Welcome back, Family class! Professor "A" here and today we will be discussing Module 8 on Marriage and Cohabitation. So even though we've had a lot of change in regards to marriage, in our society there are still some traditions that are holding on. As we still see here, heterosexual marriages are still likely to be quite gendered, where they view their marriage differently, they experience it. We still see traces of the his and her marriage that Jesse Bernard talked about and American wives are still more likely to do more household chores than American husbands. As I've said previously, the federal government largely leaves the enforcement and jurisdiction of marriage up to the individual states. So the legal rights of marriage can actually vary from state to state, as on the flip side, the handling of divorce as well. We talked about same-sex marriages again the federal government largely left this up to the individual states Massachusetts was the first legalized in 2004 and then finally 2015 we had the federal recognition. You might have heard the term common-law marriages. This is basically when a couple lives together for an extended period of time their cohabitating living together without being married and it's basically sort of grandfathered into being married you know the idea of they've been together so long basically they act like a married couple so society considers them married. But only a handful of states actually recognize common-law marriage and it does not afford the full rights that marriage does in some cases it's only used for inheritance purposes, for example. So what contributes to some of the gender differences in marriage well actually religion. Many of the institutions much like Paul Cantor talked about in a very early Simpsons article that you read, that the other institutions largely tried to dictate what is best for the family and so that definitely that definitely is seen in the case of marriage. So the idea of husbands knew this and wives knew that largely came from the Protestant beliefs of the early colonists because as you remember also from the previous modules the African slaves were more likely to be Egalitarian and the Native Americans were more likely to be egalitarian or possibly matriarchal in family structures so the idea of the patriarchal family came from the Protestant settlers. So the idea of dad as the breadwinner and mom as the homemaker, that 1950s image of the family, is fading away we see 7% and it continues to actually shrink more people are choosing to be single there are more unmarried people there are more cohabitating couples living together without marriage as we see unmarried adults make up a quarter of all households and this is also related to the institution of the economy as our economy has changed and now a college degree is required to have a job that pays a livable wage it's expected that after high school you go to college and it's expected after college you get started in your career. Well as you all know this takes time and so people are likely to delay getting married. So this is also changing some factors we're getting married at an older age which is actually helping to keep marriages intact and overall it's still largely a cultural goal most Americans that have not yet married say that they would like to get married so it's still very much a norm we're just getting married at an older age the good news is this makes us more likely to stay married once we do get married family sizes are shrinking as well this is also related to our economy into this education expectation and plus home sizes are smaller and homes are expensive so there's just not the route to have the six children of the past so you know the idea of the 1.75 kids is very much reality for American families. There are benefits to getting married, as we see. Married people tend to be physically and mentally healthier than their single counterparts. they actually tend to have better sex lives. it tends to be more satisfying so there is something to that you know sex and love connection. They tend to have more economic stability and more economic resources because nowadays of course they often have two incomes so it's more likely to reduce a livable wage for the household now the benefits are not Universal the economic sort of stability is not found in the lower classes and it is not evenly distributed across our racial groups. Ooh, these are some of my favorites: the different types of marriages. I bet you didn't know there are different types. So, the first is the Conflicted Habituated and this is the couple that thrives on fighting. They are you know they might fight in public, they might fight in private but it's just constant maybe the kids tell everyone that their parents are always fighting but basically that's how they function. They know how to fight and argue. It's not a it's not a fulfilling marriage, by any means. Then we have the devitalized marriage and that is just as it sounds that they are you know they were once in love but it faded over time and you know they stayed together because of the children or because they promised their parents or whatever the case is. So they just feel duty-bound and obligated to stay in this marriage that isn't as passionate as it once was. Then we have the Passive Congenial marriages. This is sort of related to the arranged marriages of the past the not so formal but more of the social where we see here marriage was I'm sorry love was not expected. So sort of a modern example would be we hear of people that marry somebody else from another country simply so they can have citizenship status and they you know might be friends. So they're not in love passionately but this could be an example of the passive congenial marriage. Or simply being married allows them to have this home stability that they can