Letters to Louis: Marital Dissolution Through the Social Construction of Lived Experience

This article examines the author's narrative within letters written to her husband over a span of several years. I examine how a marriage dissolves from the inside out, from the perspective of the lived experience of one member of the marriage. The primary research focus is how individuals living within troubled marriages construct their own marriage. Although we know much about what predicts divorce, little research considers the social construction of marriage from the perspective of the person living within that marriage. Drawing on symbolic interactionism, this autoethnographic analysis of my letters to Louis reveals an insider's view of how a marriage dissolves. Gottman's Oral History Interview coding is used as a tool of analysis throughout.     

Family Formation and Close Social Ties Within Religious Congregations

The study of family and religion has yet to elaborate on the social ties that connect these two important and changing institutions. Specifically, how does family formation (i.e., marriage and childrearing) impact social ties to religious communities? Using longitudinal data from the Portraits of American Life Study (2006–2012) and fixed effects regression models that control for time‐stable heterogeneity (N = 1,314), this study tests the effects of marriage and childrearing on changes in close congregational social ties. Fixed effects estimates suggest that marriage actually decreases close social ties to religious congregations, whereas rearing children within marital unions increases them. Thus, it is children, not marriage per se, that actually integrates married couples into religious communities. These contrasting effects tend to be the strongest among young adults, but they weaken with age as well as marital duration.     

Intersectional Identities: Influences of Religion,Race, and Gender on the Intimate Relationships of Single Singaporean Malay-Muslim Women

Studies on rising singlehood in Asia have largely focused on the economic dimension. This article widens that lens by examining how religious beliefs influence single Singaporean women’s views toward marriage. Applying the intersectional paradigm expands our understanding of how religion maintains or challenges cultural norms as well as gendered and racial meanings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 27 unmarried Malay-Muslim Singaporean women, it argues that instead of conceptualizing religion as a barrier that hinders the formation of intimate relationships, we can better understand its role in terms of how single Malay-Muslim women appropriate it to negotiate cultural constraints that limit their ability to tie the knot. The research bears important implications on how cultural and religious forces affect marriage patterns in multicultural and multireligious societies.     

New ideas and fertility limitation: The role of mass media

This article investigates the mass media as a social change that shapes individual behavior primarily via ideational mechanisms. We construct a theoretical framework drawing on social demography and social psychology to explain how mass media may affect behavior via attitudinal change. Empirical analyses of 1,091 couples in the Chitwan Valley Family Study, using detailed measures of social change from rural Nepal, show that exposure to the mass media is related to childbearing behavior, and to preferences for smaller families, weaker son preferences, and tolerance of contraceptive use. This result should motivate greater research attention to the influence of changing ideas on behavioral changes, particularly in the study of families.     

Women's Attitudes Toward Family Formation and Life Stage Transitions: A Longitudinal Study in Korea

Although it is well documented that family attitudes become less traditional over cohorts, little is known about how individuals' attitudes change over time. More research also is needed on how the within‐individual changes relate to important life stage events such as marriage, childbirth, and transitions in education and work. Evidence is particularly lacking in Asian countries, which have socioeconomic and cultural contexts very different from those in the West. To fill these gaps in the literature, the authors analyzed the attitudes toward family formation of Korean women in their 20s and 30s (N = 6,042). Individual fixed effects regression using the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families revealed that women became more traditional over time and that transitions to marriage and motherhood partly accounted for the change. These findings are explained within the context of very low fertility in Korea and have implications for other rapidly changing societies.     

Meanings of Marriage to Young People in Vietnam

Vietnam’s deepening sociocultural exchanges with foreign countries over recent decades have influenced the thoughts, lifestyles, and marital expectations of young people, who grew up in a rapidly changing social context. The opening of Vietnam’s borders, both economically and culturally, has given rise to concerns that the sanctity of the institution of marriage in Vietnam as well as the longevity of individual marriages may be weakened as a result of the detraditionalization and/or modernization of marriage in Vietnam. This article investigates the meaning of marriage to young people in Vietnam, by drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with 60 married people aged not over 30. It addresses the questions: What do young people in Vietnam think about marriage? Is it important to them? If so, why and in what ways? The findings reflect two main facets in the young people’s thinking about marriage. The first identifies marriage as an essential institution, one that is supported by social norms of family and marriage in Vietnam. The second emphasizes the rewards that marriage potentially provides to individuals. While there was general consensus regarding these two claims, there were nevertheless some differences of opinion between men and women, and across rural and urban contexts.     

