the report of the "death of marriage" was an exaggeration

November 18, 2010 the Pew Research Center released a research study conducted in conjunction with TIME, that was provocatively, if inaccurately, titled "Decline of Marriage." The research was a survey of Americans' attitudes about marriage and family.

The headline finding of this survey was that 39 percent of respondents to the study agree that "marriage is obsolete." This is an increase from 1978 when only 28 percent thought marriage was obsolete.

The problem is, this is the perception of people, not reality. Moreover, it is the perception of people only 5 percent of whom can accurately describe societies divorce trends for the past twenty years. In other words 95 percent of the respondents to this survey did NOT know that divorce has been declining for the past 30 years.

Turns out that's not the only fact about marriage and the family the respondents got wrong. On seven key questions of fact about marriage and family trends, less than half of the respondents knew what the actual marriage and family trends are.

No wonder their perceptions of marriage and the family are so screwed - they lack the facts.

Definitions -- broad for family, narrow for marriage

Once again, I am fascinated by the responses of my students to my discussion questions on the topic of family in Introductory Sociology.

The overwhelming majority of students, about 95 out of every 100 who respond to the discussion, when asked what a family is provide a very broad definition that focuses on things like "love," "caring," "supportiveness," and other qualities of relationships. These students explicitly include homosexual couples living together, especially those with children, as qualifying to be included in the concept of "family." Sometimes students even will state, that while they do not approve of homosexual relationships, they are still examples of "family."

When the same students when asked about what constitutes "marriage," about sixty percent of them (in Kentucky), are adamant that a marriage consists of one man and one woman only. They reject homosexual relationships as qualifying for marriage, and they reject polygamy in any form as well.

alone together

Alone Together: How Marriage in America is Changing by Paul R. Amato, Alan Booth, David R. Johnson, and Stacy J. Rogers, might not be a book that most people would read for pleasure. It is however, a sociologist's delight. Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers are sociologists at Pennsylvania State University, an institution well known in the discipline for large scale quantitative research. This book is the result of two major surveys done twenty years apart (1980 and 2000) which asked the exact same questions of a representative sample of married Americans under 55 years old. Their primary research question was "how is marriage in American changing?" What they found was that there were many changes, but that one could not make simple generalizations. Their data suggests that neither the folks who say that marriage is in decline, nor those that consider marriage to be changing but in fine health, are entirely correct. Their research suggests that marriage is a multi-faceted relationship, the quality of which varies on more than one dimension, and not always in the same direction.

Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers identified five dimensions of marital quality (all based on the reports of subjects): marital happiness, marital interaction, marital conflict, marital problems, and "divorce proneness" (meaning how often the individual thought about getting a divorce, talked to others -- including spouse -- about possibility of divorce, etc.). Over the twenty years between the two studies, the researchers found: 1) that reported levels of marital happiness and “divorce proneness” did not change; 2) that (on the positive side) reported levels of marital conflict and marital problems declined moderately; and 3) that overall levels of marital interaction declined. So on two of the five measures marital quality stayed the same for 20 years, on two marital quality improved, and on one, “interaction,” there was a decline (although I know some husbands and some wives who consider less interaction with their spouse to be a blessing at times).

Each of these dimensions also has multiple factors, which sometimes vary in the same way, but not always. For example, the dimension of “marital happiness” is one in which the factors vary in contradictory ways. The factors the researchers included in “marital happiness” were “agreement” with spouse, assessment of “strength of love,” evaluation of “sex life,” and whether or not they view their marriage as “better than most.” Between 1980 and 2000 “agreement” and “strength of love” increased (improved), while “sex life,” and “marriage better than most,” declined. [One could argue that a decline in assessing one’s marriage “better than most, does not represent a decline in one’s own marital quality but rather an upward assessment of the general state of marriage, or just simply greater realism]. On the other hand, the factor of marital interaction is one in which all four factors (eating main meal together, going out of leisure together, visiting friends together, and working around the home together) all declined from 1980 to 2000.

The authors’ overall conclusion: that reports of the decline and death of marriage are premature, but that all is not perfect in matrimonial land.

The research reported is sound, and provides fascinating insight into the ways that marriage has changed. I have one complaint. The authors refer throughout the book to “rise of individualism” as the cause of many of the changes that they observe, but they have not operationalized nor measured this variable in any way. They depend upon other people’s writing on the topic of individualism (none of which appears to be based on systematic empirical research). Occasionally, the authors use one of their own outcome measures as an indicator of “individualism,” but that involves fallacious circular reasoning. If one argues that an increase in individualism causes marital partners to spend more time alone, one cannot then turn around and say that spending time alone is a measure of increased individualism. That’s like saying that a job is highly paid because it is important, and we know it is important because it is highly paid.

A New York Times article, facetiously titled "To Avoid Divorce, Move to Massachusetts," reveals that politically and socially conservative states such as Kentucky have higher divorce rates than the rest of the nation (10.8 divorces for every 1,000 married people), while liberal states such as Massachusetts have the lowest divorce rates nationally (5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people).

The article makes much of the fact that Massachusetts, with its low divorce rate is a state that has made same sex marriage legal, while Kentucky (in 2004) passed a constitutional amendment to bar not only same sex marriage, but also to bar any form of civil union that was substantially similar to marriage. The article points out that

As researchers have noted, the areas of the country where divorce rates are highest are also frequently the areas where many conservative Christians live.

