Courtship, Mate Selection, and Marriage
We have determined what marriage is and some of the different patterns it can take, but who determines the process of marriage? In ancient Rome, if two people agreed to live together, they were considered married. There was no ceremony or legal procedure to follow. Later, as the Catholic church rose to power, religious ceremonies became required. By the 1800s, in the United States, laws were passed requiring a ceremony in front of witnesses in order for a marriage to be considered legal.
The power held by states to legalize the economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and physical union or disunion of a man and a woman is not only traditional, but also enduring in U.S. history. Centuries and millennia ago, fathers, clan or kinship leaders, religious leaders, and community members had the rights to marry which are now afforded to the state.
Today, each state can determine an age for marriage and can set restrictions on marriage, like whether to allow certain family members (like first cousins) to marry. Typical requirements include a religious and/or civil ceremonygovernment ceremony in front of a judge performed by an approved person and a marriage license. Some states have requirements like blood tests, while others do not.
Although states retain the right to set their own standards for marriage, the federal government has superseded this right in cases where discrimination or civil rights violations existed. For example, in 1967, the US Supreme Court declared that state bans on interracial marriage were a violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. From that point on, states could no longer prohibit interracial couples from marrying.
In 2015, the US Supreme Court declared that state bans on same-sex marriage were also a violation of the 14th Amendment, making the US the 21st country to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. States can no longer prohibit same-sex couples from marrying.
In some states, a couple is considered to be married simply by living together for a specified length of time and by presenting themselves as husband and wife. In the United States, this is called a common law marriage. This is allowed in 13 states, including the state of Alabama and the District of Columbia. Common law marriages must meet three requirements to be considered legal:
1. The couple must agree to be married
2. Cohabitation - they must live together
3. They must be publicly present themselves as married in society
Common law marriage is a union of two people not formalized in the customary manner as prescribed by law but created by an agreement to marry followed by cohabitation.
Because states set the regulations by which marriages can occur, they also set the regulations by which marriages can be dissolved. This process is called divorce, and it can vary somewhat from state to state. Even common law marriages require a divorce decree if a partner wishes to marry someone else. Contrary to popular belief, most legal status changes each year are marriages, not divorces.
Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage.
The U.S. has historically had low divorce rates, which spiked briefly after World War II, declined until the late 1960s, and rose sharply until the mid-1980s. Finally, divorce rates began to decline gradually and continue to do so today. On the next slide, the chart shows the divorce rates per 1,000 couples for each of the 5 years between 1960 and 2005.
United States Marriage and Divorce rates, 1960-2005
Rates/1,000 Population
| Year | Marriage Rate | Divorce Rate |
| 1960 | 8000 | 2000 |
| 1965 | 9000 | 2200 |
| 1970 | 10500 | 3000 |
| 1975 | 10200 | 4000 |
| 1980 | 10000 | 5000 |
| 1985 | 10500 | 5100 |
| 1990 | 10000 | 4800 |
| 1995 | 9700 | 4500 |
| 2000 | 8300 | 4100 |
| 2005 | 8000 | 3900 |
For the past few decades, newscasters and educators have warned that "1 in 2 marriages "end in divorce." Sounds frightening, doesn't it? Is it true? Not really; divorce rates have never reached the actual 50% mark. Based on U.S. Census survey data of exactly how many people have ever been divorced in their lifetimes, most will tell you it is closer to 43%.
Getting divorced obviously does not sour people on marriage. About 63% of all divorced people in the United States have remarried. Women are less likely than men to remarry because many retain custody of their children after a divorce, which complicates a new adult relationship.
Some people regard the nation's high rate of remarriage as an endorsement of the institution of marriage, but it does lead to new challenges of a kin networks composed of both current and prior marital relationships. Such networks can be particularly complex if children are involved or if an ex-spouse remarries.
Perhaps the most important factor in the increase in divorce over the past hundred years has been the greater social acceptance of divorce. It is no longer considered necessary to endure an unhappy marriage. More important, various religious denominations have relaxed their negative attitudes toward divorce, so that most religious leaders no longer treat it as a sin.
Divorce is traumatic for all involved, but it has special meaning for the more than 1 million children whose parents divorce each year. Of course, for some of these children, divorce signals the welcome end to a very dysfunctional relationship. Perhaps that is why a national study that tracked 6,332 children both before and after their parents' divorce found that their behavior did not suffer from the marital breakups.
Other studies have shown greater unhappiness among children who live amidst parental conflict than among children whose parents are divorced. Still, it would be simplistic to assume that children are automatically better off following the breakup of their parents' marriage. The interests of the parents do not necessarily serve children well.
