{"id":4938,"date":"2017-09-23T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T00:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/?p=4938"},"modified":"2017-09-23T19:30:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T00:30:17","slug":"the-future-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2017\/09\/23\/the-future-of-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Phil Sanders
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\nJust days before my wedding, my grandpa called to me. He said, \u201cSon, I got something to tell you.\u201d \u00a0So I listened patiently. Now grandpa loved my grandma for fifty years and more. \u00a0They had the kind of marriage that I was looking for. Grandpa didn\u2019t say much, but he meant just what he said. \u00a0So I really paid attention for what was up ahead. \u00a0\u201cTend the garden of your home son; make it the best that it can be. \u00a0Ev\u2019ryday make her feel special; treat her kind and tenderly. \u00a0Don\u2019t let the weeds of bitterness grow up wild within your heart. Tend the garden of your home, son; and you\u2019ll never grow apart.\u201d I tried to do what grandpa said, and it worked so well for me That when my boys get married, I hope they listen patiently. \u00a0My grandpa\u2019s words ring loud and clear, I hope they won\u2019t forget. \u00a0Their home is what they make it, and the future isn\u2019t set. \u00a0I won\u2019t say much to my boys, but I mean just what I say. \u00a0I hope they\u2019ll pay attention, like I did on grandpa\u2019s day. \u00a0\u201cTend the garden of your home son; make it the best that it can be. \u00a0Ev\u2019ryday make her feel special; treat her kind and tenderly. Don\u2019t let the weeds of bitterness grow up wild within your heart. Tend the garden of your home, son; and you\u2019ll never grow apart.\u201d
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\nSam McAlley (a.k.a. Phil Sanders) gives us this advice about marriage:\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cTend Your Garden, Son\u201d (Copyright 2004 Phil Sanders) This poem was published in \u00a0the International Who\u2019s Who in Poetry, 2004. If you publish this, give credit to Sam McAlley,
\n 
\nThe desire for marriage isn\u2019t what it used to be.<\/strong>
\nIn the 1970s most boys and girls grew up looking forward to the \u201chappiest day of their lives,\u201d when they entered into holy matrimony with the spouse of their dreams. Today fewer people are getting married at all. In the 1970s, 94 percent of women would marry at least once in life. It is estimated now that of females above age 15, only 84 percent will ever marry.
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\nMarriage trends for ages 35 to 44 suggest a lifetime of being single for more people in this generation than in any since the United States started keeping records. U.S. Census figures reveal that the percentage of married persons between the ages of 35 and 44 has dramatically declined over the last thirty-five years. In 1970, 89.3 percent of males and 86.9 percent of females age 35 44 were married. In 2004, only 67.3 of \u00a0males and 65.7 percent of females of the same age are married (Popenoe and Whitehead 2005, 18).
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\nFor most generations, virtually all persons who were going to marry during their lifetimes had married by age 45. More than 90 percent of women have married eventually in every generation for which records exist, going back to the mid-1800s. \u201cBy 1960, 94 percent of women then alive had been married at least once by age 45\u2014probably an historical high point. For the generation of 1995, assuming a continuation of then current marriage rates, several demographers projected that 88 percent of women and 82 percent of men would ever marry\u201d (Schoen and Standish \u00a0553-563).
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\nJust because there is a decline in marriage does not mean that people are giving up on living together with a sexual partner. Instead, the United States has seen a clear increase in unmarried cohabitation. Holy wedlock is giving ground to unwed unions. Most couples (about 2 in 3) now live together before they marry for the first time. For many, cohabitation is a prelude to marriage; for others, it is simply an alternative to living alone; and for a small but growing number, it is considered an alternative to marriage. About eight percent of all couples in America are living together without marriage. An even higher percentage of those divorced who subsequently remarry live together first. And a growing number of persons, both young and old, are living together with no plans for eventual marriage.
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\nCohabitation is more common among those of lower educational and income levels. Recent data show that among women in the 19 to 44 age range, 60 percent of high school dropouts have cohabited compared to 37 percent of college graduates (Bumpass and Lu 29-41). Cohabitation is also more common among those who are less religious than their peers, those who have been divorced, and those who have experienced parental divorce, fatherlessness, or high levels of marital discord during childhood. A growing percentage of cohabiting couple households, now over 40 percent, contain children (Teachman 444-455).
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\nToday, marriage has lost much of its role and significance as a rite of passage. For earlier generations of women, first sexual intercourse and marriage were closely linked and timed. Ninety percent of women born between 1933 and 1942 were either virgins when they married or had premarital intercourse with the man they wed (Michael 97). For today\u2019s generation of young women, the timing of first sexual intercourse is increasingly distant from the timing of first marriage. Just over half of teenage girls have experienced first sexual intercourse by age 17 (Moore 3). Teenage girls are sexually active for seven or eight years on aver- age before marriage. Indeed, premarital sex has become something of a misnomer. Sex is increasingly detached from the promise or expectation of marriage. \u00a0While conventional wisdom says, \u201cmarry first and then have children,\u201d there is a growing number of women having children outside of marriage. Nearly 36 percent of all births in 2004 were to single women, a total of 1,470,152
\nbabies. Since 1960, the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers has increased more than 600 percent. The greatest increase in births to unwed mothers came in women ages 25-29, who were cohabiting with a partner but still considered unmarried. Only 24 percent of non-marital births were to teens, a drop from 50 percent in 1970. While this may seem encouraging, more than 80 percent of all teen mothers were still unwed.
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\nThe problem of divorce still threatens the home in America.<\/em><\/strong>
\nWhile the divorce rate has slightly declined in recent years, the United States still has the world\u2019s highest divorce rate. According to calculations by the National Marriage Project, there are fewer divorces now than in 1980. In 1980, 22.5 of every 1000 women age 15 and older were divorced. That figure has dropped to 17.7 percent in 2004. Though the risk of a marriage ending in divorce in the United States is still close to 50 percent, for many people, the actual chances of divorce are far below 50\/50. \u201cThe background characteristics of people entering a marriage have major implications for their risk of divorce. Here are some percentage point decreases in the risk of divorce or separation for women during the first ten years of marriage, according to various personal and social factors\u201d (Bramlett and Mosher 22):<\/p>\n