Summary
THE SINGLE OPTION
Are Americans Opting Out of Marriage?
Many Singles are Postponing Marriage
THE DIVERSITY OF SINGLES
Single Adults in General: voluntary temporary singles, voluntary stable singles, involuntary temporary singles, involuntary stable singles
Single Adults in Later Life: aging and the double standard, some advantages and disadvantages of being single in later life
HOME ALONE
Who Is Living Alone?: gender and age, race and ethnicity
Why Do People Live Alone?
WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE SINGLE
Macro-Level Factors: war, technology, and social movements, economic factors, gender roles
Demographic Influences: the sex ratio- proportion of men to women in a country (female infanticide- intentional killing of baby girls because of a preference for sons), marriage squeeze sex imbalance in the ratio of available unmarried women and men-, social class, non-marital childbearing
Individual Reasons: waiting for a soul mate, being independent, enjoying close relationships, making a commitment, having children, fearing divorce, being healthy and physically attractive
RACIAL AND ETHNIC SINGLES
African Americans: structural factors, values and attitudes
Latinos: structural factors, values and attitudes
Asian Americans: structural factors, values and attitudes
SOME MYTHS AND REALITIES ABOUT BEING SINGLE
1. Singles are Selfish and Self-Centered
2. Singles are well-off financially
3. Singles are usually lonely and miserable and want to marry
4. Singles are promiscuous or don't get any sex
5. Singles' children are doomed to a life of poverty as well as emotional and behavioral problems
6. Singles worry about growing old and dying alone
7. There's something wrong with people who don't marry
COHABITATION- living arrangement in which two unrelated people are not married but live together and are in a sexual relationship
POSSLQs- persons of the opposite sex sharing living quarters
Cohabitation Trends and Attitudes
Types of Cohabitation: dating cohabitation- couple decide to move in together, premarital cohabitation- couple is testing the relationship before making a final commitment, trial marriage- partners want to see what marriage might be like, substitute marriage- long-term commitment between two people who don't plan to marry
Who Cohabits?: age, gender, race and ethnicity, social class, religion
Some Benefits and Costs of Cohabitation
Does Cohabitation Lead to Better Marriages?: the selection effect, the cohabitation effect, the inertia effect
How Does Cohabitation Affect Children?
Cohabitation and Law
GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES
Gay and Lesbian Relationships: Love and commitment, power and division of labor, problems and conflict, racial-ethnic variations
The War over Same-Sex Unions: the defense of marriage, civil unions, same-sex marriage
COMMUNAL LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: communes in the past, contemporary communal living
Points of Interest
When I was younger, I went to a Christian camp for a week over the summer. It was a special week in which the camp also accommodated Christian missionaries from China. I remember them explaining to us how they ran an orphanage for abandoned girls because it was more favorable to have a son. They would find babies in trash cans and the book reminded me of hearing about this for the first time. It is tragic that it is still occurring to some extent, but I'm glad they are trying to resolve it in some areas.
The section on page 242 and 243 about being healthy and physically attractive reminded me of the movie "She's Out of Your League." They constantly use the 1-10 scale in the movie to determine the attractiveness of an individual. The main character's friends concluded that since he ranked low on the scale, he could not catch a girl that was a "hard 10," as they described her.
Questions
On page 252-253, the book goes over the effects of cohabitation on children. Overall, they show negative effects. Do you agree that all of these negative effects are from cohabitation? Are there any positive effects anyone thinks the book can/should add?
Hey Kelly, it seems that something like 'the selection effect' is taking place here and can be used to explain cohabitation's effect on children just like on divorce. It is not that cohabitation itself causes or is responsible for negative effects on children. Rather, its that cohabiters have different characteristics than married couples and these characteristics are responsible for the negative effects on children. Individuals who live together with a child but who aren't married are more likely to be poor, self-serving, or emotionally detached from their children than married couples.
ReplyDeleteIn any single case, a cohabiting couple can be just as close or closer than a married couple, have as many or more resources, and be better parents. But if we're talking about positive effects on children that are generalizable, cohabitation can be good for children in that they can have (speaking non-discriminately) both a male and female presence and so can learn about differences between genders; also, if they are dating cohabiters then the children can get a sense of what relationships are and/or what one strives for in a relationship.