pricey (maybe nothing compared to NYC but still) and we don't want to spend some of our down-payment that could be used for an apartment on a one day celebration. Moreover, our respective families can't help us with the wedding costs. However, I do like the idea of a party for my loved ones but maybe I don't need a wedding to plan a get together with everyone from back home. That being said we still might get married at the city hall for administration reasons.
37
Who says you have to have some kind of bang-up wedding with all the frou-frou? The only people who benefit from this big wedding nonsense are those in the 'Big Wedding Industrial Complex,' i.e. wedding planners, wedding 'venues', bridal gown emporiums, etc. There's nothing wrong with a civil ceremony and a small gathering of friends and family. Go with your heart and save yourself the stress of dealing with this logistical nightmare.
I also have a theory related to this: That the success of the marriage is inverse to the size of the wedding. I have experience with this. My husband and I got married by a Justice of the Peace; we paid for our reception--17 guests at a local restaurant. It was a wonderful celebration and we had a great, long-lasting marriage--32-years--until my husband's death. With the right partner, marriage is a wonderful commitment to a relationship that can nurture both spouses and make life twice as good.
Good luck, Rose.
19
The "BIG WEDDING" and it's resulting debt is another societal issue.
8
You do not need a big, fancy and expensive wedding "event". When my now-husband and I decided to get married, we put the whole thing together in six days. As we had been previously married, the church I attended would not perform the ceremony so I looked up my university religion professor [an ordained minister - non-denominational], got permission to use a local college chapel for a 30 minute [or less] service, invited a few family members, bought a simple dress and a bouquet and had a wedding. We walked across the street and all had dinner at a lovely restaurant. We just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. So get yourself and your French partner down to City Hall then have dinner with friends and family. Voila!
6
"the success sequence: degree, job, marriage, baby" is easier said than done.
Also, I think sexism deserves more credit for the high marriage rates of the 20th century. Today for the first time, women in large part can pursue their dreams and build their lives without being legally bound to a man. As our society becomes more egalitarian, and women become less financially dependent on men, I expect the marriage rates to go down even further.
388
This misses the point that it is poor people who are less likely to get married. College-educated women who have the possibility of financial independence are more likely, not less, to marry than women who lack opportunities that lead to financial independence.
17
Nicky, I think the "formula" you cite is workable at any level. "Degree" should only mean "qualification for work". That is, trade school for plumbing is just as valid as an MBA in the sense of preparing a person for meaning lifelong work. I believe that if people are shown a path to life success based on that formula, and encouraged by family to pursue it, they can move up the economic ladder regardless of where they started from.
6
As stated in the article, it is the women with the best earning potential marrying similarly situated men, so it is the opposite of a more egalitarian, less sexist situation than you describe.
My wife and I are much more economically stable together than we would be apart and wealthier than the sum of our wealth would be if unmarried.
6
“They say, ‘If he’s not offering money or assets, why make it legal?’ ”
Meanwhile, the men are asking what they will get in return for their money and assets. If the answer is the right to pay all the bills and do what they're told, then they're not interested. They may not even bother to make money or accumulate assets.
77
Jonathon, maybe if men offered child rearing, meal prep and home management women would be happy to provide the income and assets. A committed relationship works best when both parties share, as true partners, in creating a stable and loving home. Legally married or not.
342
Yet again, an article does not take into account the unpaid labor of child rearing and home care. Women still take a disproportionate share of those chores. When a man can't offer an income, he better be prepared to offer the in-home, unpaid care that women have been providing for centuries. If not, when he's not earning, he's economic dead weight in the relationship. When paid child care is often one of the largest expenses in a home, it is a totally rational economic decision to not tie oneself to a poor contributor.
The culture change is in recognizing the economic value that women have provided unpaid and are now requiring it of men should they not be able to contribute earnings at the same level. Most women have already changed their perception. Surveyors, economists and pundits - including the author of this article - have not.
150
Perhaps a few decades after divorce became more prevalent, people of all income levels don't want to make a commitment and have a child (or more) that will leave them in a lower economic level. With divorce, many more women have little option to avoid this decline than to get a better education, a better job and more prospects to support their children, and the ex-husband has fewer resources due to his child-support requirements. Maybe everyone is evaluating the quality of what is on offer on both sides before making a commitment... love is great, but sometimes reality must intervene...
7