Incredible as it may seem, we can no longer assume that people in our culture understand what the proper definition of “marriage” and “the family” is. Not only is this a sad commentary on the impact of same-sex marriage activists on our society, it also shows how the culture’s memory of the biblical tradition on which it is largely based is fading fast. What is marriage, biblically defined? And...

This study investigates how urban Malays give meanings to love within marriage. A total of 245 participants attending a compulsory premarital program in Klang Valley, Malaysia agreed to take part in this study. Questionnaires consisting of personal and relationship background were distributed to participants. How participants give meanings to love which exists in a marriage were rated using a s...

Did ballot measures banning samesex marriage swing the 2004 general election to George W. Bush? In 2004, activists and state legislators placed anti-gay marriage questions on the general election ballots of 11 states. All of the ballot measures passed easily, receiving on average roughly 70 percent support.1 Pundits argued that the marriage measures on the November ballot would be a major motiv...

The parental sex selection behaviour of altruistic parents without gender specific preference in a monogamous marriage market is studied. Using an OLG model with intra-household resource allocation determined by marriage market bargaining, we find that the equlibrium with a balanced male/female ratio is unstable. Depending on the effect of the marriage market sex ratio on intra-household alloca...

The U.S. experienced an unprecedented increase in fertility during the baby boom. After falling for a century and a half, fertility rates jumped by 45 percent from 1945 to 1955, before resuming their decline in 1965. The elevated birth rates from 1946 to 1964 were driven in part by a shift toward more universal marriage; marriage rates increased by 25 percent from 1930 to 1950 and the average a...

This paper examines how marital and fertility patterns have changed along racial and educational lines for men and women. Historically, women with more education have been the least likely to marry and have children, but this marriage gap has eroded as the returns to marriage have changed. Marriage and remarriage rates have risen for women with a college degree relative to women with fewer year...

I argue that household specialization and investment in firm-specific human capital explain the male marriage premium. First I develop a model of human capital in which to-be-married men invest in human capital over two rounds. The promise of high returns to the second round of investment encourages firms to offer high wages before the first round, so that wages do not change upon marriage. The...

The present cross sectional study was undertaken among the Assamese Muslim women of Kamrup district, Assam, one of the North-Eastern states of India with a view to understand the differences in the age at first marriage of women and socioeconomic factors influencing it. The findings of the present study reveals that the age at marriage is negatively associated with the type of family i.e., the ...

This article examines 14-year longitudinal data and attempts to create a post hoc model that uses Time-1 data to "predict" the length of time the marriage will last. The sample consists of the 21 couples (of 79 studied) who divorced over a 14-year period. A two-factor model is proposed. One factor is the amount of unregulated volatile positive and negative affect in the marriage, and this facto...

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study and the Current Population Survey, we find that labor market conditions play a large role in explaining the positive relationship between educational attainment and marriage. Our results suggest that if loweducated parents enjoyed the same, stronger labor market conditions as their more-educated counterparts, then differences in mar...