The Census Bureau reported Thursday that the nation’s marriage rate is the lowest since 1920, and the first-time inclusion of same sex married couples did little to reverse the decline.
According to Pew Research Center analysis, the marriage rate of Americans 18 and older hit a bottom of 50.3 percent in 2013, down from 50.5 percent in 2012. In 1920, the first year mentioned, 65 percent were married, and the marriage rate hit a high of 72.2 percent in 1960. - DC Examiner
2 comments:
If there were family wage jobs that would last, or guaranteed income, getting married would make sense once more. Today with low wage transitory jobs, taking on a partner in marriage is to risk financial ruin.
If the powers that be want to see people married, there has to be family wage jobs to support it.
What most people do not realize is that marriage was NOT a very common practice back in the middle and dark ages. Most couples just cohabitated. Marriage was for the landed gentry and the nobles, largely to secure inheritance rights and create financial bonds between families. The commoners did not have much ownership of anything so marriage was just an expensive and meaningless form, and it was highly unlikely that the clergy at the time would have bothered marrying couples who were not in the gentry. The clergy largely toadied to the gentry. The "people" were effectively non-persons. To better relate to this condition, just reflect on how the black slaves were treated in the South. Did the slave owners care one wit whether slaves married? This is pretty much the case today, incidentally, where the average person has virtually no control over anything, including his own person. It's just a little less obvious because so many of the cohabitors think they are exercising their freedoms when in fact all they are doing is evidencing their lack of relevance. Back in the day, the commoners' responsibility to the nobility was to do the work and breed to produce more workers and cannon fodder for the nobility's wars. No need for formal unions. Understanding this, it it obvious we are just devolving back into that modality. Most people have the idea that marriage has been widespread for thousands of years. This was simply not true for the average person.
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