(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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The Way We Never Were [1]
['Stephanie Coontz']
Date: 2016-03-29
Other changes reflect the persistence of family trends that were already well established by 1992. Between 1960 and 1990, the average age at first marriage rose from 20 to 24 for women and from 22 to 26 for men. By 2014, it had climbed further to 27 for women and 29 for men. Many more people now delay marriage until their thirties or forties, and some researchers believe that a full quarter of today’s young adults may reach their mid-forties to mid-fifties without ever having been married, although unmarried cohabitation has grown more common.
Many older “rules” of marriage and divorce have been transformed in the past 25 years. In 1992, living together before marriage was not yet the norm. As of 1987, only one-third of women aged 19 to 44 had ever cohabited, and cohabitation before marriage was a risk factor for divorce. By 2013 a majority of marriages began with cohabitation and living together before marriage no longer predicted divorce. But living on one’s own may be growing even faster than cohabitation. Today almost 30 percent of American households comprise just one person. Delaying marriage until one’s early 30s used to raise the chance of divorce; now it lowers it.
In 1992 I critiqued the panic over growing family diversity. My skepticism about the doomsayers has since been proven correct. Despite the continuing rise in unwed births since 1994, juvenile crime rates have fallen by 60 percent. Domestic violence is also down 60 percent. Parents today spend more time with their children than in 1965.
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/132001/way-never
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