Marriage and conjugal roles in Swaziland: persistence and change

"This paper examines one set of relationships central to the Swazi household--marriage and conjugal roles--and how those relationships have changed over the last half century. Information has been analyzed on such topics as types of marriages contracted, the age at marriage, choice of spouse, attitudes towards and participation in polygyny, the nature of conjugal roles, and the question of divorce. This study has drawn upon a wide range of sources including (1) an analysis of civil records from the office of the District Commissioner in Manzini, Swaziland; (2) data collected previously by other social scientists; and (3) survey data gathered especially for this study. The study concludes that while changes have occurred, many traditional patterns of marriage and family continue to be important in contemporary Swazi society."     

The changing Xiangxi Miao marriage practices in contemporary China

This essay describes elements of Xiangxi Miao marriage practices such as courtship, wedding ceremonies, and marriages between the Miao and Han, exploring how Xiangxi Miao marriage practices changed at the turn of this century, and disclosing social influences on the changes in marriage practices. The author uses a Miao village of Zalun as a case study. Through participant observation and intensive interviews, it was found that, before 2000, Xiangxi Miaos’ courtship practices and wedding ceremonies had strict processes and reflected agricultural rhythm. In addition, there were few marriages between the Miao and Han. Since the beginning of this century, Xiangxi Miao marriage practices have changed due to socioeconomic development, population mobility, and diverse communication between Miao young women and men. Dramatic shifts in marriage practices have produced social influences among Xiangxi Miao communities. The changes in marriage practices have promoted Xiangxi Miao free marriages, advancing social cohesion and acculturation. However, these changes have also increased numbers of criminals and problems of healthy growth and education of the stay-at-home children.     

Status or Access? The Impact of Marriage on Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Queer Community Change

Drawing on interview and survey research with 116 married and unmarried lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals, this study offers the first systematic data on the relationship between legal marriage and LGBQ community life. The author distinguishes between marital status—being married—and marital access—gaining access to the institution of marriage—as distinct drivers of community change. In contrast to research with heterosexuals, the findings suggest that marital access plays a primary role in LGBQ community change. The different life course trajectories of LGBQ people and their prior experiences of social exclusion alter the relationship between marriage and community. The findings push family scholarship beyond a one‐model‐fits‐all approach to understanding the impact of marriage on community engagement. Taken together, they expand literature on marriage as greedy, the deinstitutionalization of marriage, and marriage and social inclusion as well as offer insights into how LGBQ people understand and enact marriage.     

Parental divorce,cohabitation and the celebration of marriage in Italy

The effect of parental divorce on the outcomes of children's marital relationships has been long studied and well documented in many contemporary Western countries. This paper investigates whether family history also has an impact on the early phase of marriages of offspring, especially on how the wedding is celebrated. The topic is whether parental divorce may affect the choices concerning the celebration of the marriage, in particular the choices concerning the rite of marriage, the wedding party, and the honeymoon trip. An empirical analysis of this subject was carried out on contemporary Italy. The data set used was produced by the survey Family and Social Subjects carried out in 2009 and published in 2013 by Istat (Italian National Institute of Statistics). The results highlight phenomena of social inheritance between generations. Children of divorced parents are less likely to marry under a religious ceremony, provide a banquet, and go on a honeymoon. There is also an intra-generational transmission of family models: those who have cohabited choose less traditional forms of marriage.     

