US Marraige has been in decline since... (employment, wages, generations)

[solarvideo]

The state of Marraige and the Family has been in decline
since we stopped building front porches on our houses
AND put air conditioning in our homes. Experiment in your
own neighborhood - pick a week when the temperature
rises above 85 or 90 and encourage everyone to turn off the
air conditioning and have their evening meals in the front
yard. This is a great way to evaluate the state of your
own family and the neighborhood around you

[baystater]

The decline of marriage is due mostly to two things.

1. It's all about me attitude. This attitude cuts across both genders and all races, religions, political affiliations and Generations (at least from the babyboomers on down to Gen Y.) There is not much though of sacrifice anymore in relationships and with the lack of willing to sacrifice is leading to the Disintegration of marriage.

2. There more of a movement away from traditional marriage now-a-days. I myself have been living together with my girl for 3 years and thing seem to go well. Neither of us have no real desire to actually go through all the paper work, blood tests, etc, etc. Though eventually we will probably have to tie the knot. I think more out of legal reasons and family pressures. In any event even if we didn't get married officially we probably would live just like a married couples.

BTW I don't live in a common law marriage state. And neither one of us is particularly religious. So that living in sin thing doesn't fly with us.

[NewToCA]

With all due respect, I think that you'll find no linkage to front porch's, air conditioning and marriage rates.

The decline in family is mostly how you define "decline". If you are thinking of the Donna Reed 1950's, mom's would need to stay home, and dad would need reliable employment. Foreign competition would need to be a figment of your imagination, and the social safety net (i.e. - taxes) would need to be higher.

Not sure minority groups would agree that those were the good ole' days.

Good luck with that!

[crbcrbrgv]

Originally Posted by solarvideo

The state of Marraige and the Family has been in decline
since we stopped building front porches on our houses
AND put air conditioning in our homes. Experiment in your
own neighborhood - pick a week when the temperature
rises above 85 or 90 and encourage everyone to turn off the
air conditioning and have their evening meals in the front
yard. This is a great way to evaluate the state of your
own family and the neighborhood around you

Actually, the state of marriage started to decline when us Gen Xers saw all our parents and all our friends parents get divorced. We were the first age group to be taught Jude o-Christian principals of marriage while simultaneously watching our parents run away from each other at the drop of the hat. Not to mention, many of us saw our mothers get absolutely screwed and knocked down 3 social classes in the process. If this isn't the best advertisement on why not to get married and stay boyfriend/girlfriend, I don't know what is.

[KevK]

I am not really a big fan of marriage. It is unnecessary and mostly came about as a religious thing anyway. I am married but only because my wife is from Canada and we had to be married for her to get her papers. Otherwise we would have just lived together as many people do.

[GregW]

My wife and I have been married for nearly 40 years! To each other!

I think marriage was instituted to help assure that the kids were actually the husbands (at least in theory) and to simplify inheritance. Priests were not married so the Church could hold on to the man’s property.

I think marriage has been supplemented by agreements between the people involved without the interference of the church or the government. A pre-nuptial contract, without the nuptial, will do just as well as a marriage in many cases.

BTW – I’ll agree with the social costs to women of a separation or divorce. Most are left to take care of the kids with only minimal support by the husband (sometimes father). I personally experienced this a long time ago.

[odinloki1]

I'm getting married in a year and a half and to me the big obstacle is spending time with each other. Our work schedules constantly conflict and I see my fiance maybe 2 hours a day and I think I'm lucky. I've seen a lot of couples get divorced because of lack of time spent with each other.

I'm looking to apply to either PA or med school in the spring and I'm choosing PA because I have seen what 100 hour/week residencies do to relationships.

Our current economy/social system really makes most people choose money or a relationship because both members of the couple HAVE to work and often in far away places throw in a kid and the time to take care of them and its a recipe for divorce.

If you want to decrease the divorce rate here's some ideas.

Find ways to reduce housing costs so a single person can support a family of 3-4 in a basic, comfortable lifestyle.

Go back to a commercial situation where stores are closed on Sundays and reduced hours on Saturdays and open 8-8 on weekdays. The 24-7 consumer economy is ridiculous and drags families apart.

Tax breaks for 1 stay at home parent, tax hikes for businesses who force employees to work odd hours (I'm not sure how to implement this but we should at least try something)

Reduce the number of hours in the work week (I'm thinking 35) and reward families who reduce their commutes.

I know there are people that will criticize this post for me being unfriendly to business, well yes I guess I am. I think business practices that give poor choices (for example work a lousy shift or get fired and lose pension savings) should be punished. I also think economic policies (for example rapidly rising cost of housing based on speculation) should be corrected as well because they only really benefit those at top while good families are strained.

