Smartmarriages© wrote:
> subject: Marriage rate continues to fall -- NBC News 6/13/01
>
> from: Smart Marriages
>
> Marriage rate continues to fall
>
> Younger generation searching for soul mate, not just mate
>
> Are young people
> setting impossibly high standards for taking the plunge? NBC¹s Anne Thompson
> reports.
>
> By Anne Thompson NBC NEWS June 13 ‹
>
> As most families already know from
> experience, the average age of marriage is creeping up, and the report out
> Wednesday sheds some light on why.
>
> THE INSTITUTION of marriage on shaky ground. The marriage rate is in a
> 50-year decline, as Americans wait longer than ever before to walk down the
> aisle.
>
> And now, a new study is fueling sociologists¹ fears that young people
> are setting perhaps impossibly high standards for taking the plunge.
>
> According to the study, 94 percent of 20-somethings looking not just for a
> mate, but a soul mate.
>
> ³I¹m looking for the entire package,² says Joanna Fico, who¹s attitude is
> typical of her generation. The 27-year-old technical trainer is searching
> for the one person right for her. ³I don¹t want to settle,² says Fico. ³I
> don¹t want to find someone that is just okay. I really do want to find
> someone that is spectacular, who is my soul mate.²
>
> As a result, factors that used to play a big role in marriage are receding.
> With more women pursuing careers, an overwhelming 80 percent of women say
> it¹s more important to have a husband who can talk about his feelings than
> one who makes a good living.
>
> More unmarrieds are living together
>
> Only 42 percent of men and women think its important to find a spouse from
> the same religion and just 16 percent say the main purpose of marriage is to
> have children.
>
> All of these trends, study author David Popenoe says, are changing the very
> idea of marriage. ³You have a kind of super relationship in which you take
> care and provide not only that but somehow unite your soul with another
> person,² says Popenoe. ³It¹s a high standard.²
>
> It¹s a high standard Popenoe says elevated in part by a strong fear of
> divorce.
>
> Dante Hall, a 24-year-old single accountant, thinks finding a soul
> mate is the key to making marriage work.
>
> ³If everyone was with their soul
> mate, I don¹t feel like the divorce rate would be even a material amount,²
> says Hall.
>
> And now state governments are stepping in to strengthen the bonds
> made at the altar. Oklahoma, Arizona and Florida are just some of the states
> spending taxpayer dollars on marriage education, the goal to reduce the
> financial and social costs of divorce.
>
> ³We want to help them keep their soul
> mate by teaching the behaviors that will keep that soul mate partnership
> healthy and thriving,² says Diane Sollee of the Coalition for Marriage,
> Family and Couples Education. In 2001, the perception of marriage is
> changing, but the goal is still the same: finding the key to happily ever
> after.
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> Diane Sollee, Director
> 5310 Belt Rd NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
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