ZOSIMO T. LITERATUS, RMTFreedom has always been found at the time of making a decision, a choice of actions, things, and more. Once the choice has been made, freedom ends with the consequences of that decision or choice. Then freedom reappears with how a person handles the impact of the results from those decisions.
The same natural process continues to play in marriage, from the choice of a partner, to the decision to enter into marriage, and the eventual decision to stay or separate ways.
Professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey USA) David Popenoe founded the National Marriage Project to provide research analysis on the state of marriage in America as one of its two-pronged mission.
The project financially supported by the university in cooperation with private foundations came up a guideline entitled “Ten Important Research findings on Marriage and Choosing a Marriage Partner: Helpful Facts for Young Adults.” It was published in November 2004 under its Ten Things to Know Series.
From these guidelines we fashioned a specific guide-list in effectively selecting a marriage partner. We have six.
AT LEAST 20 YEARS OF AGE
A 2002 National Center for Health Statistics study[1] showed that 59% of marriages for women under age 18 end in divorce or separation within 15 years (36% only for 20 years older marriages). Teenage marriages (below age 20) are 2 to 3 times more likely to end in divorced compared to marriages at older (20 years or older) ages[2].
Although maturity does not always come with age, age has a way of increasing sobriety in the impulsive mind of the young. Marriages that happen on impulse are most likely to breakup on impulse.
INTRODUCED THROUGH THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Authors of the book, The Social Organization of Sexuality, upheld that social networks are important in bringing together individuals of similar interests and backgrounds, especially when it comes to selecting a marriage partner. Your social networks are people who know you long enough to know well your values, attitudes, and life goals. They can often see what personality traits click with you very well and make you happy.
However, you must still exercise discretion in listening to their opinions as they too are prone to make judgment on others colored by their personal prejudices. If they are objective with their opinion towards a prospective partner, listening to them would be wise. If they are moved by unfounded dislikes or negative reactions because of their own personal blinders, you could be deceived as they are.
But their involvement in screening out potential partners cannot be underrated. They provide a check for your own emotionally colored perceptions of a potential partner. They could help you think twice before taking the relationship seriously.
OF SIMILAR VALUES, BACKGROUNDS, AND LIFE GOALS
More inherent similarities between couples are a big step forward into a more stable and happier married life. The single most critical aspect in every person’s makeup is his values, formed by his social and experiential backgrounds and determine his life goals. Values are basic ways of perceiving and understanding things and events in life. If people clashes or differs seriously in their values, every move they make would cause irritations and frustrations to the other. That is hardly an ingredient of a happy or stable marriage.
Studies by Jeffry Larson and Thomas Holman[3] in 1994 and Robert Lauer and Jeanette Lauer[4] in 1986 agreed on the essential role that similar backgrounds of spouses play in a long-lasting marriage relationship.
AT LEAST COLLEGE EDUCATED
Researchers Joshua Goldstein and Catharine Kenney[5] reported what they observed on the phenomenon in the American Sociological Review in 2001.
NO COHABITING RELATIONSHIP BEFORE MARRIAGE
The negative effects of multiple cohabitation (before marriage) are believed partially due to what researchers refer to as “selection effect.” The more past cohabitation partners to compare from the less likely for someone to commit to stay in a marriage through thick and thin. Comparison with cohabitation partners would be inevitable and becomes a constant source of adjustment problems. Trial marriages often turn out to be only trial, and sometimes any marriage thereafter.
Jay Teachman however reported in the Journal of Marriage and the Family (May 2003) that living together with the person one intends to marry does not increase the risk of divorce. Often first time cohabiting couples who intend to marry consider living together as part of the engagement process.
While this phenomenon could be a cultural one, existing only among Americans, I tend to believe that the risk would still be high because the absence of legal commitment itself provides the escape route in case one of the couple changes his or her mind. When the mind changes, the “intent to marry” also disappears. Somehow, that would still be tantamount to a trial marriage or cohabitation.
NO EXPOSURE TO BROKEN MARRIAGE
Growing in a broken home is like breathing the justification of the break, making it an acceptable fact of life. Once a person accepts that it is alright to break a marriage, it becomes easier to do so often without remorse.
Jay Teachman in his report[6] in the Journal of Family Issues (2004) found that when the wife alone experienced parental divorce, the odds of divorce increased by 59 percent (more than half). But when both spouses experienced parental divorce, the odds jumped up to 189 percent (almost triple).
Paul Amato and Danelle DeBoer discovered in their 2001 study[7] that the main reason for people who experience parental divorce to have a higher divorce rate themselves is their tendency to hold a relatively weak commitment to the norm of lifelong marriage.
Partner selection is a major life choice that cannot be left to the overwhelming but passing emotions of infatuation and passionate encounters. It must be tested with time and with your social networks. Doing so can either test your future spouse or your social networks eventually because you have to make a decision on which social relationship you find most fitted and happiest. That would not be a problem if your social network knows your partner and the two appears to blend in happily together.
The problem comes when your social network sees your potential spouse differently than what you see him to be. The critical question would be: whose judgment you could trust? Your social networks’? Yours? Like them, you too can be deceived by emotion and personal biases.
The same natural process continues to play in marriage, from the choice of a partner, to the decision to enter into marriage, and the eventual decision to stay or separate ways.
Professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey USA) David Popenoe founded the National Marriage Project to provide research analysis on the state of marriage in America as one of its two-pronged mission.
The project financially supported by the university in cooperation with private foundations came up a guideline entitled “Ten Important Research findings on Marriage and Choosing a Marriage Partner: Helpful Facts for Young Adults.” It was published in November 2004 under its Ten Things to Know Series.
From these guidelines we fashioned a specific guide-list in effectively selecting a marriage partner. We have six.
