The Family in Decline?
In a matter of fifty years, marriage has transformed from a rigid, institutional agreement into an individualistic, sentimental newfound freedom. According to Andrew J. Cherlin’s analysis of changes in family life overtime, Americans “partner, unpartner, and repartner” quicker compared to any other Western nation. This not only contributes to our high rates of marriage and divorce, but also explains why we often hear of “the family” in decline. Interestingly, the majority (84%) of American women are predicted to marry by their forties—compared to 68% in France or 70% in Sweden. As compared to other countries in the world, Americans show greater acceptance to the idea of cohabitation and also earlier marriage (if at all). Most will marry or cohabit sooner than others around the world, but those partnerships have also proven to be more unstable. Overall, more people are marrying in the States than in other Western countries. This, however, also speaks to the fragile relationships that American children are growing up in surrounded by parents that are likely to separate. In fact, 40% of American children experience a breakup by the time they are fifteen.
The effects on children, therefore, contribute to an ever more vicious cycle of shaky relationships. Moreover, Cherlin explains that children going through multiple “transitions” of parental partnerships tend to have more difficulty later in their own. Cherlin also visits the possibility of those children perpetuating a trend of lone mothers and early marriages, the idea being that children experiencing transitions behave in a way that leads to earlier pregnancies and marriages as well. All in all, one understanding of these trends and predictions is that it comes down to cultural differences. While Americans hold high expectations for both individualism and marriage, Cherlin argues that there is more in our heads than we use. In other words, we have two sets of cultural models that we use to interpret our personal relationships. Thus, we see that most Americans will draw upon both the cultural model of marriage and cultural model of individualism. Consequently, then, American marriages and cohabitations combine the two cultural ideas. More importantly, Cherlin notes that people are typically not aware of their utilization of both cultural “tools”.
In “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide,” Scott and Leonhardt found in their article that wealth disparities are tightly bound by classes. More importantly, we must accept that there is little income mobility in American life, which further drives the underlying class disparities. In reality, society has become more unequal than before, but overall Americans are better off than their parents once were. People are unwilling to “see themselves as stuck,” they say. Because class plays a vital role in influencing the family life and relationships, family structure has also evolved through time. The upper class, for instance, are likelier to have children during their marriage, have fewer children, and have them later than those in different classes.
Personally, I find that my idea of marriage is quite neutral: I’m individualistic, yet I still value the traditional cultural ideas of marriage. On a spectrum, then, I would predict that most Americans today fall on the individualistic end, while (fifty or so years ago) the older generation would fall on the marriage-as-an-institution end. Cherlin’s findings were rather intriguing. If Americans are so quick to partner, unpartner, and repartner, when will marriage no longer be viewed as the norm? With so many movements in the works today, the very institution of marriage and idea of what is socially acceptable is constantly evolving. Moreover, while I do believe that our traditional perception of marriage is in decline I also believe that the decline is just leading way for us to reinvent our ideas and expectations of marriage. What I have learnt most from devoting my time to people and volunteering is that the idea we hold will only stay alive in our time. In different times, those ideas will adapt and new ones will take hold. New thoughts and cultures are a result of new institutions constantly challenging old institutions. Marriage, then, is simply being challenged by what it was formerly to us—marriage and the family is not declining, but rather, the family structure is adapting to changing times. By adapting, Americans practice cohabitation, engage in greater sexual behavior, and use more contraception, and these have only become popularized because our modern views of marriage and family life have exceeded those of the previous generations’. Most interesting to me is that so much change can be traced back to behavioral trends in particular generations. Our generation is definitely more liberal and open to sexuality, self-expression, and self-fulfillment, and these generational trends can be seen as the underlying causes for why we are marrying later, having fewer children, and breaking up more often and quickly. One cannot avoid thinking about their own experiences when reflecting on the topic of marriage and relationships. As much as I am engaged by the topics we are covering and support the claims, I do not believe they will apply to me in the future. Will I marry? Yes, probably. Will I be giving birth out of marriage? Definitely not. Will I cohabit with my partner? I’d have to think it through a great deal, but I do not see myself in it. In the end, I think that cultural influence is above all societal influences. To generalize, we are more open-minded and individualistic, but our culture also makes up a large part of who we are or end up becoming.