Framing the Purchase of Human Goods: Cosmetic Surgery Consumption in Capitalist South Korea

Sociological and cultural research on market participation has been preoccupied with creative markets and traditional labor markets, overlooking alternate types of markets, particularly those of human goods which have proliferated in Asia. This article analyzes South Korea's cosmetic surgery market to examine how and why consumers participate in markets of human goods on the microlevel vis-à-vis macrolevel social structures in an advanced capitalist economy. This article theorizes two cognitive frames (normative conformity and competitive edge) that rationalize and motivate surgical modifications as an alternative vehicle for financial and marital stability in response to macrolevel economic challenges from the nation's developmental trajectory and cultural anxieties from its Confucian traditions about marriage.     

Back to the future,disability and the digital divide

The aim of this article is to explore disability and the digital divide using a quantitative methodology. The research investigates what impact digital technologies have had in improving the life-chances for disabled people from deprived neighbourhoods in the northeast of England. The study explores how disabled people engage with digital and assistive technologies in order to overcome disabling barriers and social exclusion. Unfortunately, the analysis found no evidence that digital and assistive technologies had any impact on reducing social exclusion for disabled people. In fact, the research discovered that these technologies seemed to construct new forms of disabling barriers as a consequence of the digital divide.     

The effects of the Great Recession on American families

The Great Recession was marked by historic rates of unemployment and foreclosure and caused substantial household economic hardship and widespread economic uncertainty. I review recent social scientific research on the effects of the Great Recession on American families. I first generate a set of expectations for how the Great Recession would have affected (a) marriage and cohabitation, (b) fertility, and (c) relationship quality and divorce based on existing sociological and demographic theory and research. I then discuss the key methods that scholars have used to gauge the effects of the Great Recession in these outcome areas. My review of research to date indicates that the recession had modest effects on marriage and cohabitation, but significant negative effects on fertility. Notably, these fertility effects are evident among unmarried and low socio‐economic‐status (SES) women whom prior research has suggested decouple fertility from economic concerns. Finally, there is modest evidence that the Great Recession reduced relationship quality, but it appears that the costs of divorce restrained any increase in dissolution.     

Marriage,the Final Frontier? Same‐Sex Marriage and the Future of the Lesbian and Gay Movement

Given hostility within segments of LGBT communities toward same‐sex marriage, how do Australian activists justify their efforts toward achieving marriage equality? In this article, we expand the social movement literature by examining how activists construct identity, meaning, and goals in contradistinction to others within the same movement. We draw on interviews with Australian lesbian and gay activists to examine what enables them to pursue the contested goal of same‐sex marriage in light of internal movement critiques that marriage equality will undermine the significance of lesbian and gay identity and impair activism on other issues as a result of the view that equality has been achieved. We expand debates over the post‐gay trajectory of lesbian and gay activism and identity by illustrating how activists attach different, what we term, mobilizing meanings, to the same movement goal which enables them to withstand internal movement critiques. We provide a typology of mobilizing meanings that can be applied more generally.     

It Won't Change a Thing: The Meanings of Marriage in the Netherlands

The vast body of literature that highlights the increasing fragility of marriage fails to explore the effect of this fragility on the meanings people attach to marriage. During the last twenty-five to thirty years the instrumental and normative reasons for marriage—legal protection, societal support and enforcement, the social rejection of alternatives to marriage—have largely disappeared in the Netherlands. This study focuses on how young adults, raised after the most dramatic changes in marital practices took place, talk about the meanings of marriage in the context of building intimate relationships. In-depth interviews with fifteen heterosexual young adults (aged twenty-one to thirty) who were in a committed relationship showed that they talked about marriage in four different ways. They (1) minimized the meaning of marriage, (2) talked about the idea of marriage to ascertain commitment, (3) defined marriage as the ideal relationship, and/or (4) saw marriage as a jinx. Contradictions between these modes of talk revealed feelings of ambivalence and anxiety associated with a desire for commitment. The emotionally charged meanings associated with marriage anchored marriage in interviewees' imaginations, enabling the institution to retain its hold even though social pressures to marry are limited and legal substitutes to marriage exist.     

