‘Four Decades Of Attitudes Toward Family’ Essay

I found the reading and its data to be quite interesting. Some trends were more fascinating than others, and the same can be said about the topics covered.   While they were all engaging, I want to focus on three that are of importance to me.   Marriage, co-habitation without marriage, and premarital sex.   Since I only know where I stand on these issues, it was nice to see how the collective views these topics.

Starting with marriage; I was particularly surprised by the fact that Americans were increasingly agreeing to the fact that there were few ‘good marriages’, and increasingly disagreeing that marriage makes you happier.   This is all while they’re placing extreme importance on a ‘good marriage’.   What I read from this is that we are not necessarily jumping in and out of marriages haphazardly, but that we are starting to understanding the complexity of what it takes for a ‘good marriage’.   The increasing trend of postponing marriage by both men and women was also a little surprising to me.   I personally have no rush to jump into the sacred bond until I know it’s something I want to do.   But in the past I had thought, perhaps, it was people’s eagerness to jump into these unions that led to such high separation rates.   The data shows that age at marriage will increase faster than the number of people not getting married at all.   Will the older age of newlyweds present a problem when it comes to child bearing? Is it better for children and/or parents to birth younger rather than older?

I also want to look at premarital sex.   While we still believe in the importance of a ‘good marriage’, we are seemingly accepting of premarital sex.   The data shows disapproval of premarital sex dropping off steadily over the past four decades.   These facts also show our disapproval for teen sex.   When the age in question is 16, we feel strongly in opposition of teen sex.   However, when the age in question jumps to 18, we are less conservative; but still disapproving in...