{"id":300,"date":"2010-05-20T12:43:34","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T17:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/?p=300"},"modified":"2011-11-07T16:04:06","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T21:04:06","slug":"love-and-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2010\/05\/20\/love-and-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

This learning activity is the first of a package of exercises to be used with material from the most recent issue of Contexts<\/em> (Spring 2010). Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for material to accompany the newest issue!<\/p>\n

This in-class exercise<\/a> asks students to evaluate the state of love and marriage in the United States today and to decide whether they think the changes are problematic or progressive. The activity was designed to accompany “The Changing Landscape of Love and Marriage” by Kathleen E. Hull, Ann Meier, and Timothy Ortyl in the new Spring 2010 issue.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n\r\nDirections:<\/em><\/strong> Read the following statistics and statements about the state\r\nof relationships in the U.S. today from the article \u201cThe Changing Landscape\r\n of Love and Marriage\u201d by Kathleen E. Hull, Ann Meier, and Timothy Ortyl.\r\n<\/em>\r\n\r\nAfter reading each statement, decide if you think it is a problem<\/span> or not.\r\nCircle \u201cYes\u201d or \u201cNo.\u201d In the space below each statement, briefly describe\r\n your reasoning.<\/em>\r\n
\r\nDo you believe that these changes in love and marriage present a problem to our society? \r\n\r\n1) Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________\r\n\r\n2) People are getting married later than they used to; the median age at first marriage\r\nis now 28 for men and 26 for women, compared to 23 and 20 in 1960. <\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________\r\n\r\n3) The proportion of adults who never marry remains low but is climbing; in 2006, 19%\r\nof men and 13% of women aged 40-44 had never married.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________\r\n\r\n4) Unmarried cohabitation has gone from a socially stigmatized practice to a normal\r\n stage in the adult life course (more than half of all American marriages now\r\nbegin as cohabitations).<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________\r\n\r\n5) Roughly one-third of all births are to unmarried parents.\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\n6) <\/strong>Today, people feel freer to marry later, to end unhappy marriages, and to forego\r\nmarriage altogether.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________\r\n\r\n7) <\/strong>Americans have established a pattern of high marriage and remarriage rates,\r\nfrequent divorce and separation, and more short-lived cohabitations.\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\n8) <\/strong>Straight women are more likely to rate faithfulness and lifelong commitment as\r\n extremely important compared to straight men and sexual minorities.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProblem? Yes\u00a0\u00a0 or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No\r\nWhy? __________________________________________________________________________ <\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nBased on your responses above, which position described in the article do you most\r\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong> agree with? Circle one.\r\n
    \u00a01. The marital decline position<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>which argues that changes in intimacy are a\r\nsignificant cause for concern. \r\n\r\nOR<\/ol>\r\n
      2. The marital resilience perspective<\/em><\/strong>, which, in contrast, argues that changes\r\nin family life have actually strengthened the quality of intimate relationships,\r\nincluding marriages.<\/ol>\r\n<\/em>After you have finished, discuss your responses with a small group of classmates.\r\nDoes your group agree?<\/em><\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
      \r\n<\/em><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      This learning activity is the first of a package of exercises to be used with material from the most recent issue of Contexts (Spring 2010). Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for material to accompany the newest issue! This in-class exercise asks students to evaluate the state of love and marriage in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[70,55,320,837,176],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-family","tag-gender","tag-marriage","tag-materials","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}