Chapter 9

Summary

Chapter 9 is titled “Singlehood, Cohabitation, Civil Unions, and Other Options,” and looks at non-traditional households, such as gay and single parents, and also the single life style.

First, the single life is discussed. The average age of marriage is going up due to a few different causes. First, more people than ever are continuing their education which delays marriage.  Another reason is that being single is much more acceptable now than it was, say, 30 years ago. The chapter names different types of singles. Some choose to be single but are open to marriage and some are not. Others are looking for a mate but have not found “the one,” yet. Others are widows or widowers. Single life as an older adult is much more difficult because the pool of mates has decreased. Gender discriminations begin as an older adult as well. Older women are seen as less attractive than older men. Younger women may be attracted to older men, but older women looking for younger men are deemed “cougars.” Living home alone is another part of singlehood. More women live alone than men and there are a few reasons for that. One big reason is that women live longer than men and therefore, women spend the last years of their lives living alone. Younger women may live alone because they are waiting to find their soul mate. African Americans are the least likely to get married out of every race.

Cohabitation is the next subject of the chapter. This, by the U.S. Census, is also known as POSSLQs a.k.a persons of the opposite sex sharing living quarters. People of the opposite sex live together for different reasons. Some people live together as a step between dating and marriage or they live together because they don’t plan to marry so this is the next best thing. Some factors of why people live together or do not live together can be finances and social class or because of their religion.  There are both benefits to cohabitation and disadvantages. It is beneficial to couples thinking about getting married because it gives them an idea of what their lives together would be like. It is a disadvantage it becomes a way to show gender roles when the woman does the cooking and cleaning and the man is not reciprocating. Cohabitation does not lead to a better marriage and can affect the children involved. Children from previous relationships may be brought up with children from their parent’s new relationship.

Chapter 9 then talks about gay and lesbian couples. There are interesting nuances in homosexual relationships such as the idea of power. Since there are not gender roles since they are the same gender, power is given to the older and or wealthier partner. Same sex unions are a touchy subject for most people in America because gays and lesbians are still discriminated against. Civil unions are an alternative to marriage. This gives them the legal rights that heterosexual couples have but does not marry them in a church. However, more states in the US and more countries are allowing for same sex marriage.

Lastly, communal living arrangements are discussed. They consist of parents and children from different families live together, married or not. The idea of communal living has been around since 100 B.C. and now, about 1% of the US population lives in a commune. Communes do not have very long life cycles because there are often conflicts about sexual relations, property, and finances. Communal living is most commonly found on college campuses where multiple people live in houses together that do not have any sexual relations.

What I learned:

I found the section on what race has the most singles really interesting. It’s something that I never would have thought there was research on. I also really like figure 9.3 and the statistics that it gave about how the percent of married, divorced, widowed, and never married has changed in each race between 1970 and 2007. The percent of widowed people, divorced and never married has gone up in every race. I thought the widowed statistic was particularly interesting. I believed that that number would be similar or lower because the average age as gone up and we’re not in the middle of a super violent war like the end of the wars in 1970.

Question for further discussion:

I thought some of the myths and realities about being single could only be applied to older people. I don’t see a problem with being single in college because we’re still young and very busy with schoolwork, internships, etc. What did everyone else think about these myths?

Also, did anyone else read #3 in Carrie Bradshaw’s voice? It sounded so Sex and the City.

Gina Z