Some families can survive difficult conditions, but for most pushing them harder will only cause the family to break. Should we be more compassionate, or should we just say "life is tough, deal with it"

Frankly I'm perplexed that the party of "family values" also allows this cruel social Darwinism to play out. Compassionate indeed.

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by odinloki1

If you want to decrease the divorce rate here's some ideas.

Find ways to reduce housing costs so a single person can support a family of 3-4 in a basic, comfortable lifestyle.

Go back to a commercial situation where stores are closed on Sundays and reduced hours on Saturdays and open 8-8 on weekdays. The 24-7 consumer economy is ridiculous and drags families apart.

Tax breaks for 1 stay at home parent, tax hikes for businesses who force employees to work odd hours (I'm not sure how to implement this but we should at least try something)

Reduce the number of hours in the work week (I'm thinking 35) and reward families who reduce their commutes.

I know there are people that will criticize this post for me being unfriendly to business, well yes I guess I am. I think business practices that give poor choices (for example work a lousy shift or get fired and lose pension savings) should be punished. I also think economic policies (for example rapidly rising cost of housing based on speculation) should be corrected as well because they only really benefit those at top while good families are strained.

Some families can survive difficult conditions, but for most pushing them harder will only cause the family to break. Should we be more compassionate, or should we just say "life is tough, deal with it"

Frankly I'm perplexed that the party of "family values" also allows this cruel social Darwinism to play out. Compassionate indeed.

First off, congratulations on getting married, I've been married to the same wonderful lady for 36 years, and some marriages do work.

Regarding housing, the cost of housing away from the west and east coast is very affordable, with many areas having 3 bdrm and 2 bath homes priced around $200K in quite decent areas. Having recently moved to California from Ohio, I've seen many homes for sale in metro Columbus and Cleveland in very good neighborhoods for this price. Other areas such as Pittsburgh, Rochester, St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Dallas, Kansas City, Omaha, Madison, Houston and Oklahoma City have plenty of available homes at this price point.

Federal taxes were adjusted under President Bush to provide a better tax situation for married couples, and the brackets now are better suited to married folks.

Regarding jobs, plenty are available with reasonable hours, but a few factors have lessened the prevalence of standard 35 or 40 hour workweeks. I won't rehash these changes, many can be attributed to the Democrats and the Republicans, so I won't portray this as political. However, things such as the internet also have increased the capability of doing some work from home, so though your work week may be longer than historical norms, the flexibility to work from home is significantly increasing.

As far as businesses being shut down on Sundays, many folks resented this and viewed it as inappropriate government intrusion into commerce, and this point is going to win the day for the likely future. It shouldn't have excessive negative impact to you, especially if your wife eventually stays home (mine did and does). Being home on Tuesday and Wednesday is still two days off with the family.

Don't be so glum about the future, we had dire society predictions concerning marriage and raising kids (we have 3 all now grown) when I got married too.

[odinloki1]

I'm not necessarily referring to myself, I'm referring to all workers, particularly those in the service sector where internet work is not likely. Don't they have rights to have families too? I suppose that is sacrificed to free markets though. Who is to guarantee days off coincide? If I'm a PA and my wife is a teacher I'm probably going to have to work weekends and she'll work during my days off. Being home on weekdays means you aren't able to spend time with kids on weekends when they are around.

3 bed 2 bath house for 200K is still overpriced solely on speculation. If you look at other places where demand is less you can get it for less. Jobs also don't improve their wages just because real estate costs go up.

I still don't buy the idea that the system is getting worse, just accept it. We should work to make it better for people, not just the rich at the top.

[Mooseketeer]

US Marriage in decline since... society evolved to realise that one does not need to be married to have a loving and stable relationship ?
I have been with my partner for over 19 years now, happy , stable and our relationship is just as valid as people who are married ( look at the rates of divorce).

We got engaged last October because it felt right to US not because of some bizarre need from the rest of society to impose their so called moral values on us.

Why is marriage so important to society anyway ? All it is , is a symbol nothing more, a piece of paper which gives you more legal rights ( unfairly IMO). Are we saying that people who are married even in unhappy, unfulfilling or abusive relationships somehow make our society a better one and more beneficial for humanity somehow ?

Religion is a mostly a religious constraint still and most people are not truly religious nowadays. Why should human beings be dictated to by religion ?

There is nothing wrong with choosing to be single, or being in a committed long term un-married relationship.
As there is nothing wrong to choose marriage. It's a choice. Nobody should be penalised for it, treated differently and there should be less talk about how people not getting married is somehow a barrier to a healthy and moral society.