I think I have the same plans.
I'm just not telling what I'll be playing in the parlor. :-)
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Posted on 01/16/2007 12:10:56 PM PST by AdamSelene235
For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.
In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.
Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all U.S. households for the first time, the trend ultimately could shape a range of social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.
Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods of time. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.
advertisement In addition, marriage rates among black women remain low. Only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, according to the Census Bureau, compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian women.
In a relatively small number of cases, the living arrangement is temporary, because the husbands are working out of town, are in the military or are institutionalized. But while most women eventually marry, the larger trend is unmistakable.
``This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people's lives,'' said Professor Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. ``Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage.'' She said this was probably unprecedented with the possible exception of major wartime mobilizations and when black couples were separated during slavery.
William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, described the shift as ``a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women.''
``For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage,'' Frey said. ``Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped for, growing up in an `Ozzie and Harriet' era.''
Emily Zuzik, a 32-year-old musician and model who lives in the East Village of Manhattan, says she's not surprised by the trend.
``A lot of my friends are divorced or single or living alone,'' she said. ``I know a lot of people in their 30s who have roommates.''
Zuzik has lived with a boyfriend twice, once in California where the couple registered as domestic partners to qualify for his health insurance plan. ``I don't plan to live with anyone else again until I am married,'' she said, ``and I may opt to keep a place of my own even then.''
Linda Barth, a 56-year-old magazine editor in Houston who has never married, said, ``I used to divide my women friends into single friends and married friends. Now that doesn't seem to be an issue.''
Sheila Jamison, who also lives in the East Village of Manhattan and works for a media company, is 45 and unmarried. She says her family believes that she would have had a better chance of finding a husband if she had attended a historically black college instead of Duke.
``Considering all the weddings I attended in the '80s that have ended so very, very badly, I consider myself straight up lucky,'' she said. ``I have not sworn off marriage, but if I do wed, it will be to have a companion with whom I can travel and play parlor games in my old age.''
Carol Crenshaw, 57, of Roswell, Ga., was divorced in 2005 after 33 years and says she is in no hurry to remarry.
``I'm in a place in my life where I'm comfortable,'' said Crenshaw, who has two grown sons. ``I can do what I want, when I want, with whom I want. I was a wife and a mother. I don't feel like I need to do that again.''
They show alot more than that. Common decency and modesty are virtues completely alien to young people today. And their parents are just as bad...afterall who is it that let's 12 year olds go to school dressed like street walkers?
I think this reflects the demographics of war killing off lots of men. Muslims react to that by taking three wives whereas Western men take three wives one at a time. Note how many presidential candidates are on their third wife.
You're not supposed to post pics of your relatives on FR, rr.
LOL!
What destroying marriage all came down to - to get some "free" medical benefits...
I think this reflects the demographics of war killing off lots of men.
This isn't relevant to the U.S., I'm afraid. Even in WWII, the U.S. only lost about 418,000 people (mostly males).
Have you seen the Special K commercial where the mother gives her teenage daughter a pair of her jeans that do not fit anymore? Then the mother diets on Special K and watches her daughter in the jeans in kind of a jealous way. Then the mother is thin enough to get back in to the teenage jeans. There you see the big smuck of a mother dressed like her teenage daughter. I know I am babbling but that commercial makes women my age look pathetic. You cannot be a teenager again. They try to dress and look like teenage girls!!!!!
My kid is forbidden to have her stomach stick out. It is the mother’s job to teach girls modesty and morals.
The only scary point is that you seem to agree with the statement.
That's probably what your great grandparents said about women wearing pants.
Could it be because there are so many American Men marrying Foreign women?
...and so it continues.
Agree with Linda above... The scary thing about you is you think it's profound and scary. The truth is in Muslim lands their advantage is: "our women are mothers property, and your women are whores".
"Male 'quality of life' rating reaches new high..."
Thank you mom.
None of my friends who married in the 80's when I did are divorced or seperated. My parents were married 45 years when my mother died...all my aunts and uncles died married to their original spouse except for one aunt who was widowed and has remarried. I know that divorce is pretty prevelent in this society but not everyone does it.
Amen!
...or the gaudy aztec princess headband piece with the veil explosion atop the head and the skin tight wedding gown.
Lets not forget bridesmaids wearing hoop skirts in crappy pastel colors.
I did that a few times.
Ugh!
I think I have the same plans.
I'm just not telling what I'll be playing in the parlor. :-)
That's a cannard. Folks a hundred years ago may have thought that wearing pants was scandalous but you show me a period in the history of Western Civilization where common folks thought that it was appropriate for women to walk the streets barely clothed. There is no such time...we've crossed nearly every line of decency that's ever been established.
"What is the motivation for this lack of information?"
A) Couldn't find any men.
B) Couldn't find any men who knew whether they were married or not.
C) Couldn't find any men who cared about another stupid survey.
D) All of the above.
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