Marriage Plans Research Articles

Investments in Marriage and Cohabitation: The Role of Legal and Interpersonal Commitment

Cohabiters have been shown to invest less in their relationship than married couples. This study investigated the role of legal and interpersonal commitment by examining heterogeneity within marital and cohabiting unions. Going beyond the dichotomy of cohabitation versus marriage, different union types were distinguished by their level of legal and interpersonal commitment, followed by an assessment of their association with joint investments (specialization, having children together, purchasing a home). Using panel data from The Netherlands (N =2,362), the authors found considerable heterogeneity within marital and cohabiting unions. Joint investments increased as interpersonal commitment increased, with cohabiters without marriage plans investing the least and couples who directly married without prior cohabitation investing the most. The relationship between investments and legal union types was less straightforward and often challenged expectations, prompting the authors to elaborate on alternative explanations for their findings.

Genetic Testing in Psychiatry: A Review of Attitudes and Beliefs

The advent of genetic testing for psychiatric conditions raises difficult questions about when and how the tests should be used. Development of policies regarding these issues may be informed in a variety of ways by the views of key stakeholders: patients, family members, healthcare professionals, and the general public. Here, we review empirical studies of attitudes towards genetic testing among these groups. Patients and family members show strong interest in diagnostic and predictive genetic testing, and to a considerable extent psychiatrists share their enthusiasm. Prenatal test utilization seems likely to depend both on parental views on abortion and the seriousness of the disorder. Parents show a surprising degree of interest in predictive testing of children, even when there are no preventive interventions available. Many persons report themselves ready to alter their lifestyles and plans for marriage and family in response to test results. Respondents also fear negative consequences, from discrimination to being unable to cope with knowledge of their “genetic fate.” Empirical studies of beliefs about genetic testing suggest tests are likely to be embraced widely, but the studies have methodologic limitations, reducing the certainty of their conclusions, and indicating a need for further research with more representative samples.

The Specter of Divorce: Views From Working‐ and Middle‐Class Cohabitors

Young Americans increasingly express apprehension about their ability to successfully manage intimate relationships. Partially in response, cohabitation has become normative over the past few decades. Little research, however, examines social class distinctions in how emerging adults perceive challenges to sustaining intimate unions. We examine cohabitors' views of divorce and how these color their sentiments regarding marriage. Data are from in-depth interviews with 122 working- and middle-class cohabitors. More than two thirds of respondents mentioned concerns with divorce. Working-class women, in particular, view marriage less favorably than do their male and middle-class counterparts, in part because they see marriage as hard to exit and are reluctant to assume restrictive gender roles. Middle-class cohabitors are more likely to have concrete wedding plans and believe that marriage signifies a greater commitment than does cohabitation. These differences in views of marriage and divorce may help explain the bifurcation of cohabitation outcomes among working- and middle-class cohabitors.

At‐Risk Marriages after Compulsory Premarital Testing and Counseling for β‐Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Disease in Saudi Arabia, 2005–2006

Results from a screening program for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia suggest about 90% of couples in Saudi Arabia at risk of having affected children still decide to marry. This study determined the rate of at-risk marriages and identified several factors that may prevent at risk couples from marrying. The marriage status of 934 at-risk couples was determined from original screening program records in the Ministry of Health. Of 934 couples, 824 married (88.2%) and 110 (11.8%) did not. A case-controlled study was conducted on 104 couples who did not marry (cases) and 478 couples who did marry (controls) in order to assess relationships between various cultural and social factors and marriage decisions. In the case-controled study, 28.8% of couples (30/104) who did not marry (cases) knew their disease or carrier status before screening compared to 18% (86/478) of those who married (controls). Reasons couples gave for proceeding with marriage included: wedding plans could not be canceled, and fear of social stigma. Couples who did not marry reported being influenced by prior knowledge of their disease or carrier status and whether they or family members were affected. Approximately half of the cases and controls (n = 270, 46.4%) thought it best to undergo screening before proceeding with the engagement and wedding plans. Most couples received no advice to participate in genetic counseling services. Marriage decisions for the small number who received genetic counseling (n = 168, 27.6%) did not differ significantly from those that received no counseling. Recommendations are made for improving the effectiveness of this screening program.

Mothers- and Fathers-to-Be: The Next Generation of Planning and Career-Family Conflict

Newspaper reports of female college seniors modifying their career plans to opt out of work before they enter the workforce challenge the assumption that because many recent college graduates were raised in dual-income families, they would expect to have a substantial workforce role. Using a questionnaire format, this study examines postgraduation plans of 131 seniors at a West Coast Christian university to identify development of career, marriage, and family plans and the degree to which they have prepared strategies for potential conflicting responsibilities. The potential effects of educational background are explored through a comparison to seniors at a highly selective East Coast university. The results validated the hypothesis that female students think more about the need for flexibility and possible time away from career than male counterparts. The women in this study did not opt out of the workforce but were considering other lifestyle modifications such as not getting married and not having children.