Health and the structure of adolescent social networks

Much research has explored the role of social networks in promoting health through the provision of social support. However, little work has examined how social networks themselves may be structured by health. This article investigates the link between individuals' health and the characteristics of their social network positions. We first develop theoretical predictions for how health may influence the structure of adolescent networks. We then test these predictions using longitudinal analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We find important relationships between the health status of adolescents and the characteristics of the social network positions within which they are embedded. Overall we find that adolescents in poor health form smaller local networks and occupy less central global positions than their healthy peers. These results also have implications for social network research, expanding the scope of factors responsible for the network positions individuals occupy.     

Researching Chinese Cultural Understandings of Marriage via Similes and Metaphors on the World Wide Web

In an attempt to understand how changes in the societal context of Chinese marriage are reflected in Chinese cultural understandings of marriage, we explore Chinese similes and metaphors for marriage posted on the World Wide Web. Seven themes were found: You will have to decide whether a marriage will work for you, marriage is not about romantic love, marriage is bitter and sweet at the same time, marriage is strong and real, you must work at a marriage, marriage is risky, and marriage is not always taken seriously. The themes give a picture of cultural meanings for marriage in China that reflect more traditional ideas and such recent changes as the move to greater freedom of choice of spouse and greater ease of divorce. The themes provide cultural understandings both by characterizing contemporary marriage and by capturing advice about how to find a partner and make a marriage work.     

Mapping the literature on child marriage: A critical engagement

U.S. “child marriage”—marriage including at least one person under the age of 18—is legal and practiced in 44 states. In this article, I map the existing literature on child marriage and offer insights on how child marriage can expand our sociological understandings of marriage, gender inequality, and youth sexualities. Social scientists have almost exclusively focused on child marriage in the Global South at the expense of understanding child marriage in the Global North, which I argue reinforces racist and xenophobic narratives that cast child marriage as a non-Western social problem. The research on U.S. child marriage that does exist focuses on the consequences, rather than the causes, of child marriage, which may shift focus away from a structural understanding of how intersecting inequalities shape girls' likelihood of getting married as minors. I position a sociology of U.S. child marriage at the intersection of sociological understandings of marriage and gender inequality and critical research on youth sexualities. I conclude by calling for intersectional research on U.S. child marriage that builds on these literatures, examining how girls' sexualities are racialized, gendered, and classed within the institution of marriage.     

Unmarried couples

Results of a study with 75 unmarried couples are presented. The couples were both homo- and heterosexual, both with and without children, of ages varying between 25 and 65, having had relationships lasting between 3 and 33 years, and coming from various levels of society. The inquiry was directed toward the goals and forms of organization of the relationships, as well as the obstacles of a social and juridical nature which these couples experience. Two different models for couples are described. One has the traditional form of marriage as its basis and the other is directed more toward the development of the individual personalities of the partners and their economic independence. The social and juridical differences between those relationships and a traditional marriage were examined with regard to five basic functions (affection, housing, housekeeping, care of children, and financial care) as well as two economic basic intentions (sharing together versus remaining independent together). We also describe how the drawing up of legal contracts between partners is hindered by emotional and legal factors. Appropriate changes in Dutch government policies are examined. Author's Note: The work described here was undertaken in close collaboration with the Sociological Institute, Department of Primary Groups, Utrecht University (A. M. van der Heiden, M.A.), and with the Faculty of Law, Department of Notary Law, Leiden University (W.C.J. Robert, L.L.M.). The translation is by Mr. Anthony S. Cowl.     

Childbearing and Marriage: Investigating the Importance of Context for Meaning-Making of First-Time Marriage

Previous research reveals that the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage can have an impact on the meaning of first-time marriage. This article aims to obtain a deeper understanding of meaning-making of first-time marriage in relation to childbearing. Narrative interviews with 16 brides and grooms in 8 couples in Sweden were conducted. The material was analyzed in relation to the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage. The study reveals that the construction of meaning of marriage does not only relate to the temporal context. Social factors such as social class or family formation might also be relevant for how meaning is constructed. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of meaning-making as a relational process constructed within particular contexts.