Ground Rules for Marriage

Abstract

“What, if anything, has changed in the last century?” The implication of this question is sometimes “Has anything really changed?” Do we merely have a situation in which, despite efforts to improve marriage and family, “plus ca change, le plus c’est la meme chose”? It is a question that receives quite opposite answers from different observers. Using exactly the same data, some conclude that marriage, and hence family, have changed for the worse and are now suffering severe and perhaps even irremediable disintegration. Others label such a point of view as mere myth. The general academic “line” seems to be that, yes, there have been some changes and as a result some things are clearly wrong about the current situation of marriage and family, but in the overall perspective it remains essentially strong; the evidence actually shows marriage and the family better in some ways than in the past. Most of the research on which these conflicting conclusions are based is statistical. In and of themselves, statistics can tell us only about trends or prevalence or incidence. What looks like a lasting change to one observer may seem a mere short-term change to another. What seems like a widespread, even revolutionary, change to one observer may be minimized by another because its incidence is relatively low. In the present discussion the research data themselves are secondary to what are called “ground rules.” It is clear that these ground rules have indeed changed in the last century. Whether these changes show the glass half empty or half full is difficult to discern. Whether it is under our power to fill—or empty—it is not all clear to me. The glass may be fuller now for one member of the marriage or family but emptier for another; fuller for women in some classes, emptier for those in other classes.