Posted on 06/23/2004 1:36:23 PM PDT by John Lenin
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - While most single young men aspire to marriage, about one-fifth are deeply skeptical of the institution and their prospects of making it work, according to a new national survey which closely links men's marital outlook to their upbringing.
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The survey, released Wednesday by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, found that the men with negative attitudes were far more likely than the rest to have been raised by a divorced parent in a non-churchgoing family.
"Most young men are still 'the marrying kind,'" said a report accompanying the survey. "Moreover, the men who are the best 'marriage bets' are those who are more traditional in their family and religious background."
One critic said such assertions were too broad, fostering illusions about traditional families and overlooking the nuanced attitudes of those raised by divorced parents.
Of the 1,010 men aged 25-34 who were surveyed, 569 were married. Of that group, 81 percent said they got married "because it was the right time to settle down." The desire to have children was a major factor for 35 percent; only 15 percent said they married sooner than they wished because of pressure from their partner.
The survey was part of the annual "State of Our Unions" report authored by Marriage Project co-directors David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead.
Their report avoided making specific recommendations, but Popenoe, in a telephone interview, counseled women seeking husbands to "take into consideration the guy's background — don't avoid the traditional guys."
"A huge percentage of the men say they'll marry when it's time to settle down, which a lot of women don't quite understand," Popenoe said. "A word of advice to women — make sure you're getting the guy at just this time."
Survey responses from the married men painted a positive picture of marriage — 94 percent said they were happier married than single, and 73 percent said their sex life was better.
"For men, even more than for women, marriage is a transformative event," Popenoe and Whitehead wrote. "They work harder and do better financially than men who are not married. They are less likely to hang out in bars, to abuse alcohol or drugs."
According to the survey, married men are roughly twice as likely as unmarried men to go religious services regularly. Three-quarters of the married men said it was important for children to be raised in a religion, compared to 59 percent of unmarried men.
Regarding parenting, married and single men had similar views — about two-thirds of each group said having children shouldn't be the main purpose of marrying.
Among the single men, those interested in marriage were more likely to have had a father fully involved in their upbringing than those who were skeptical of marriage. The unmarried men raised by two parents also were more likely to be trusting of women than those raised in single-parent homes.
Stephanie Coontz, a history professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and author of several books on families, questioned the utility of such findings.
"There's this endless stream of correlations that seem designed to convince people, 'By golly, we'd all do better if everybody got married and stayed married,'" she said. "That's unrealistic in the modern world."
She said researchers should conduct more detailed surveys, for example, comparing the outlooks of men whose parents divorced amicably with men whose parents endured in an unhappy marriage.
Of the unmarried men who were surveyed, 53 percent said they were not interested in getting married anytime soon. Most agreed that "at this stage in my life I want fun and freedom"; 47 percent said they wouldn't marry until they could afford to own a home.
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Captain Obvious strikes again! And the usual suspects don't like the results ...
FMCDH(BITS)
Round up the usual suspects. The denyers.
FMCDH(BITS)
Ladies, we need to start treating our men better, BUY DR. LAURA'S BOOK.
Another groundbreaking revelation, probably funded by tax dollars.
I was almost a minute ahead of you :-).
Recipe for divorce. You marry because you've found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and that has nothing to do with what "time" you think it is. If you marry the closest warm body because "It's Time to Get Married", you're in for a rude surprise.
Sometimes I find her irritating, but that book that came out earlier this year, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" should apply it to our sons too. We are companions to each other. We need treat men better, if we want in tact families. I am as guilty as the next woman when it comes to that.
Ah, naivete.
The married man knows not to trust women but has generally learned how to deal with it ;)
Well duh, no man is going to get married until he feels it's the right time.
Nice to see some american women are starting to understand. Have a nice day ma'am.
I think you're making a wrong distinction. When you've found "Her", I think you pretty much know who you're going to marry. After that, you still have to pick "the right time to settle down" with her. After college, say, or some "decent courtship interval."
I don't think most of that 81% decided to go out and find a prospective bride after the time was right.
Good point.
Better yet, the study was probably also done in Mexico.
Like this one:
Stephanie Coontz, a history professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and author of several books on families ... (Presumably not the kind of families any of us want to live in.)
My cousin just got back from a hunting trip to Vietnam and made the comment that he now understands why no one wants to marry American women. He said the women over there treated him like a king (rich American husband material) and were catering to his every whim (don't go there). He also said the hunting was pretty good.
I think that was Rachel Corrie's college.
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