Family Patterns- Marriage Flashcards
Marriage trends
First-marriages statistics
-number of first marriages has significantly declined since 1970s: from 480000 in 1972 to 306000 in 2000
Marriage trends
Re-marriages statistics
re-marriages increased form 57000 in 1961 to 126000 (46% of all marriages) in 2000
-most remarriages involved divorce persons rather tan widows and widowers
the largest increase occurred between 1971 and 1872 following the introduction of the Divorce Reform Act of 1969
Marriage trends
when people are marrying statistics
people are marrying later
-average of first marriage rose by 7 years between 1971 and 2005
when it was 32 years for men and 30 for women
Reasons for changing patterns of marriage
-Changing attitudes to marriage
-Changing positions of women
-Decline of religious influence
-Declining stigmas attached to alternatives to marriage
-Fear of divorce
Changing attitudes to marriage
less pressure to marry and more freedom for individuals to choose the type of relationship they want
Who can you talk about for changing attitudes to marriage ?
Postmodernist
David Cheal
argues that this greater choice over the type of family we create has led to an increased in FD
Evaluation
Changing attitudes to marriage
some sociologists point out that greater freedom of choice in RS means a greater risk of instability, since these RS are more likely to break up
The decline of religious influence
Secularisation
decline in influence of Church means people no longer feel they should fulfil one of the crucial sacraments and get married for religious reasons
-people are freer to choose what type of rs they enter
Evaluation The decline of religious influence
-the majority of first-time marriages take place within a religious context, which suggests that religion still has some influence over the decision to get married
The declining stigma attached to alternatives to marriage
cohabitation
-remaining single and having children outside marriage are all now regarded as acceptable
-in 1989, 70% of respondents to the British Social Attitudes Survey believed that couples who wanted children should get married
-by 2000 this had dropped to 54%
Evaluation for the declining stigma attached to alternatives to marriage
-most couple who cohabit do tend to get married
-it is just that the average age of getting married has risen
Change in women’s position
-many women are now financially independent from men because of better education and better career prospects
-this gives them greater freedom not to marry
-the growing impact of the feminist view that marriage is an oppressive institution may also dissuade women from marrying
Who can you talk about for changes in women’s position?
Sue Sharpe (1991)
-found that women’s priorities had changed from marriage and children being their top priority to now valuing their career equally and -therefore are less interested in marriage and more likely to cohabitate as it is more flexible which fits in with the demands of their career
Evaluation of change in women’s position
changes to the position of women in society does not necessarily mean that they don’t get married, they merely put off marriage until their careers are established
Evaluation of change in women’s position
Feminists
Many feminists also argue that the fact that women are now wage earners as well as homemakers had itself created a new source of conflict between husbands and wives and this is leading to more divorces
argue that marriage remains patriarchal, w/ men benefiting from their wives ‘triple-shift’ of paid work, domestic work and emotion work
