Over the last forty years marriage and cohabitation patterns have drastically changed due to various reasons and changes in society. Firstly I will look at the changes in first marriages. In 1951 there were approximately 330,000 first marriages in the UK, whereas in 2009 there were only 190,000. This clearly shows the dramatic decline in first marriages. The reasons for this decrease are due to a change in social norms and a decline in social stigma.
Secularisation is also involved in why there are changing patterns of marriage due to churches being in favour of marriage, but as their influence declines, people feel freer to choose not to marry – according to the 2001 Cenus, 3% of young people with no religion were married, compared to up to 17% of those with a religion. High divorce rates mean divorcees are able to re-marry, however some churches do not marry divorcees. People are also now marrying later as people stay in education till later and are likely to cohabit first. In addition, Alan and Crow agree with the idea that there have been changes in the position of women, they are now better educated, which makes them less dependent on men financially, which makes women have greater freedom not to marry or to end a marriage. In support, feminists see divorce as desirable as it shows that women are breaking free from the oppression of the patriarchal nuclear family.
However all three have changed significantly over the last 40 years. Since 1970, marriage rates have changed significantly. There has been a decrease in marriage from 48,000 in 1972 to only 30,600 in 2000. Item A states that only half as many people are getting married today. There are many reasons why marriage rates have decreased over the years these include Religious significance has dropped dramatically in many western countries including the U.K.
However due to views in society forever changing, an increasing number of couples in modern day Britain mostly cohabitate instead of marry. There are a few reasons due to this, people think marriage is too expensive and due to secularisation, people think it’s less compulsory to get married because they don’t believe in God. This is because God said marriage is a sacred commitment between two people and himself. Reasons for these changes in patterns of marriage could possibly be reflecting the fact that society as a whole is changing, consequently meaning that the norms and values on which society functions with are also changing. For example, it is no longer frowned up for a woman to have a child when she’s unmarried.
The American respondents were reluctant to marry somebody who they did not love as only 14% said that they would agree to marry. In contrast to this, the collectivist cultures had higher percentages such as India with 24% and Thailand with 34%. These results therefore suggest that a higher proportion from collectivist cultures is willing to marry with the absence of their love. This therefore supports the idea that there are differences in relationships between cultures as the results were not similar or even the same between cultures. This also
Examine the reasons for changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in the last 40 years or so. (24 marks) Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a huge increase in divorce which has fundamentally led to changes in patterns of marriage and cohabitation which has overall resulted in an increase in family diversity. There has been an increase in divorce by the actual numbers of divorces rising from 25,000 in 1961 to 146,000 in 1997. This could be due to the introduction of the Divorce Reform Act 1969. This has made divorce easier to obtain which has overall contributed to the decline in marriage.
They are also not having babies or having them later so that they can pursue single lifestyle which means that by the time they have done this they have less time to have babies which means if they do decide to have children they will have less due to the time they have spent being single. A lot of women now have become a lot more independent and are concentrating on their career. Contraception has also improved a lot since the 1900’s this now means that women can choose whether they want to have children or not and still have a sexual relationship whereas before if you wanted to have sex you would most probably become pregnant. In the 1900’s children were less likely to survive due to the health conditions and lack of health care, now there is the NHS free health care for people so babies have a lot more chance of surviving so mothers don’t need to have as many children because the chance of them surviving is a lot higher than it used to be. Women are choosing to have babies later which is also causing the birth rate to drop this is because there is less stigma on having babies t an older age so women are waiting and not worrying what people might think.
Moreover, things such as same-sex relationships and lone parent families was stigmatised four example by most churches condemning it. However within society today stigma has also declined rapidly, making things such as same-sex relationships more normalised therefore it being seen as more acceptable. Another reason for family diversity is due to the change in attitudes and laws and important factor causing the attitude and Laws to be changed the changes that at of attitude and position of woman. The women's equal pay act 1970 influence the women to focus more on their career and I'm making money rather than just being a 'housewife.' The addition of the introduction of the lane apparently welfare benefits it allows wife to be less economically dependent on their husbands.
Earlier in Europe, mothers had avoided strong emotional ties to newborn children because of the constant risk of infant death. As the emergence of the family as an important institution grew, so did a growing emotional attachment to children. Women started to begin breastfeeding their own offspring rather than hiring a wet nurse to do so for them. Love and affection was also focused on older children and adolescents, as they too were involved in the strong bonds of emotional attachment to their mothers. Families often had less numbers of children as a cause of the reduced rate of the rates of mortality of infants, and also often strove to provide their children with opportunities in the world that they themselves never had, which is a concept that modern families have too.
Many of these women were married very young, out of high school or just out of college, and they never really were on their own. They were used to being financially dependent on their husbands and did not know how to support themselves after a divorce. Since the divorce laws in those days also favored the men, many women opted not to take up an already lost battle. However, a lot has changed since those days. Not only is divorce more accepted today by the society, but also women are much more financially liberated.