Well, apparently according to some recent research it is because dating is an environment with different opportunities for success than the marriage environment. But there are good indicators none the less.
Will the partner who supports your hopes and aspirations while you are dating also help you fulfill important responsibilities and obligations that come with marriage? The answer to that question could make a difference in how satisfied you are after tying the knot.
Believing a partner is there to help you grow into the person you aspire to be predicted higher relationship satisfaction for both dating and married couples, the study showed. But the belief that your partner helps you live up to your responsibilities and uphold your commitments only predicted higher relationship satisfaction after marriage.
Oh how unromantic? Naw, it shows how real romance is founded on the principles of real support. Marriage equality, I continue to remind people, is the quality of that support each gender gives each other in marriage. Its a shame such an important goal is being hijacked these days.
It really is marriage equality because the marriage includes both sexes.
ReplyDeleteAn older brief on public policy and marriage....
ReplyDeleteIt was published in July 2001, prior to any court redefined the purpose and function of marriage.
Reducing Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing Through Pregnancy Prevention
By Kelley O’Dell"Out-of-wedlock childbearing has many negative economic and social impacts, particularly for teenagers and their children. For example, there is a strong connection between nonmarital childbearing and child well-being. Mothers who bear children early are less likely to finish high school, which contributes substantially to diminished employment prospects, and are more likely to receive government assistance. Their children are also more likely to be in poor health, to experience less success in school, and to have more behavioral problems (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001).
States can intervene to delay initial pregnancies and discourage subsequent pregnancies among unwed mothers. However, different programs are required to address these two types of pregnancies. A large proportion of all out-of-wedlock births are not to teenagers, but more than half of first out-of-wedlock births are to teens and 80 percent of births to teenagers are out of wedlock. Although the overall birth rate for teenagers declined in 1999, the birth rate for second births to teenagers remained stable in 1999 after declining in 1997 and 1998 (Ventura et al., 2001). Repeat births to adolescents have been linked to increased dependency on cash assistance, and these mothers are often less educated. Poor health outcomes for the children are also associated with repeat births to teenage mothers (American Academy of Pediatrics, February 2001)."
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Today when we talk about public policy it is all about 'identity politics' about how someone feels about someone, rather then addressing a clearly different situation that men can get women pregnant through sex, and public policy should make men not just equally accountable in parenting, but in full cooperation with the mother. When men as fathers are not accountable to the child and mother, though 'wedlock', both mother and child suffers.
The factors differ from state to state, for example while Washington D.C. (which is considering same-sex marriage) suffers from very high non-marital birth rates, Maine's situation suffers there are long term consequences by not having children all together, hence no economy.
Another dated article from 2004
The Marriage Movement and the Black Church
Welfare, U.S. Poverty, Cities, Children & Families
"Here's the problem. Here we have from the Census Bureau the record of nonmarital births for whites, and for Hispanics, which we haven't been collecting data that long, and for blacks, and we now have reached the point where one out of every three American children is born outside marriage. Almost 70 percent of black children are born outside marriage and about 45 percent of Hispanic children."
"And then the second thing, of course, is that we have monstrous declines in marriage rates, both among whites, but even more among blacks. So we have very, very low rates of marriage, very high rates of births outside marriage and, as a result of that, well over half of America's children spend some time in a single-parent family during their childhood and perhaps 85 percent of black children spend some time during their childhood in a single-parent family. So what difference does that make?
Well, the first thing is that has a huge impact on poverty. Poverty rates are six, in some years, eight times as much among single-parent families as among two-parent families. We also now have a fairly substantial literature that shows that there are definite effects on children's development so that children who are from single-parent families have worse education records, are more likely to be arrested, to commit a delinquent act. The young ladies are more likely to have a child outside marriage and several other effects. So marriage is a protective factor. It promotes children's development."
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What marriage as a public policy should be about protecting children? That's crazy talk.