Marriage and dating

1. Marriage in the United States is considered a matter of individual responsibility and decision. Young people frequently fall in love and marry even if their parents disapprove of their choice. American mar­riages are usually based on romantic love, rather than on social class, education, money, or religion. In fact, there has been a steady increase in intermarriage between young people of different religious back­grounds. On the other hand, marriages between blacks and whites are rare. They probably account for fewer than 1 percent of all marriages each year. Most American men marry by the time they are 25, and the husband is usually two or three years older than his wife.

2. Marriage is preceded by dating, that is, young men and young women going out together. Casual dating usually begins in the early teens, and by the late teens a pattern of steady dating develops. This pattern involves two young people going out together for some length of time. Steady dating is often followed by marriage or by a formalengagement, which is, in effect, a public statement of the intention to marry. If the engaged couple change their minds, the engagement is broken. Broken engagements are not unusual and are completely ac­ceptable.

3. Although serious dating with a commitment to marriage is the familiar style of courtship in many cultures, which seems unusual to many foreign observers, is the casual American dating system. Very often young Americans who hardly know each other go out on dates. For example, it is perfectly respectable for a young man to call up a young woman, introduce himself by telephone, and arrange a date. Usually they havea friend in common. It is equally acceptable for friends to arrange a "blind date," that is, a date between two young people who have not met before.

4. After their marriage the young couple is free to decide where to live and when to start a family. Most newlywedsset up their own household immediately. In the early 1970s only 1.5 percent of all mar­ried couples were not l iving on their own —independently and by them­selves.

5. If the couple finds that their marriage was a mistake, they are free to get a divorc e. The divorce rate has almost doubled in the past fifty years, and current statistics indicate that one of every three mar­riages will end in divorce. Many people view these figures with alarm. They fear that the institution of marriage is disintegrating—falling apart. A number of sociologists, on the other hand, say that this in­crease in divorces does not indicate more unhappy marriages. In­stead, they point to changes in the laws that have made divorce easier and to changes in attitudes that have made divorce more ac­ceptable than it had been years ago. They also claim that, since more than two‑thirds of all di vorced people marry again, divorce marks a temporary, rather than a permanent, break in marital relations.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16