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6 - Institutional, Companionate, and Individualistic Marriages
- Edited by Marsha Garrison, Elizabeth S. Scott
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- Book:
- Marriage at the Crossroads
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
- Print publication:
- 15 October 2012, pp 107-125
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Summary
The institution of marriage has changed more during the last fifty years than in any comparable period in American history. With respect to demographic trends, age at first marriage increased, cohabitation became common as a prelude to marriage, the divorce rate rose, and the percentage of marriages in which one or both spouses had been married previously increased. Changes also occurred in spousal relationships: wives increasingly entered the labor force and became co-providers, husbands took on a larger share of household chores and child-rearing responsibilities, and decision-making equality between spouses became common. Corresponding to changes in behavior were shifts in attitudes toward marriage and family issues, with people becoming more accepting of alternatives to the traditional two-parent, heterosexual family. As these changes unfolded, a society-wide debate emerged about whether these trends have had positive or negative implications for adults and children (e.g., Popenoe 1993; Stacy 1996).
Most scholars have described, explained, and considered the implications of these changes by focusing on one variable at a time. In contrast to a single-variable approach, a typological (or person-centered) approach considers how multiple marital characteristics cluster into naturally occurring types. In this approach, marriages rather than variables serve as the focus of analysis. In this chapter, I adopt such a marriage-focused perspective. Specifically, I use cluster analysis to group marriages into institutional, companionate, and individualistic types. I then show how the frequency of these three types of marriages in the U.S. population changed between 1980 and 2000. My analysis also reveals how marital quality and stability vary across these groups. As I hope to show, a typological approach provides a useful supplement to conventional approaches that focus on types of variables rather than types of marriages. The conclusion of this chapter addresses some policy implications of this research.
3 - Relationship Sequences and Trajectories: Women's Family Formation Pathways in Emerging Adulthood
- Edited by Frank D. Fincham, Florida State University, Ming Cui, Florida State University
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- Book:
- Romantic Relationships in Emerging Adulthood
- Published online:
- 06 December 2010
- Print publication:
- 28 October 2010, pp 27-43
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Summary
Jeffrey Arnett has argued that emerging adulthood has become a distinct stage in the life course for people between the ages of 18 and 25 (Arnett, 2000). This stage is characterized by independence from major social roles and commitments, such as marriage, childbearing, and establishing a career. Instead of “settling down,” emerging adults use this time to sample a variety of life experiences and engage in a prolonged process of self-exploration. Arnett saw the emergence of this stage in the life course in a mostly positive light – as a period during which young people formulate coherent and meaningful identities with respect to love, work, and worldviews. Arnett recognized that not all young people have the resources to experience a period of independence and exploration. Nevertheless, a tendency exists in much of the written work on this topic to assume that emerging adulthood has become a stage in the life course for the majority of youth.
I begin this chapter by examining the notion of emerging adulthood from a historical perspective. The second half of this chapter explores an alternative approach to stage theories of youth development. I adopt a life course perspective and focus on the multiple and divergent pathways that young women take between the ages of 18 and 23.
8 - Marital Discord, Divorce, and Children's Well-Being: Results from a 20-Year Longitudinal Study of Two Generations
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- By Paul R. Amato, Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.
- Edited by Alison Clarke-Stewart, University of California, Irvine, Judy Dunn, Institute of Psychiatry, London
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- Book:
- Families Count
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 13 March 2006, pp 179-202
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Summary
Studies consistently show that chronic discord between parents is a risk factor for a variety of child problems, including poor emotional adjustment, low self-esteem, aggression in peer relationships, and delinquency (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Emery, 1999). In most of these studies researchers have observed children during middle childhood or adolescence. Few studies have traced the implications of marital conflict after children have reached adulthood. Several studies have shown that adults who recall frequent conflict between their parents while growing up also report a disproportionately large number of psychological and marital problems in their own lives (Adams, Bouckoms, & Streiner, 1982; Kessler & Magee, 1993; Overall, Henry, & Woodward 1974). Reliance on retrospective data, however, limits our confidence in these findings. Emotionally troubled individuals are primed to recall aversive events from childhood, including instances of conflict between parents. Because the same individuals report on events in their families of origin and their current level of well-being, common method variance is likely to inflate the magnitude of associations in these studies.
Other studies show that parental divorce is associated with problematic outcomes in adulthood. Compared with adults who grew up with two continuously married parents, adults who experienced parental divorce complete fewer years of education (Amato & Keith, 1991; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994), have weaker ties with parents (Zill, Morrison, & Coiro, 1993), experience more conflict in their own marriages (Tallman, Gray, Kullberg, & Henderson, 1999; Ross & Mirowsky, 1999), are more likely to see their own marriages end in divorce (Bumpass, Martin & Sweet 1991; Wolfinger 1999), and report less happiness with life and more symptoms of psychological distress (Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale, & McRae, 1998; Ross & Mirowsky, 1999).