focus their energies on their career or their education or parenting. So this marriage is a source of stability that allows them to do other things. So then we have the Vital Marriage and the Vital Marriage is sort of intriguing because it sounds like it might be a good thing but this is the one where the couple makes each other their entire world. This is a couple that cannot do anything without each other or they you know oh "let me check with my spouse", as we see here. Everything is done together we see they are each other's world their reason for living hence their vitality you give me life well unfortunately that life runs out because we find no one person can be everything for somebody else they need outside relationships they need time together but they need time apart and they need to have their own interests in order to have a successful marriage. These do tend to burn out and then we have the Total Marriage we seen like the vital marriage but actually that's sort of misguided it's actually quite unlike the vital marriage because the total marriage has these outside interests. They spend time with their families of orientations their you know their friends their into their careers, so their spouse is not their only reason for happiness and that is makes it very different from the vital marriage. So the total marriage is actually more likely to be intact and has higher relationship satisfaction. No surprise that sex is an important part of marriage and the idea of communication also just needs some physical contact for a successful marriage. That you know they regularly touch each other. Just affectionately just in regular conversation you know putting hands on the other one shoulder but then of course this translates into maintaining physical contact in the bedroom as well. And this being sexually satisfied tends to be connected to being satisfied in the marriage overall. The egalitarian marriage is a desirable goal. Egalitarian meaning equal. In the Egalitarian marriage, it is a partnership and they share they share not just the power and the decision-making but things like chores and time with the children it is a partnership and it tends to be divorced resistant. The Egalitarian marriage is also known as the Pure marriage and there are some specific criteria. Now the couple never wants to obsess over being you know 50/50 exact equals but they help and they you know they balance each other out. Like it says they're never more than a 60/40 split but they also are there for the other one when they need. it so let's say we have a tax accountant married to a retail manager retail manager super busy during the holiday season November, December and so during this time period the tax accountant does more chores at home, spends more time with the kids. When's the tax accountant super busy March and April right, working crazy long hours and during this period, the retail manager spouse is "don't worry I got this" takes care of things at home, the chores, the kids. So they find ways to balance it out and they share you know the decision-making time with the children, chores. They view each other's careers as equally important and it's a true partnership up here is a social equal and so this is why it's referred to as a pure marriage. But like I said, they never want to obsess over being exactly equal like okay I wash the dishes yesterday you do them today or you know let's split the bill at dinner, that actually is detrimental to the marriage but they try to be as equal as possible without obsessing over it. Cohabitation used to be known as shacking up, living together without being married. We see a multitude of reasons. Interestingly, the number of cohabitaters doubled in the 1990s. This is something that used to be viewed as deviant in our society which shows how norms and deviants change with time and culture and part of the big reason is, we see there, the media had a big influence in the 1980s and early 90s the number of cohabitating couples featured in the mainstream media just you know increased tremendously. Sitcoms and blockbuster movies centering around couples that were living together without being married and it changed people's perceptions and wait a minute these people seem nicer, these people are funny and attractive, you know they don't seem like like heathens and people living in sin and you know demonic possessed beings. So it started to change people's perception and it became more socially acceptable and now it's become you know very much a trial marriage people rely on it you know let's see if we can live together without killing each other first in fact now you know society has almost the opposite reaction of the past if you know if a couple announces they're engaged people say oh congratulations how long have you lived together and if that couple says no no we want to wait until we're married oh are you sure you know what you're doing don't you want to try before you buy so almost the opposite reaction of the past. So interestingly, the cohabitation rates do vary by ethnicity and this really tends to be connected to how religious the ethnic groups are. Most of the dominant world religions are against cohabitation. Catholicism, for example, still denounces cohabitation. So if there is an ethnic group that is particularly involved in their religion like Catholicism, then they are less likely to cohabitate. Interestingly couples that cohabitate before getting married, they don't tend to have better marriages. In fact they are slightly more likely to get divorced. Now don't freak out if you're already cohabitating and plan to marry your significant other, it's slightly. And you know even with that slight curve some of the results were finding are a bit mixed. Remember we're looking for patterns of behavior but for every pattern we identify, somebody breaks it.