Are Alternative Options to Marriage Biogical Tests?

                The majority of chapter 2 in the textbook was concerned with the declining percentage of couples that choose to commit to a long-term relationship with each other in the form of marriage. Aja Gabel presented to us in her essay, “The Marriage Crisis,” that the modern model of marriage is a result of a changing America. She explains that this modernistic view of marriage differs from one in the 1960's, during which a couple would've been more likely to stay together without regard to economic pressures. However, in today's age, a couple is more likely to divorce simply because they are unhappy, unlike an unhappy couple in the 1960's. I do see this as a growing pattern that is increasingly growing in couples, especially in those that marry at a younger age or that marry with only a high school degree. With growing expectations from either partner, and the expectation of financial stability, it is becoming increasingly easier for the marriage to end if either factor is missing in the commitment. With commitment declining, we are seeing an increase in cohabitation among unmarried couples, even with children in the family as an alternative method of creating a traditional family household. This presents the issue of a failing institution that represented values taught to children such as meaning, purpose, direction, and stability, as stated by Brad Wilcox. Conversely though, marriage is not the most important factor when it comes to a family; rather, it is the care that is shown within the family structure, whether it be in marriage, cohabitation, or single parenthood, that makes the true difference.

                Do I think marriage is alive and strong in America? Allison Pugh states, “Maybe we’re asking too much of traditional forms of marriage to be able to absorb all these changes.” We may be getting married to each other less in today’s world due to socio-economic issues, but that does not certainly mean that we are avoiding love. As the studies show, half of the 40-percent that believe that marriage is becoming increasingly obsolete still want to be with someone else. We have been shaping the ways we love one another since the 1960’s, and cohabitation is simply one of the results that has blossomed from our “love search.” Of course, there are obvious psychological and social benefits from marriage; however, cohabitation is fully capable of fulfilling these same personal needs in most cases. As Pugh also states in Aja Gabel’s essay, children can equally benefit from an unmarried couple as they would from a married couple.

This begs the question whether or not marriage is still a part of our social fabric, and although I do think that it is still present within our social norms, I do not think that it is a required one. Happiness is one of the most important factors of our lives, and whether marriage brings that to us personally or not, is 100-percent up to the individual. Although there still are obvious social pressures to be married, we should not cave into these pressures to determine what it is we need in order to provide the structure in the traditional sense. As discussed in Gabel’s essay, these social pressures could cause the opposite results from what we wish to gain from marriage. It is shown in the example of a single mother who feels that she must engage in marriage at all costs just to provide a father for her child that these pressures could consequently destroy the very values that we wish to protect. It has continually been observed that these missing factors can be compensated for in other forms of family structure and a growing instability of financial and personal issues only further opens the window to newer opinions that can be chosen to view. Furthermore, we have shaped our culture to the new options that we are now presented, and in today’s age, marriage is now longer a mandatory one.

Even though the structures of our culture are largely determined by socio-economic factors, there is a scientific vantage point to all of this. As observed by Kayt Sukel in her essay, “Rethinking Monogamy,” prairie voles are known to be socially monogamous; however, they are not genetically monogamous. These same prairie voles are viewed as choice candidates for studies conducted on the understanding of monogamy in humans. This raises a red flag as only 3-percent of mammalian species exhibit monogamous behavior, but as stated in Sukel’s essay, this is primarily in the form of social monogamy. In Natalie Rivera’s essay over the topic of “temporary marriage,” it is thought that this form of marriage in which a couple can choose the length of time they wish to be married, after which the marriage will end without the hassle of divorce, will reduce the growing rates of divorce. However, temporary marriage is seen more of way to determine whether or not your partner is the right choice to mate with. This comes off to me as a sort of bridge between the observations of prairie vole behaviors and the changes in marriage in today’s world. Based off of this scientific study, I see temporary marriage and cohabitation as a biological mechanism that goes off in our brains in an attempt to observe a potential mate. This allows us to determine whether or not a person is suitable to ensure evolutionary success. If we are truly monogamous as society encourages us to be, then why have we moved more towards these options (that seem more like biological tests) of temporary marriage and cohabitation?

- 2014, A&G