Marriage and Cohabitation Flashcards
Trends in Marriage
Marriage rates declining - decline by 2/3 in last 50 years
Growing proportion of remarriages (1/3)
Average age of 1st marriage increased by 8 years
Trends in Cohabitation
More couples cohabiting over marriage - est doubled 1996 to 2012
4/5 of people in 1st marriages lived together before
15% of families with dependent children cohabiting couples
Reasons for Trends
Changing Role of Women
Sharpe- changing aspirations
Increased economic independence, more successful than men in education and less willing to accept housewife-mother role
Often postpone to pursue careers, cohabitation offers fulfilment without legal ties + avoids potential divorce conflicts
Reasons for Trends
Reduced Functions of the Family
Functionalists - number of family functions transferred or shared, marriage less of a practical necessity
Parsons - structural differentiation
Reasons for Trends
Changing Social Attitudes and Reduced Stigma
Young people more likely to cohabit
Older people more likely to think living together outside of marriage is wrong
Reduced social stigma associated, partially result of cohabitation
Postmodernist individualisation theories
Reasons for Trends
Growing Secularisation
Influence of religious based morality + condemnation of cohabitation declined
Marriage + cohabitation about individual choice, not spiritual union - Guode and Gibson
Less than a third involve a religious ceremony
Reasons for Trends
The Rising Divorce Rate
Deters couples from risk involved in marriage not lasting
High number of second marriages - increased number of first marriages end in divorce
Reasons for Trends
Reducing Risk
Beck (late-modernist) - ‘risk society’, indivduals have more freedom and make choices to reduce risk in life
Fewer constraints from traditional institutions - choose own living arrangements, may avoid risk of marriage