Ewangelizacja rodziny drogą do odnalezienia tożsamości (30 lat po Familiaris consortio)

Jan Paweł II w „Familiaris consortio” w punkcie 17, mówiąc o zadaniach rodziny chrześcijańskiej, wskazuje na konieczność dotarcia do "początku" aktu twórczego Boga. Dziś wydaje się, że tym, czego potrzebuje rodzina jest przede wszystkim nowa ewangelizacja. Należy to rozumieć jak odkrycie pierwotnego planu Boga wobec małżeństwa i rodziny oraz powrotu "do początku" z wiarą , jako własny sposób życia. Chodzi o wprowadzenie ludzi do osobistej osobowej relacji z Bogiem.

Breaking up is hard to do: The impact of unmarried relationship dissolution on mental health and life satisfaction.

This study examined the impact of unmarried relationship break-up on psychological distress and life satisfaction using a within-subjects design. Among unmarried 18- to 35-year olds (N = 1295), 36.5% had one or more break-ups over a 20-month period. Experiencing a break-up was associated with an increase in psychological distress and a decline in life satisfaction (from pre- to postdissolution). In addition, several characteristics of the relationship or of the break-up were associated with the magnitude of the changes in life satisfaction following a break-up. Specifically, having been cohabiting and having had plans for marriage were associated with larger declines in life satisfaction while having begun to date someone new was associated with smaller declines. An interesting finding, having higher relationship quality at the previous wave was associated with smaller declines in life satisfaction following a break-up. No relationship or break-up characteristics were significantly associated with the magnitude of changes in psychological distress after a break-up. Existing theories are used to explain the results. Implications for clinical work and future research on unmarried relationships are also discussed.

Transitions to Engagement Among Low-Income Cohabiting African American Couples: A Family Perspective for Policy

With passage of the Welfare Reform Law of 1996, various national, state, and local programs were created to encourage marriage, particularly among low-income African American cohabiting couples with children. However, policy makers know little about the deterrents to marriage for members of this group. More specifically, there is a lack of data that address the narrative responses of low-income, cohabiting African Americans regarding their desire for and barriers to marriage. To address this paucity, interviews were conducted with 30 low-income African American couples to explore their marital status, their plans for marriage, as well as their perceived barriers regarding marriage. Using qualitative coding and analysis, implications and recommendations regarding how policy makers and programs can best encourage marriage, if it should be encouraged, among low-income African American couples, are also provided.

Love or Money?

Using data from Sweden and Norway on cohabitors aged 25 to 35, we examine the association between socio-economic resources, relationship quality and commitment and cohabitors’ marriage intentions. The individualization process, i.e. the arguably growing importance of individual choice, leads us to assume that relationship assessments are more important predictors of marriage intentions than socio-economic variables. Nonetheless, multivariate results show that university education and having a partner whose education is higher than one’s own increase the likelihood that cohabitors intend to marry. Likewise, being satisfied with and committed to the union is positively related to having marriage plans. Separate analyses for men and women reveal that whereas commitment is positively related to women’s marriage intentions, men’s marriage intentions are significantly more influenced by their own education, income, as well as the income of their partners. In this sense, one conclusion to be drawn is that both love and money are associated with cohabitors’ intention to marry.

University students' preference of community facilities based on marriage plan

University students' preference of community facilities based on marriage plan

Technique Triangulation for Validation in Directed Content Analysis

Division of labor in wedding planning varies for first-time marriages, with three types of couples—traditional, transitional, and egalitarian—identified, but nothing is known about wedding planning for remarrying individuals. Using semistructured interviews, the author interviewed 14 couples in which at least one person had remarried and used directed content analysis to investigate the extent to which the aforementioned typology could be transferred to this different context. In this paper she describes how a triangulation of analytic techniques provided validation for couple classifications and also helped with moving beyond “blind spots” in data analysis. Analytic approaches were the constant comparative technique, rank order comparison, and visual representation of coding, using MAXQDA 2007's tool called TextPortraits.

A Study of Commitment and Relationship Quality in Sweden and Norway

The Scandinavian countries are often cited as examples of countries where cohabitation is largely indistinguishable from marriage. Using survey data from Norway and Sweden (N = 2,923) we analyzed differences between cohabitors and married individuals in relationship seriousness, relationship satisfaction, and dissolution plans. Our analyses reveal that cohabitors overall are less serious and less satisfied with their relationships and are more likely to consider ending their current relationships than are married respondents. The views of cohabitors who report that they intend to marry their current partners within 2 years, however, differ much less from those of married respondents than cohabitors with no marriage plans. This finding suggests that even in Scandinavia cohabitors are a heterogeneous group.

The Second Time ’Round: Gender Construction in Remarried Couples’ Wedding Planning

Humble, Zvonkovic, and Walker (2008) studied division of labor in first-time marriages, finding a range of gender construction. This study applied their conceptualization to remarried couples, for whom little is known about division of labor or wedding experiences. Fourteen couples in which at least 1 spouse had recently remarried were interviewed about their wedding planning. Data analysis consisted of direct content analysis, rank order comparison, and matrix analysis. Contrasting Humble et al.'s findings, traditional and egalitarian couples were more common than transitional couples. Although remarriages tended to involve smaller and less complicated weddings, the majority of the couples replicated gendered patterns from their first weddings in subsequent weddings.