AT LEAST 20 YEARS OF AGE
A 2002 National Center for Health Statistics study[1] showed that 59% of marriages for women under age 18 end in divorce or separation within 15 years (36% only for 20 years older marriages). Teenage marriages (below age 20) are 2 to 3 times more likely to end in divorced compared to marriages at older (20 years or older) ages[2].
Although maturity does not always come with age, age has a way of increasing sobriety in the impulsive mind of the young. Marriages that happen on impulse are most likely to breakup on impulse.
INTRODUCED THROUGH THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Authors of the book, The Social Organization of Sexuality, upheld that social networks are important in bringing together individuals of similar interests and backgrounds, especially when it comes to selecting a marriage partner. Your social networks are people who know you long enough to know well your values, attitudes, and life goals. They can often see what personality traits click with you very well and make you happy.
However, you must still exercise discretion in listening to their opinions as they too are prone to make judgment on others colored by their personal prejudices. If they are objective with their opinion towards a prospective partner, listening to them would be wise. If they are moved by unfounded dislikes or negative reactions because of their own personal blinders, you could be deceived as they are.
But their involvement in screening out potential partners cannot be underrated. They provide a check for your own emotionally colored perceptions of a potential partner. They could help you think twice before taking the relationship seriously.
OF SIMILAR VALUES, BACKGROUNDS, AND LIFE GOALS
More inherent similarities between couples are a big step forward into a more stable and happier married life. The single most critical aspect in every person’s makeup is his values, formed by his social and experiential backgrounds and determine his life goals. Values are basic ways of perceiving and understanding things and events in life. If people clashes or differs seriously in their values, every move they make would cause irritations and frustrations to the other. That is hardly an ingredient of a happy or stable marriage.
Studies by Jeffry Larson and Thomas Holman[3] in 1994 and Robert Lauer and Jeanette Lauer[4] in 1986 agreed on the essential role that similar backgrounds of spouses play in a long-lasting marriage relationship.
AT LEAST COLLEGE EDUCATED
Researchers Joshua Goldstein and Catharine Kenney[5] reported what they observed on the phenomenon in the American Sociological Review in 2001.
NO COHABITING RELATIONSHIP BEFORE MARRIAGE
The negative effects of multiple cohabitation (before marriage) are believed partially due to what researchers refer to as “selection effect.” The more past cohabitation partners to compare from the less likely for someone to commit to stay in a marriage through thick and thin. Comparison with cohabitation partners would be inevitable and becomes a constant source of adjustment problems. Trial marriages often turn out to be only trial, and sometimes any marriage thereafter.
Jay Teachman however reported in the Journal of Marriage and the Family (May 2003) that living together with the person one intends to marry does not increase the risk of divorce. Often first time cohabiting couples who intend to marry consider living together as part of the engagement process.
While this phenomenon could be a cultural one, existing only among Americans, I tend to believe that the risk would still be high because the absence of legal commitment itself provides the escape route in case one of the couple changes his or her mind. When the mind changes, the “intent to marry” also disappears. Somehow, that would still be tantamount to a trial marriage or cohabitation.
NO EXPOSURE TO BROKEN MARRIAGE
Growing in a broken home is like breathing the justification of the break, making it an acceptable fact of life. Once a person accepts that it is alright to break a marriage, it becomes easier to do so often without remorse.
Jay Teachman in his report[6] in the Journal of Family Issues (2004) found that when the wife alone experienced parental divorce, the odds of divorce increased by 59 percent (more than half). But when both spouses experienced parental divorce, the odds jumped up to 189 percent (almost triple).
Paul Amato and Danelle DeBoer discovered in their 2001 study[7] that the main reason for people who experience parental divorce to have a higher divorce rate themselves is their tendency to hold a relatively weak commitment to the norm of lifelong marriage.
Partner selection is a major life choice that cannot be left to the overwhelming but passing emotions of infatuation and passionate encounters. It must be tested with time and with your social networks. Doing so can either test your future spouse or your social networks eventually because you have to make a decision on which social relationship you find most fitted and happiest. That would not be a problem if your social network knows your partner and the two appears to blend in happily together.
The problem comes when your social network sees your potential spouse differently than what you see him to be. The critical question would be: whose judgment you could trust? Your social networks’? Yours? Like them, you too can be deceived by emotion and personal biases.
That is where the value of testing relationships with time comes in. Time allows you to learn more about people more closely, close enough to allow you to make the final decision to go on with marriage or let it go for someone else’s or perhaps on your own. (Read more...)
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Notes:
[1] Cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the United States, published by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2002
[2] TC Martin and L Bumpass: “Recent trends in marital disruption,” published in Demography in 1989
[3] Premarital predictors of marital quality and stability, published in Family Relations (Vol 43; pages 228-237)
[4] Factors in long-term marriage, published in Journal of Family Issues (Vol 7; pages 382-390)
[5] Marriage delayed or marriage forgone? New cohort forecasts of first marriage for U.S. women, published in American Sociological Review (Vol 66; pages 506-519)
[6] The childhood living arrangements of children and the characteristics of their marriages
[7] The transmission of marital instability across generations: Relationship skills or commitment to marriage? (November 2001)
[1] Cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the United States, published by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2002
[2] TC Martin and L Bumpass: “Recent trends in marital disruption,” published in Demography in 1989
[3] Premarital predictors of marital quality and stability, published in Family Relations (Vol 43; pages 228-237)
[4] Factors in long-term marriage, published in Journal of Family Issues (Vol 7; pages 382-390)
[5] Marriage delayed or marriage forgone? New cohort forecasts of first marriage for U.S. women, published in American Sociological Review (Vol 66; pages 506-519)
[6] The childhood living arrangements of children and the characteristics of their marriages
[7] The transmission of marital instability across generations: Relationship skills or commitment to marriage? (November 2001)
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