Chapter 9: Singlehood, Cohabitation, Civil Unions, and Other Options

Summary

The chapter introduces its subject matter of singlehood, cohabitation, and civil unions as they relate to the ‘marriage problem’, implying singlehood in its many forms is what is wrong with marriage. The author asks the reader to decide for his or her self whether or not there is a marriage problem by reading this chapter.

Singles

The chapter describes the population of single people with respects to marriage, sexual orientation, and race.

With respect to marriage -- There two marriage ages – the age at which people ideally marry and the age at which people actually marry. Knowing both of these marriage ages – and disregarding rare cases such as the low marriage ages of the 1950s and 1960s – helps us better understand both attitudes towards singlehood and the size of the single population.

With respect to sexual orientation – One of the reasons why there are many more singles is because gay marriage is not legal in all states.

With respect to race – The chapter illustrates some characteristic trends in singlehood among African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. There is a significant increase in numbers of singles among African American and Latino populations while there is a significantly low number of singles among Asian Americans. These racio-ethnic trends are due to both structural factors and value or cultural based factors.

In general, the household size is shrinking and the population of single peoples is high. Macro- level factors (e.g. social movements, economy, life-lengthening technology), micro- level factors (discriminate people, companionship, unwillingness to commit), as well as demographic shifts (e.g. sex ratio and marriage squeeze, social class) are responsible for these changes.

Cohabitation

The chapter approaches cohabitation as form of relationship, contiguous with married, dating, and single. That said, there are many varieties of cohabitation that the chapter depicts. Among all of these varieties, ther has been an increase in the cohabitation practice and an increase in the acceptance of the practices.

The people who cohabit can be described in a number of ways: in relation to their age, cohabitation status of their parents, social class, and religion: most who cohabit are between ages 25-44; women whose mothers have cohabited are more likely to cohabit themselves; Native Americans and African Americans have highest rates of cohabitation; cohabitation is more common at low education and income levels; lastly, nonrelgious people are more likely to cohabit than religious people.

There are both benefits and costs of cohabitation. The benefits include the following: stability/less divorce because marriage has been prolonged, partners have time to “cope with realities” or to respond to undesirable qualities of the other person, if they chose to separate there exist no legal liabilites. The costs include: women doing more housework than the man, individuals are less committed to the relationship, have les satisfaction, are more likely to be unfaithful, and children have worse life outcomes.

There are three ways of describing and understanding how cohabitation has had negative effects on marriage. The selection effect understands the higher divorce rate among individuals who have cohabited as traceable to some characteristic cohabiting individuals share that predisposes them to cohabit and divorce. The cohabitation effect shows that in the time one cohabits, they may lose faith in long-term relationships or seeing cohabitation as a safe alternative to marriage. The inertia effect shows that cohabitation may pressure people into marriage because many decisions made in that time committing. Thus, people who cohabit may marry before giving the decision enough thought.

In describing conditions of residency such as cohabitation, the chapter later describes communes and some of the problems that arise with communes (often due to residents having to give up property or becoming jelous because of relationships).

Gay and Lesbian couples

Gay and lesbian relationships both differ from heterosexual relationships but also share some similarities. Among the differences, there exist more legal and/or social barriers regarding gay and lesbian relationships, such as 36 states having statutes banning gay marriage, and there exist more violence in homosexual relationships, specifically gay relationships, than in heterosexual relationships. Among the similarities, gay and lesbian couples still struggle with power asymmetries and argue about similar topics, such as personal flaws or physical absence. Furthermore, some gender characteristics (or roles) observable in the context of heterosexual relationships are also observable in the context of homosexual relationships.

What I learned

I before thought that ages for marriage have never been as high as they are now; I never would have predicted that there are signficiant trends in singlehood among races; I had never before thought about dormatories as types of communes.

Questions/Concerns

There is a contradiction in the book regarding whether cohabitation positively or negatively impacts marriage. In the benefits of cohabitation section, our author mentions that postponing marriage is conducive to happier marriages (because older people are, in general, more adept in managing their personal relationships). Later the chapter clearly says that cohabitation is conducive to higher divorce rates because of selection-, cohabitation-, and inertia effects. Sure, the former statement concens ‘happiness of marriage’ whereas the latter concerns marital status and these are two distinct variables but they are not independent from eachother. Its clear that one cannot be in a happy marriage if they are not in a marriage. Happier while they last?—unlikely.

Furthermore, seeing ‘the marriage problem’ as relating especially to ‘singlehood’ is the wrong way to approach it. It should be seen in terms of social values and morals (or lack thereof!). (By seeing it in terms of singlehood, ‘the marriage problem’ is easier reduced to ‘rational’ problems such as the state of the economy.)

Lastly, saying that people are more individualistic is no explanation for a rise in singles. Being an individualist means determining ones values for oneself, not upholding values that separate one from others.