Abortion and the Struggle to be Good in the 1970s

This study used social science methodology to illuminate an important clinical question that had been inaccessible to researchers until the 1970s. The question was what effect did an abortion have on normally rule abiding women. Abortion had been presumed to be illegal until a judicial decision in 1969. In 1972 Australia's first abortion clinic was established, and the participants in this study were the women who attended it in 1974. This study was the first of its kind in Australia. Interviews were conducted with 32 women who had a lawful termination of pregnancy and who agreed to be interviewed one year later. 84% of women agreed to follow-up contact, and 34 were contacted. Social science theory about deviance, social stigma and norm violation was used to inform the study. Single, nulliparous women, were troubled by the potential exposure of their rule breaking sexual activity. The abortion was in part an action taken to preserve their persona as competent, moral beings capable of taking care of themselves. The abortion was the sensible next step in managing a missed menstrual period, the back up when contraception or plans for love and marriage failed. These women took mothering seriously and had an abortion to avoid becoming inadequate mothers. Abortion was a challenge to the married women's sense of themselves as good mothers, and their motives related to good mothering. The working class women had histories of managing tough and challenging life events, and they used the strengths, skills and networks they had established and applied those to the abortion decision. The most important and frequent effect of abortion was to make women feel more competent in managing their lives. The skills required to locate and access an abortion clinic against a backdrop of general social disapproval, expanded their sense of themselves as actors in their own lives. Their stories, as well as networks of support, enabled them to integrate abortion into their sense of themselves as good women.

Busy Brides and the Business of Family Life

As work traditionally located in the private sphere, wedding planning, like other domestic functions, has become commodified. Building upon Hochschild's work on the commercialization of intimate life, this article explores the relationship of feminism to the commercial spirit of intimate life to understand wedding planning as a commodified domestic service designed to meet the competing demands of work and home for women. In its marketing, the industry makes use of feminism, harnessing liberal feminist ideals of “having it all”: The solution for busy, engaged career women is to outsource their wedding planning. Thus, both the problem and the answer are rooted in a capitalist version of liberal feminism. Based on interviews with six wedding planners, an analysis of the online advertising of 280 planning businesses, and an examination of the industry, this case study of wedding planning illuminates the connections between liberal feminism and the commodification of family life.

“The Royal We”

Family rituals provide a rich context in which to study the relation between ideology and action. Guided by the gender perspective, this article analyzes the experiences of 21 newly married heterosexual couples who described how they planned their weddings. The interplay among gender ideology, gender display, and gender assessment differed across three types of couples: traditional ( n = 6), transitional ( n = 10), and egalitarian ( n = 5). An examination of gender assessment in transitional couples illustrates how holding competing ideologies contributes to the reproduction of hegemonic gendered work patterns within wedding planning.

The Relationship Between Adolescent and Young Fathers’ Capital and Marital Plans of Couples Expecting a Baby*

Abstract: We examined the relationship between fathers’ human, social, and financial capital and future marital plans among 176 pregnant adolescent mothers and the fathers of their babies. Fathers’ social capital proved to be the most significant resource in relation to marital plans. Mothers and fathers were significantly more likely to plan to marry when the father was involved in the pregnancy and when there was less couple conflict. Couples were more likely to agree about marriage when the mother and father agree that the father was involved in these aspects of parenting and when the couple agrees about high level of parenting alliance. Healthy Marriage initiatives should target young fathers’ social capital as well as plans for marriage.

Personal Accounts: Hold on Tight

Personal Accounts: Hold on Tight

Personal Accounts: Hold on Tight

Personal Accounts: Hold on Tight

The Rise of Genetic Couplehood? A Comparative View of Premarital Genetic Testing

Dor Yeshorim, a genetic testing programme focusing on the ‘genetic compatibility’ of prospective couples in Orthodox Jewish communities in Europe, the US and Israel, is at the centre of our paper. We discuss the specific understandings of risks that enable the effective implementation of the Dor Yeshorim model in Orthodox populations. Furthermore, we compare Dor Yeshorim to the premarital genetic testing programme for thalassaemia in Cyprus and analyse the particular social practices which generate different notions of genetic identity in these two projects. In the Cypriot programme, where individual carrier status is disclosed, unfavourable genetic carrier status is conceptualized on the individual level and often solved by resorting to prenatal genetic diagnosis upon pregnancy. In the case of Dor Yeshorim, where no information on carrier status but only on the ‘genetic compatibility’ of both partners is revealed, a notion of ‘genetic couplehood’ arises which conceptualizes ‘genetic risk’ not individually but as a matter of genetic jointness. If a prospective couple is found out to be ‘genetically incompatible’, marriage plans usually are cancelled. Furthermore, by not disclosing individual carrier information, Dor Yeshorim successfully avoids a pressing issue which ‘secular’ genetic testing programmes struggle with: the peril of ‘knowing too much’.