Essay Letter to the Editor

People believe that marriage is easy and is the key to love and happiness, but in reality marriage is harder than it looks. Everyone marries for different reasons, for good or for bad. People today don’t understand the meaning of marriage; it is more than just money and appearance. Seeing today’s world of marriage is being influenced by media shows like Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and Murray makes you realize how society today identifies marriage different. Couples who live unmarried will be happier and have more choices than those that are married in agreement with Catherine Newman’s essay called I Do. Not.: Why I Won’t Marry in the book “Acting Out Culture: Reading and Writing “, by: James S. Miller. Catherine Newman is a writer and an author

When our friends and family marry, the ultimate goal is “Till Death Do Us Part”, however, contrary to popular belief half of marriages end in divorce. This statistic has been proven to be accurate for the last 40 years. Due to the large number of divorces, they are a lot more acceptable than they once were. Now becoming a societal norm. Divorces are now a part of everyday life. This ethical shift has impacted a lot of people, mostly the children. Figuring out why most Americans are choosing divorce over marriage counseling will depend on many generalization factors.

There comes a point in everyone’s life that this question or subject is brought up - “Are you dating anyone?” “When are you guys getting married?” When these questions are asked from family and friends, it pressures people into finding that special one. Even though, people do experience those desires and questions for themselves; does it make it right to feel that need? What is marriage? Is marriage a contract or love? What if marriage is not what people perceive it to be? What if marriage is not the happily ever after often seen in the movies? Laurie Essig and Lynn Owens are two scholars that wrote a piece entitled, What If Marriage Is Bad for Us? that contended the institution purpose of marriage is obsolete and in reality bad for society, and how marriage can lead to changed, unhealthy, and distressed.

Now and days I just see so many people just laying down and making babies instead of having values and morals with being married before the kids come. I can’t say all marriages will last because I was married at 20 and we did not last very long at all.

Modern, contemporary society’s mindset on marriage has shifted considerably over the years. Some research has noted the increase in early sexual experiences, greater acceptance of cohabitation and the increase in narcissistic tendencies, are complicating and muddying the ideals of what marriage means to people today. Research done on this subject resulted in several studies that found that spouses who did not believe that marriage would last forever, were less likely to commit to the relationship financially and were more likely to have extramarital affairs.

Growing up children are surrounded with a fairy tale life, the ‘happily ever after.’ As girls we are supposed to wait for our prince charming and he will love us forever; and for boys it is finding and rescuing a beautiful princess who can cook, clean, and is loved by all creatures. That is what marriage is based off of as a child, but that perspective changes once we get a small grasp of the concept of love and we really see what marriage is. Marriage is not something anyone goes into lightly and maybe our expectations of the fairy tale life are why divorce is so commonly sought.

In the article “What if Marriage is Bad for Us?” Laurie Essig and Lynn Owens summarize the things that

The majority of people who join together with their significant other through the act of marriage hope and dream that marriage will surround them with infinite love and happiness; unfortunately that is not always the case. In fact, “according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey, 10 percent of Maine women and 11 percent of men in Maine are divorced.”1 Though 10 and 11 percent seem like fairly small percentages, 10 percent of Maine women is approximately 67,831 women, and 11 percent of Maine men is approximately 71,506 men, which truly are not small figures to take into consideration. Since marriages do not always have a happy ending

     With this ring I thee wed…. For better or worse, for richer or poorer…. Traditionally, two people speak these words on their wedding day, the day that two become one, the day that two people begin a life together and share an unbreakable union. This may be so in some cases but not all. Divorce among Americans is rampant. In society today divorces are as common as marriages themselves. Couples meet, date, fall in love, marry, and have children and then one day: Wham! Something is just not right with the relationship anymore, so they opt for the easy way out, the big "D". They get a divorce, is this really the easy way? The legalities and dissolution of the union may be easy and painless,

In Dan Moller An argument against marriage he makes the claim that marriage seems not to persevere through the hardships and falls fault to time. I believe with this statement because once again I can relate to this particular topic to my own life in the fact that I grew up with divorced parents. According to Moller, most marriages tend to fall through as backlash of ongoing time with each other’s and this in fact is the reason my parents signed their divorce papers. I also believe an abundant amount of people in society concurs with this statement considering most people know of a friend, colleague, family member, etc. that knows of a divorced couple due to no longer enjoying each other’s time. To avoid the marriage ordeal all together some couples opt out of getting married to begin with, in fact the National Center

A survey of 14000 adults states in ‘A Guide to Family Issues: The Marriage Advantage’ that marriage was a pertinent factor contributing to happiness and satisfaction with forty percent of the married individuals being happy as opposed to 25 percent of either single or cohabiting individuals. The same study shows that ninety eight percent of never married respondents wished to marry and out of those 88% believed that it should be a lifelong commitment. Even though, divorce rates are rising numerous researches show that young people aspire to have a lasting marriage.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2011 there were 2,118,000 marriages in the United States and almost half as many divorces (2013). The CDC also reports that only half of all first marriages will reach their twentieth anniversary. Divorce is a topic everyone is familiar with and it has almost become a normal part of life. While it is assumed that more divorces occur now than in the previous generation, the CDC actually reports that divorce rates have dropped over the past twenty to thirty years, though this could be due to the increase in individuals who live together without ever getting married or those who simply separate and cannot afford to become legally divorced. However, it has become a more

The sanctity of marriage has seemed to have disappeared with the arrival of the 21st century. Though marriage rates have always fluctuated in the past, current events have caused divorce rates to increase. According to recent statistics made by the census bureau, the divorce rate in America is roughly 50 percent. There are a myriad of speculations as to why more people are not staying together. One reason is that people are getting married for the wrong reasons, such as unplanned pregnancies. Another reason is that women have become more independent so that they are not forced in to being in a marriage where they are not happy. Last, lenient divorce laws make it much easier for many couples to get divorced. Combined, these three

The primary source used was through interviews, one man and one woman who have been in a committed relationship for 15 years. Each person was interviewed by me individually, they were both asked a total of six questions on marriage and why they chose to move in together before marriage. Rodrigo Colmenares 37, was the first person to be interviewed. When I first asked him if he would let me interview him for my research he immediately asked me what the topic was, once I answered his question he was a bit hesitant to say yes. When asked what his view on marriage was his response was vague saying it’s a piece of paper. I asked him if he could be more elaborate with his answer, he then answered more appropriate stating that he found marriage was unnecessary because it’s a piece of paper saying that your legally married and it’s society’s way to put a label on you. The second question I asked him was in regards of what made him decide to move in with his

Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, “half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.” (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, “until death do us part,” uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by