Then goes on to note that:

Many experts believe the explanation to be more multidimensional, with high divorce rates tied to factors like younger age of marriage, less education and lower socioeconomic status.

As one of those "experts" I concur, that these important social and economic factors, are key to the differences in divorce between Kentucky and Massachusetts. Kentucky has lower education attainment, a lower standard of living, higher levels of poverty, and lower age at marriage than Massachusetts.

The article suggests, through the various experts cited, that the coincidence of conservative Christianity with certain patterns of education, standard of living and age at marriage and divorce rates is a geographical artifact and not a causal factor. However, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, did suggest a plausible causal explanation:

"If your family or religious culture urges you not to have sex before you get married," she said, "then one answer is to get married, and then you're more likely to divorce."

The data cited in the article are consistent with what I've been seeing over the past decade of writing about marriage and the family (textbook chapters), and not at all surprising. However, seeing it presented in this way, gave me a new idea. Perhaps it is the patterns of divorce that are causal in contributing to the rise and popularity of certain religious ideas among the general public.

High divorce rates may not cause people in a region to become conservative Christians, but they may cause conservative Christians in certain areas to latch on to certain political ideas -- such as anti-gay marriage -- as a result of fears about the stability of marriage. Fears that would certainly be more common and make more sense in high divorce regions.

Moreover, it would be to the advantage of those who benefit from the prevailing patterns of inequality, economy and education that people in high divorce areas be discouraged from seeking to change those things to lower divorce rates. Anti-gay marriage amendments don't threaten entrenched patterns of power and privilege the way programs to deal seriously with educational access, unemployment and low income do.

Family versus Marriage

Two and a half years ago, in November 2004, the voters of Kentucky overwhelmingly (71 percent) voted to adopt a new constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being only between one man and one woman, and provided that "a legal status identical to or similar to marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized." [Unmarried individuals including heterosexual unmarried couples as well as gays and lesbians].

So imagine my surprise during the last six terms that I have taught SOC 101 (Introductory Sociology), when my Kentucky students have overwhelmingly with no exceptions, told me that the term "family" is inclusive of any and all groups of people who love and care for each other, and live together in a supportive relationship.

The chapter on Marriage and Family [authored by me, a fact of which students are generally not aware] in their sociology textbook begins with a descriptive listing of different groups of people: married couples with children, cohabiting heterosexual couples without children, homosexual couples with children, single mothers by divorce and by out-of-wedlock pregnancy and their children.

In my on-line classes, which draw on students from all over Kentucky, we have a discussion forum, and one of the questions I ask in the unit on family is "So what is a family?" I ask them to look at the list and tell which they would consider a family.

Here is a sampling of the responses that I have gotten from students:

Family is hard to define because people have so many different views. But I think family is people that you are close to, where there is mutual love, support, and a level of caring that is somewhat beyond just friendship.

all of the circumstances would prove to be a family. As I said, it is not what others perceive to be acceptable, as a family, but more how one feels when interacting with each other. I cannot state enough how important it is for each of us to feel a part of and accepted by at least one societal circle. To me that is ultimately makes a family unit.

All of the examples in the beginning of the chapter are families. A family is the biggest part of how we function in society. Family helps us to define who we are. Just because you are not married with kids does not mean that you are not a family. Some people think that gay couples with kids are not considered a family. In my own opinion marriage is just a piece of paper. If you are gay does not mean that they can not raise their child to be up standing citizens.

I believe a family is when someone relies on you to be there for them whether it be emotionally, financially, sexually, and so forth. A family is created when there is a strong bond between two or more. This doesn't just have to be man wife and kids, it can be anyone. You always hear of people close friends saying "they are like family to me". This is because they depend on that person to be there for them thru thick and thin. I believe that when you have a strong bond with someone and you know that that person will be there for you always then they can be considered family.

Over the past six or seven terms I have seen nearly a hundred posts that are variations on these examples. Out of that hundred, only one person, ever mentioned that they personally disapproved of gay relationships, but countered that by saying that they still deserved to be considered a "family."

This was so much at odds with what I expected given the overwhelming support that voters gave the anti-gay marriage amendment, that I began asking students additional questions. What I learned was fascinating. My students view "marriage" and "family" as separate entities not necessarily dependent upon each other. The reasoning varied. Some students suggested that "marriage" was a religious institution, while "family" was natural and biological. Others suggested that "family" was based on affinity, affection, and personal choice, while "marriage" was either a religious or legal institution. I found that it was possible for my students to have an open and inclusive view about families, while having a restricted and narrow definition of marriage.

Most formal groups that support anti-gay marriage legislation, have very restricted definitions of family, and generally would like to see all children raised by two biological parents, in a legally and religiously sanctioned marriage. In other words, part of the agenda of many formal organizations that promote "pro-marriage" or "pro-family" (i.e. anti-gay) legislation is to combat the idea that families can be what ever we want them to be.

The dichotomy between my students definitions of "family" and "marriage" may help to explain how a preponderance of open inclusive views about family could exist among students in a state that overwhelmingly supported an anti-gay marriage amendment. However, one must also consider two other possible contributing factors: one is that my students, who are overwhelmingly self described as middle, working and lower class, don't vote, and were not among the 71 percent of voters who passed the amendment; the other is that my students, who are also overwhelmingly female, under the age of 40, and mothers (some married, some not), are significantly different from the over all Kentucky population.

Nonetheless, I think the split in how my students think about family and marriage is intriguing and provocative.