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Marriage at the Crossroads

Marriage at the Crossroads Law, Policy, and the Brave New World of Twenty-First-Century Families

Author: Marsha Garrison; Elizabeth Scott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107623705
Published In: December 2012
Format: Paperback , 358 pages
Jurisdiction: International ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.

• Offers a broad range of perspectives that combines legal and social science scholarship

• Grounded in empirical research that gives readers the tools and information to understand and evaluate policy alternatives

• Provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture

Contributors	vii
Introduction Marsha Garrison and Elizabeth Scott	1
Part I: History, Demographics, and Economics – Multiple Perspectives on Families
1 Red v. Blue Marriage June Carbone and Naomi Cahn	9
2 International Family Change and Continuity: The Past and Future from the Developmental Idealism Perspective Arland Thornton	30
3 The Division of Household Labor across Time and Generations Margaret F. Brinig	54
4 Marriage at the Crossroads in England and Wales Rebecca Probert	73
5 The Curious Relationship of Marriage and Freedom Katherine Franke	87
Part II: Empirical Research on Family Change
6 Institutional, Companionate, and Individualistic Marriages: Change over Time and Implications for Marital Quality Paul R. Amato	107
7 Marriage and Improved Weil-Being: Using Twins to Parse the Correlation, Asking How Marriage Helps, and Wondering Why More People Don't Buy a Bargain Robert E. Emery, Erin E. Horn, and Christopher R. Beam	126
8 Fragile Families: Debates, Facts, and Solutions Sara McLanahan and Irwin Garfinkel	142
9 Should Marriage Matter? Ira Mark Ellman and Sanford L. Braver	170
Part III: Family Policy and Law for the Twenty-First Century
10 Forsaking No Others: Coming to Terms with Family Diversity Judith Stacey	201
11 Why Marriage? Suzanne B. Goldberg:	224
12 Essential to Virtue?: The Languages of the Law of Marriage Carl Schneider	241
13 The Pluralistic Vision of Marriage Shahar Lifshitz	260
Comments
14 The Growing Diversity of Two-Parent Families: Challenges for Family Law Andrew J. Cherlin	287
15 Legal Regulation of Twenty-First-Century Families Marsha Garrison and Elizabeth Scott	303
Index	327