Over the past fifty years, powerful cultural and social forces have made marriage less central to Americans' family lives. In reaction, the United States is now engaged in a wide-ranging debate about the place of marriage in contemporary society. In this article, Steven Nock examines the national marriage debate. He begins by reviewing the social and demographic trends that have changed the rol...

BACKGROUND Some scholars claim that marriage is an outmoded institution, decoupled from the childbearing process in Sweden. However, it is likely that the presence of children is still linked to marriage, since most children born to cohabiting couples experience the marriage of their parents. The temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage may be informative as to the meaning of marriage. OB...

The present study was conducted in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. The aim of research study was to assess the changing Family Composition, Structure and Practices in urban area of Kanpur City. Purposively 80 families of middle socioeconomic strata were selected for the study. A survey was conducted using a selfstructured questionnaire with close ended questions, to collect the data regarding...

This paper examines the effects of incarceration on marriage and family life. The paper reports on three empirical analyses. First, estimates show that incarcerated men are only about half as likely to be married as noninstituional men of the same age, however they are just as likely to have children. By 2000, more than 2 million children had incarcerated fathers; 1 in 10 black children under a...

Spouses' emotional ties to family early in marriage are linked to marital outcomes, but little is known about how these ties affect marital stability and whether these effects vary by race and gender. The present study examines the links between emotional ties to family of origin and in-laws in the first year of marriage and marital stability over the first 16 years of marriage. Data were colle...

Results: Among the participants, 54.5% were exposed to psychological violence, 30.4% were exposed to physical violence, 19.3% were exposed to economic violence, and 6.3% were exposed to sexual violence. Partner’s age and the duration of marriage had a protective effect on intimate partner violence while worsening of marital relations, marriage by family decision, marriage against family consent...

Ethnic differences in commitment to wed were examined between 46 Hispanics (27 women, 19 men) and 160 Anglos (84 women, 76 men). Although limited by sample sizes, findings indicated that Hispanics and Anglos did not differ, on average, on measures of attitudes toward marriage, perceived family influence, commitment to wed, belongingness, and trust. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that...

Given the recent increase in the prevalence of cohabiting unions in Botswana, this paper speculates on the role this type of union plays in contemporary Botswana family system. The analysis is based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative data from the 2001 Cohabitation Survey and the 1996 Botswana Family Health Survey respectively. The overall results reveal that cohabitation differ...