Is Marriage Becoming Old-Fashioned?
More and more Americans think that marriage is out-of date. According to a survey 40% of over 2,500 people asked said that marriage was a thing of the past and does not work in our society any more. When the same survey was conducted thirty years ago, only 11% of Americans thought that marriage was old-fashioned. Marriage is still important but not as important as it once was.
Of the people asked most of marriage’s supporters were seniors, 65 and older. Groups that thought marriage was obsolete included blacks and high-school graduates, as well as people from lower income groups.
Data collected in America has shown that people marry less, and when they do, they marry at a higher age. On average, women are 26 years old and men 28. For the first time in over fifty years there are more unmarried people than married ones in the age group between 25 and 34.
Many Americans think that having children is one of the reasons for marriage. But people get married for other reasons too. For the past centuries people married because they could survive better economically. They shared their money and had children who looked after them when they got old. Men went to work while women cared for the children and did the cooking.
Today more and more couples get married simply because they love each other. Financial stability no longer seems important any more. Young people are more serious about marriage because they often witness their parents separating.
More and more couples are living together without getting married. 29 percent of children under 18 live with parents who are divorced or have never married at all.
Americans today are becoming more liberal in defining what a family is. Most of them think that an unmarried couple living together with a child is a family and over 60% said that homosexual couples that have adopted a child are also a family.
Related Topics
Words
- according to = as reported by …
- adopt = to take someone’s child into your own home and bring it up
- care for = look after
- conduct = carry out
- couple = two people who are married or have a relationship with each other
- data = information
- define = describe
- divorce = to officially end a marriage
- economically = financially
- graduate = a person who has finished a school and has received a certificate or diploma
- included = also
- liberal = open-minded, tolerant
- lower income = without much money
- marriage = when two people are married
- marry = to become husband and wife
- obsolete = old fashioned, out-of-date
- on average = normally
- out-of-date = old fashioned, not modern
- senior = older person
- separate = split up, go away from each other
- serious = earnest, something is important
- share = to split up, divide
- society = people in general
- supporter = a person who is for something
- survey = a number of questions that you ask a lot of people in order to find out what they think about a certain subject
- survive = exist, live on in a difficult situation
- unmarried couple = two people who are not married
- witness = observe, see