Mental Preparation : An Essential Element Ordinary College Student Lacks For Marriage

High school graduation marks the start of young adults’ lives, a time where they are expected to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Many young adults are pressured into attending college, whether they have determined their goal or not, but is it necessary? “The Case Against College,” an article written by Linda Lee, a mother who has questioned the former belief that college equals success, claims that “not everyone needs a higher education.” College, though beneficial to many, is not for everyone and should not determine an individual’s life.

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

Marriage is steady and stable for the highly educated Americans; marriages are still weak for the lower class, but according to the State of Our Unions, middle American marriages are in trouble. This article stresses that marriage is not just important for two people who are in love with one another, it stresses that marriage is important for America to thrive. The article separates Americans into three different groups: poor, middle class, and highly educated Americans. Marriage has always been feeble for citizens that are labeled as poor. The middle class, which is fifty- eight percent of America, are defined as a person who did attend high school and wasn’t a drop out. Middle class Americans are also defined as a person who has some form of college or training the goes beyond high school. The middle class is most people and since there are so many this is why we have to find out why are marriages are failing in this groups. This article also talks about the highly educated, thirty percent of our population, who have at

​Did you know that in the US, only 16% of household include a married couple raising their children (​Krogstad). Alfred Lubrano in his work “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts”, talks about the changes he experienced in college and how it affected his relationship with his parents (531-537). Lubrano claims that the enrichment of education expands the distance between the college students and their parents (532). I disagree with his point and suggest that it is not the college education that creates the distance, and in some cases the aloofness is caused before reaching the college age. Several factors contribute to dissonance in parent-child relationship.

Although family function and formation has frequently shifted throughout history, one recent and clear trend has been a delay of family formation and marriage by young adults (Furstenberg 2010:68-69; Rauer et al. 2012:2168). While it appears that young adults are no longer as committed to marriage and family formation, a closer inspection reveals that this delay appears to be exactly that, and not reflective of a reduced capacity for family life (Rauer et al. 2013:2168). This delay has been found to be related to education, where higher education levels correspond to longer delays for both marriage (Furstenberg 2010:70-77) and family formation (Blossfeld & Huinink 1991:160; Blossfeld & Jaenichen 1992:314). After an analysis on which elements of education appear to be most influential on the delay of marriage and family formation, it is argued that the process of being a student itself has the biggest impact. This is found to be related to time constraints and societal expectations. The relationship between education and delayed marriage and family formation is investigated in varying societies, where mediating factors – such as gender roles and ethnicity, are found to be involved. While these mediating factors are often not strong enough to overwhelm effects of education, a different interaction in Japan is noted, where higher education was found to reduce, rather than delay, marriage and family formation.

They looked how college debt is preventing college students to transition into adulthood. Many college students who graduate are looking for jobs just to be able to pay off their loans. They’re less likely to pursue a serious relationship, because they’re not able to support themselves, and would not be able to support the relationship financially. Arum, Roksa, (2012) also looked at how college debt is affecting college student transition into adulthood. They saw that many college students are having a harder time finding a job after college to be able to pay off their loans and to be independent from their parents. The participants were college students who graduated college and was looking for jobs within their major. Many of them remained single after college, because they were not able to spend money on a relationship because they’re weren’t financially stable. Both studies concluded how hard it is for college students to be independent from family and have the resources after college to help them achieve financial

Using the data from the 1970 National Fertility Survey, Davis and Bumpass (1976) one third of married women have returned to school or hope to in the future. These women hold certain things in common. If a woman has attended school before marriage, married right out of high school, recently separated or divorced or have professional careers and are African American, research has shown they will return or enroll in higher education.

One research looked at the effects that student debt has on college graduates and their chances of marrying after college. The researcher collected data by interviewing and survey college graduates. The participates were men and women who receive their bachelor’s degree in 1993. There were 9,410 participates who were all single adults after college. The researcher finds were that men and women differ when it comes to marriage and loan debt (Bozick,2014). In conclusion, man who are high in debt are less likely to marry after college than those who are lower in debt. Women are more acceptable to getting married, while having large sums of student loan debt which shows that man and women differed with marriage (Bozick,2014). Dwyer, Hodson, Mccloud (2013) research focus on how debt affects men and women differently and how they take different paths. Some men and women may go to college after high school, and some may jump into the job market. The researchers discovered that debt affects men and women differently when trying to pay off their debt. Men have it easier to pay off their debt, because more employers are willing to pick them over women, which put women at a disadvantage. Bozick (2014) also looked at the differences in men and women, but by looking at debt and marriage rates. He found that they’re also a difference on how debt affects men and women. His findings were that men are less likely to marry if he is high debt. Women are more acceptable to marry if she has high debt, compared to men. Both researchers concluded that men and women differ with it comes to

