Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (N = 1,483) and women (N = 2,003). They found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) was tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.     

乡城流动背景下低收入地区农村男子的择偶困境——对甘肃省东部蔡村的调查

论文采用访谈和观察的方法,对甘肃省东部蔡村青年男子的择偶困境进行了研究。论文指出,青年农民工的流动使得流出地农村青年男子的择偶难度加大：彩礼飞涨,家庭负担加重;凑合婚增多,婚姻的不稳定性提高等等。贫困地区青年男子的择偶难问题成为中国在发展过程中尤其是城市发展过程中,从婚恋方面对于农村的又一次剥夺。应该把解决农民工的婚姻问题纳入关乎社会和谐与整个社会发展的意识形态中来。论文是对有关农民工婚姻问题研究的重要补充。     

In Circle: A Healthy Relationship,Domestic Violence,and HIV Intervention for African American Couples

While marriage and healthy relationship education has grown, limited interventions have been developed specifically to support the development and flourishing of African American couples. African Americans are also disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS and are more likely to experience lethality and serious injury due to domestic violence compared to Whites. Despite this, African American couples have been resilient and managed to thrive in relationships. Little has been done to capture these strategies, build on cultural strengths, and design an intervention specifically crafted for this population. This article describes an intervention “In Circle” developed, implemented, and evaluated for African American couples to support healthy relationship and healthy marriage education. The intervention is based on an Ancient Egyptian value system and undergirded by three integrated theoretical perspectives. The article also includes implications for practice and research.     

Father's Migration and Leaving the Parental Home in Rural Mozambique

Migration is an increasingly common global phenomenon and has important implications for the well‐being of family members left behind. Although extensive research has examined the impact of parental labor migration on school‐age children, less is known about its effect on adolescents. In this study, the authors used longitudinal survey data collected in rural Mozambique (N = 515) to assess the association between father's migration and adolescent children's leaving the parental home, an important component of the transition to adulthood. The results showed that father's migration delays home‐leaving for adolescent girls and that these effects are not mediated by school enrollment. The results for boys were inconclusive. The authors also found that remittances and longer durations of paternal migration were negatively associated with the transition out of the home. On the basis of the findings, they argue that father's migration delays girls' marriage.     

Performative family: homosexuality,marriage and intergenerational dynamics in China

Using in‐depth interview data on nominal marriages – legal marriages between a gay man and a lesbian to give the appearance of heterosexuality – this paper develops the concept of performative family to explain the processes through which parents and their adult children negotiate and resolve disagreements in relation to marriage decisions in post‐socialist China. We identify three mechanisms – network pressure, a revised discourse of filial piety and resource leverage – through which parents influence their gay offspring's decision to turn to nominal marriage. We also delineate six strategies, namely minimizing network participation, changing expectations, making partial concessions, drawing the line, delaying decisions and ending the marriage, by which gay people in nominal marriages attempt to meet parental expectations while simultaneously retaining a degree of autonomy. Through these interactions, we argue that Chinese parents and their gay adult children implicitly and explicitly collaborate to perform family, emphasizing the importance of formally meeting society's expectations about marriage rather than substantively yielding to its demands. We also argue that the performative family is a pragmatic response to the tension between the persistent centrality of family and marriage and the rising tide of individualism in post‐socialist China. We believe that our findings highlight the specific predicament of homosexual people. They also shed light on the more general dynamics of intergenerational negotiation because there is evidence that the mechanisms used by parents to exert influence may well be similar between gay and non‐gay people.     

Division of Labor,Gender Ideology,and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N = 3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses were more satisfied with their marriage and had more egalitarian divisions of housework, but simultaneously they held less egalitarian gender ideologies. Multivariate analyses showed that relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for Japanese and Korean men and for Korean and Taiwanese women. Egalitarian gender ideology was significantly associated with lower marital satisfaction only among Taiwanese women. In addition, the negative association between housework and marital satisfaction was more pronounced for Taiwanese women who espoused more egalitarian gender ideologies. The authors discuss how differences in macro‐level social contexts explain these cross‐society variations.     

被修饰的梦境：明清通俗小说中的“入赘”

在明清通俗小说中,入赘是商贾融入异乡生活的一种有效手段,也代表了士人改换门庭的人生理想．但基于入赘所附着的种种社会属性,对于男性来说,它并不是一种令人愉悦的婚姻方式,不管是婚仪、改姓还是夺休,赘婿享受不到其他男性在婚姻中那种支配一切、掌控一切的快感,他们甚至都无法保持最基本的权利,不仅被人耻笑,而且可以招之即来．挥之即走。但小说作者往往会运用多种手法掩盖或是化解小说人物在入赘中所受到的屈辱和难堪,通过一系列手段的掩盖或是化解,小说作者在营造一个入赘的梦境的同时,也对这个梦境做了必要的修饰：入赘从损害男性自尊、让他们受尽歧视和冷遇,到变成一种男性可以从中寻找到足够的体面和尊严,至少看起来和其他的婚俗没有什么严重差异的婚姻方式。     

日本礼仪中“婚嫁”的忌讳语探究

婚嫁是日本礼仪中的重要一环。从社会语言学的视角具体探讨"结婚仪式"、"婚宴"等场合下的忌讳语,探究宗教信仰、言灵思想、心理联想、同音因素和交际需要等方面对其产生和存在的影响,能够发掘隐藏于忌讳语后的日本社会文化现象,把握日本民族心理,促进跨文化交际的顺利进行。     

中国共产党领导下婚姻家庭制度的回顾与展望

中国共产党建党至今已一百周年,在党的领导下,中国在经济、文化、法制等各个方面都发生了翻天覆地的变化。而作为关系着每个人切身利益的婚姻家庭制度也在朝着体系化、制度化、科学化的方向不断发展。从《中华苏维埃共和国婚姻法》到《民法典》婚姻家庭编,不同时期的婚姻立法不仅仅回应了时代要求,也向我们展示了我国婚姻法在立法理念和制度建构上的极大提升。     

沉樱小说中女性婚恋心理的观察与体验

20世纪30年代初的女作家沉樱从自身的婚恋生活经验出发，对五四时期现代家庭生活作出新的体察和揭示，客观地描摹出一些新女性在满怀希望走进婚恋生活后内心所感受的空寂与焦虑，同时也大胆地表现出这些女性对于自我欲望的发现与表述。