rathi

Several factors are at work in this situation. The first is just the general lifespan of Americans. The average life expectancy has skyrocketed recently. Social security was not an issue because not that many people lived passed 65 back in the day. Most people never reached 50 year anniversaries. "Till death do you part" was a lot shorter than it is today. Marriages lasting a lifetime are much harder when that lifetime is so much longer. The next issue was women gaining rights and employment opportunities. 60% of people in college today are women. Yet women are often forced to either choose between having kids or a career. Therefore many women don't end up married to keep their careers. Finally, social attitudes towards marriage have changed. Divorce no longer carries the huge stigma it used to. People tend to date for longer periods of time and "test the waters" before getting married. Some people don't even consider the legal hoops of jumping through marriage to be worth it. Many people have long term relationships that are never legally considered marriages.

Frankly, I'm not terribly worried about less people getting married. Marriage is a legal and social construct that has no inherent goodness and if society decides to discard it, so be it. I think that changing the focus of a domestic partnership to raising kids rather than some lifetime commitment that won't last a lifetime would prove more beneficial.

However, I am worried about family dynamics. Ensuring that kids are raised in homes with supportive parents and financial security is important to society as a whole. I'd suggest the we move towards a lot more part time jobs. This would allow both parents to work and raise kids. Kids would get attention from both parents and financial issues would be more stable because of 2 sources of income.

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