Marriage,Obesity and Dieting

Despite the importance of marriage as a basic social institution, there has been little analysis of the relationship between marriage and obesity. This paper reviews work on the prevalence of obesity by marital status; factors associated with obesity as a criterion for entry into marriage; the similarity of fatness in marital partners; changes in weight in relationship to marital problems; and the relationship between obesity and marital termination. The application of knowledge about marriage and obesity to weight loss therapy is also considered. More research is needed to specify the extent, form and dynamics of the relationship between obesity and marriage.     

Cohabiting,Dating, and Perceived Costs of Marriage: A Model of Marriage Entry

This paper investigates the decision to marry among individuals in cohabiting and steady noncohabiting relationships, with emphasis on the effects of cohabitation in the decision‐making process. A model is proposed wherein cohabitation influences the perceived costs and benefits of marriage, which influence intentions and expectations to marry, which influence actual marriage entry. The model is tested using data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Cohabitation status is found to predict perceived costs and benefits of marriage, and also to predict marriage intentions and expectations. Cost perceptions further predict intentions and expectations among both cohabitors and daters, and perceived costs, intentions, and expectations to marry the partner predict actual marriage behavior. Cohabitation appears to significantly change the context in which decisions about marriage are made in romantic relationships and merits a greater place in the literature on dating and courtship.     

Tomorrow's Family Reforms: Marriage Course,Marriage Test,Incorporated Families,and Sex Selection Mandate*

Ideas abound for specific new laws and programs to strengthen family life, as evident in the 34 detailed reform proposals hammered out and endorsed by 2000 delegates to the 1980 White House Conference on Families. Looking beyond even these 34 items, however, to valuable reform possibilities still too controversial for the likes of a White House Conference, four in particular stand out. This article discusses these possible reforms.     

Child Marriage Laws around the World: Minimum Marriage Age,Legal Exceptions,and Gender Disparities

ABSTRACT

The marriage of children below 18 is widely recognized in international human rights agreements as a discriminatory global practice that hinders the development and well-being of hundreds of millions of girls. Using a new global policy database, we analyze national legislation regarding minimum marriage age, exceptions permitting marriage at earlier ages, and gender disparities in laws. While our longitudinal data indicate improvements in frequencies of countries with legal provisions that prohibit marriage below the age of 18, important gaps remain in eliminating legal exceptions and gender discrimination.     

Disrespect,Tension, and Togetherness-Apartness in Marriage*

For a study of marital togetherness and apartness, the partners in 136 couples completed questionnaires. The role of disrespect, a factor that might serve as an abrasive in marriage, was investigated. Couples above average on disrespect spent more time apart on days when there had been a big fight, considerable annoyance, or anger; couples below average on disrespect spent more time together on days when there had been a big fight, considerable annoyance, or anger. This finding suggests that therapy for couples with a presenting problem of insufficient contact may first have to deal with abrasive factors.     

Same-Sex Marriage

Abstract

In this commentary, the legal ramifications and implications of the recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriages to occur in that state are examined. The author then suggests a hypothetical scenario for what the future might look like assuming that the Massachusetts decision is not overturned by adoption of a state constitutional amendment.     

Tensions of Marriage: Love, Cooperation, Capitulation, Annihilation

This paper addresses the inevitable conflicts endemic to couple relationships. These conflicts are a manifestation of the mutual subjugation experienced by all couples engaged in an ongoing intimate relationship. The author describes this universal dimension of the life of a couple, applying what Ogden (1994a) calls “the subjugating intersubjective third”—a third subject co-created through mutual projective identification, binding them together as a couple. The unconscious and conscious relationship between each partner and “the third” generates a spectrum of primitive emotions from bliss to entrapment. Consequently, an identical situation in a relationship can evoke feelings of love and cooperation or capitulation and annihilation in one or both partners, depending on what is occurring in “the third,” of which the members are both creators and captives. A clinical case illustrates this dynamic.     

Teen Mothers: Marriage,Cohabitation, and Educational Achievement

This study examines the proportions of ethnically diverse low-income teen mothers who are cohabitating and/or married to the father of their child(ren) at approximately 14, 24, and 36 months after birth of their child. In addition, the relationship between marital status and education among teen mothers is explored. At 36 months after giving birth, 60% of mothers were not living with or married to the fathers of their children. Hispanic mothers were the most likely, and African-American mothers the least likely, to be married to the father at each of the three time points. For Hispanic teen mothers, being married at 14 months was related to lower educational achievement.     

Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Polygamous Marriage as a Function of Gender,Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage,and Other Sociopersonality Constructs

U.S. citizens are overwhelmingly opposed to the legalization of polygamous marriage, but specific reasons for this opposition remain unclear. In this study we examined young adults' (n = 814) attitudes toward polygamous marriage as a function of myriad variables. Particular attention was given to the presumed association between attitudes toward same-sex marriage and polygamous marriage. Results indicated that, overall, young adults' attitudes toward polygamous marriage were neutral. Also, attitudes toward same-sex marriage significantly correlated with attitudes toward polygamous marriage. However, not all pro–same-sex marriage participants were pro-polygamous marriage. Moreover, opposition to same-sex marriage, (female) gender, higher levels of authoritarianism, and endorsement of traditional family values conjointly and individually predicted opposition to polygamous marriage. Implications of the findings are discussed, particularly in the context of U.S. discourse over the legalization of same-sex marriage.     

Performance Pay,the Gender Gap,and Specialization within Marriage

We show that the large gender earnings gap at the top of the distribution (the glass ceiling) and the motherhood penalty are associated with each other and that both are uniquely associated with performance pay. These patterns appear consistent with specialization by gender. We show that among married couples with children, the hours worked by wives are strongly and persistently negatively correlated with earnings of the husbands only when those husbands work in performance pay jobs. There is no correlation between husbands’ hours and wives’ earnings.     

Moral Scrutiny,Marriage Inequality: Cohabitation in Bangkok,Thailand

Research on contemporary union-formation in a Bangkok slum reveals how the meanings of heterosexual matrimony are changing. Dominant popular discourses promote a costly wedding as the socially normative way to marry. This new definition of marriage contrasts with perspectives within the slum, where pre-existing constructs of union-formation take multiple forms. The discursive shift reflects new notions of marriage as a vehicle of upward mobility and modernity. These shifts occur at a time when the Thai state has discursively moralised marriages, facilitating the delegitimisation of cohabitation and other pathways to marriage. The co-existence of ‘traditional’ marriage forms with dominant official ones within the slum highlights the local multiplicity of marital forms. However, as new lifestyle associations between marriage, modernity and civic belonging become increasingly influential, financial constraints and social context mean that these remain hard to access for certain urban migrant sub-populations.     

Social Work,Marriage, and Ethnicity: Policy and Practice

This article provides a discussion about marriage with regard to social work policy and practice with cultural groups that experience life differently from predominantly White America. Marriage is influenced by culture, tradition, and economic reality supporting or hindering the success of marriages. Often, parenting is influenced by marriage, as roles are shared and meted through the resources provided by marriage. As an introduction, this article explains the unique contribution of each article in the special issue, showing the need for social work to respond more critically, urgently, and in threefold systemic fashion to create change in the lives of historically vulnerable populations in U.S. society.     

婚恋现实主义:农村青年婚恋的表征、逻辑与实践

与"80后"的婚恋理想主义不同,当前农村青年出现了婚恋现实主义.他们谈情说爱却未必谈婚论嫁,注重物质条件更甚于双方感情,追求自我体验而不困于家庭生活.作为一种现代家庭组建方式,婚恋现实主义的逻辑在于将恋爱与婚姻相对分离,把物质作为婚恋的前提与保证.其中,感情是婚姻的前提,婚姻是恋爱的结果,物质条件是关联"恋"与"婚"的...     

Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation

This study examines attitudes toward gay marriage within the context of concern over the weakening of heterosexual marriage. We use data from a three‐state survey conducted in 1998 – 2000 and designed to explore attitudes toward marriage and divorce reform (N = 976). We find that women, Whites, and younger persons are more approving of gay marriage than men, Blacks, and older persons. Nonparents with cohabitation experience are most approving, whereas parents with no cohabitation experience are most opposed. Heterosexual marriage preservation attitudes are key predictors, net of religiosity and political conservativism. We interpret these findings with theories about vested interest in upholding marriage as an institution and ambivalence resulting from conflicting core values of the sanctity of marriage versus the valorization of individualism.     

Debatable Marriages: Marriage and Child Marriage in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

This article examines marriage and the constitution of familial relationships in Saudi Arabia, with a specific focus on one form of marriage that has recently become an issue of public, political, and religious discussion, that of “child marriage.” The situation within Saudi Arabia is compared with gendered relationships in other countries, most notably those in Western Europe, with specific attention given to the United Kingdom. It is argued that policy developments in Saudi Arabia need to be seen in the context of wider Saudi culture, Sharia law, and religious interpretations of the Koran.     

Korean Interracial Marriage

No abstract available for this article.