She interviewed 120 young adults of both genders between the ages of 18 and 32. The participants are all from the state of New York. There family backgrounds and socioeconomical background is very differs. Gerson finds that today’s young generation is far from wanting a fallback to a traditional marriage nor to they want a commitment free life. The majority of the young she interviews said that their most desirable family option is a long-term intimate egalitarian relationship and great balance between work

Fast forward 10 years later, Cami is now a sophomore at a SUNY and still has yet to be in a real relationship. For her, “it just hasn’t happened yet” and she’s not really looking for one either. She sometimes questions whether she’s too harsh on the guys around her. She says, “I feel like my standards can be a bit high at times, but I refuse to settle just because my choices are limited at this school.” But Susan Patton’s letter claims that “you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you” regarding the men in college (1). Patton believes the men in our colleges are the only ones who are just as smart if not smarter than us. Men tend to marry women who

Romeo and Juliet In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, many would argue that the characters grow up too fast. This relates to our world today where teenagers do things in order to act more grown up then they really are. Peer pressure from friends and classmates can lead teenagers to make decisions in order to make them look “cool” and “grown-up”, which are basically synonyms nowadays. The older generations always tell kids to enjoy being young while it last because once it’s over, it’s over, and you can never get those moments back.

This would allow for researchers to acquire a more well rounded understanding of how lived experience affects the perceptions of young adults surrounding marriage and the coming of age process. Another limitation of this study would be the personal relationships that those interviewed had with the researchers. These relationships could have prevented the individuals being interviewed from sharing the whole truth of their lived experience, due to the willingness to avoid sharing private information with someone they already knew. Those being interviewed could have felt that they did not want to be completely honest with the researcher, due to the fact that there was a personal relationship. Consequently, due to the fact that the researchers and those being interviewed were within the same age group, a researcher bias could have been present, due to the fact that the researchers could have their own personal perceptions and feelings towards the coming of age process and marriage, and therefore could have projected these biases throughout the interview onto the participants, or lead the participants into a certain perception due to the fact that they themselves had a specific view

Although marriage has been a central factor and gives meaning to human lives, the change in people’s lifestyles and behaviors through a long period of social development has resulted in alternate choices such as being single or nonmarital living. As a result, cohabitation has become more popular as a trendy life choice for young people. The majority of couples choose cohabitation as a precursor to marriage to gain a better understanding of each other. However, there are exceptions, such as where Thornton, Azinn, and Xie have noted: “In fact, the couple may simply slide or drift from single into the sharing of living quarters with little explicit discussion or decision-making. This sliding into cohabitation without

These constraints lead some cohabiting couples to marry, even though they would not have married under other circumstances. On the basis of this framework, Stanley, Rhoades, et al. (2006) argued that couples who are engaged prior to cohabitation, compared with those who are not, should report fewer problems and greater relationship stability following marriage, given that they already have made a major commitment to their partners. Several studies have provided evidence consistent with this hypothesis (Brown, 2004; Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009).

Cohabitation is defined as a man and woman living in the same household and having sexual relations while not being married. There is relatively little data on health outcomes for people who have cohabitated, although there is some evidence that cohabitating couples have lower incomes (15% of cohabitating men are jobless while 8% of married men are jobless) and there may be negative academic effects for children of cohabitating mothers (Jay, 2012). Cohabitation rates are highest among those who have never married with just over a quarter of people surveyed reporting cohabitation before their first marriage (Jay, 2012). Of these, half reported that they expected their cohabitation to end in marriage; about one quarter to one third of cohabitations end either in marriage or dissolution of the relationship within 3 years (Jay, 2012). Further, cohabitation rates are highest for those who have not completed college, accounting for all but 12% of men and women reporting that they are living with their partners (Jay, 2012). Cohabitation and marriage are two significant decisions college students will make, but very little is known about what college students think about living together before marriage. Given the nearly 50% divorce rate in the United States (Jay, 2012), understanding how young adults view cohabitation as on option for life relationships needs further investigation.