Sociology - Marriage Is Unpopular in Modern Day Britain

765 Words4 Pages
In this essay I am going to consider marriage and its popularity and discuss the statement; “Marriage is unpopular in modern day Britain”. A definition of marriage is two people who make a commitment to each other in the eyes of the law. Nowadays, marriage remains popular; however the number of marriages taking place is decreasing. There are different types of marriages such as Monogamy, Polygyny and Polyandry. Monogamy, where one person is married to another person at one time. Polygamy is when a person is married to more than one person at the same time. This is accepted in some countries but is against the law in Britain. There are two types of polygamy: Polygyny and Polyandry. Polygyny is when a man has two or more wives at the same time e.g. the Masai in Africa. Polyandry is also when a woman has two or more husbands e.g. in Tibet. The main type of marriage in Britain is Monogamy because it is not needed to be a part of any religion. Polygyny and Polyandry are similar to each other and less common because they are associated with a specific religion. Statistically, first time marriages are decreasing and re-marriages are steadily increasing. The marriage rate in the UK has declined from 7.1 marriages per 1000 people in 1981, to 5.2 marriages per 1000 people in 2005. These statistics show that marriage remains popular despite the reduction in the number of marriages. A reason for the decrease in first time marriages could be because of the increase of cohabitation (where a couple live together but they do not feel the need to marry). This increase is linked to changing social attitudes towards sex outside marriage. Before the 1960s, it was considered unacceptable for unmarried women to be sexually active. Official records show that the proportion of people cohabiting has more or less doubled over the last 20 years. This change in social
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