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Your Response Papers can be no longer than one to one and half single-spaced page written in 12pt Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins. Longer responses will be returned to be edited down to fit the page limit and may incur grade penalties. Response Papers should contain the following parts: A concise summary of the main point(s) of two readings from the week or week before in which you answer the question. (1-2 small paragraph) An analytical response to the question posed. (1 -2 paragraph) with references to specific course material, examples, or counterevidence. (be sure to cite accurately). An analytical response means that this is not merely your opinion, but it is an informed critique of the information posed. You may use your experience to discuss, but your answer should cite directly from readings and show an application of the sociological perspective—side note, you don’t have to agree with a sociological understanding, but you must explain the sociological perspective and then present counterclaims and examples with evidence.
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ANDREW J. CHERLIN
Johns Hopkins University
The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage
This article argues that marriage has undergone a process of deinstitutionalization—a
weakening of the social norms that define partners’ behavior—over the past few decades. Examples are presented involving the increasing
number and complexity of cohabiting unions
and the emergence of same-sex marriage. Two
transitions in the meaning of marriage that
occurred in the United States during the 20th
century have created the social context for
deinstitutionalization. The first transition, noted
by Ernest Burgess, was from the institutional
marriage to the companionate marriage. The
second transition was to the individualized marriage in which the emphasis on personal choice
and self-development expanded. Although the
practical importance of marriage has declined,
its symbolic significance has remained high and
may even have increased. It has become a
marker of prestige and personal achievement.
Examples of its symbolic significance are
presented. The implications for the current state
of marriage and its future direction are
discussed.
A quarter century ago, in an article entitled
‘‘Remarriage as an Incomplete Institution’’
(Cherlin, 1978), I argued that American society
lacked norms about the way that members of
stepfamilies should act toward each other. Parents and children in first marriages, in contrast,
could rely on well-established norms, such as
Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, 556
Mergenthaler Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218 ([email protected]).
Key Words: cohabitation, marriage, remarriage, same-sex
marriage.
848
when it is appropriate to discipline a child. I
predicted that, over time, as remarriage after
divorce became common, norms would begin
to emerge concerning proper behavior in stepfamilies—for example, what kind of relationship
a stepfather should have with his stepchildren.
In other words, I expected that remarriage
would become institutionalized, that it would
become more like first marriage. But just the
opposite has happened. Remarriage has not
become more like first marriage; rather, first
marriage has become more like remarriage.
Instead of the institutionalization of remarriage,
what has occurred over the past few decades is
the deinstitutionalization of marriage. Yes, remarriage is an incomplete institution, but now,
so is first marriage—and for that matter, cohabitation.
By deinstitutionalization I mean the weakening of the social norms that define people’s
behavior in a social institution such as marriage.
In times of social stability, the taken-for-granted
nature of norms allows people to go about their
lives without having to question their actions or
the actions of others. But when social change
produces situations outside the reach of established norms, individuals can no longer rely on
shared understandings of how to act. Rather,
they must negotiate new ways of acting, a process that is a potential source of conflict and
opportunity. On the one hand, the development
of new rules is likely to engender disagreement
and tension among the relevant actors. On the
other hand, the breakdown of the old rules of
a gendered institution such as marriage could
lead to the creation of a more egalitarian relationship between wives and husbands.
This perspective, I think, can help us understand the state of contemporary marriage. It
Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (November 2004): 848–861
Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage
may even assist in the risky business of predicting the future of marriage. To some extent, similar changes in marriage have occurred in the
United States, Canada, and much of Europe, but
the American situation may be distinctive. Consequently, although I include information about
Canadian and European families, I focus mainly
on the United States.
THE DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION
OF MARRIAGE
Even as I was writing my 1978 article, the
changing division of labor in the home and the
increase in childbearing outside marriage were
undermining the institutionalized basis of marriage. The distinct roles of homemaker and
breadwinner were fading as more married
women entered the paid labor force. Looking
into the future, I thought that perhaps an equitable division of household labor might become
institutionalized. But what happened instead
was the ‘‘stalled revolution,’’ in Hochschild’s
(1989) well-known phrase. Men do somewhat
more home work than they used to do, but there
is wide variation, and each couple must work
out their own arrangement without clear guidelines. In addition, when I wrote the article, 1 out
of 6 births in the United States occurred outside
marriage, already a much higher ratio than at
midcentury (U.S. National Center for Health
Statistics, 1982). Today, the comparable figure
is 1 out of 3 (U.S. National Center for Health
Statistics, 2003). The percentage is similar in
Canada (Statistics Canada, 2003) and in the
United Kingdom and Ireland (Kiernan, 2002).
In the Nordic countries of Denmark, Iceland,
Norway, and Sweden, the figure ranges from
about 45% to about 65% (Kiernan). Marriage is
no longer the nearly universal setting for childbearing that it was a half century ago.
Both of these developments—the changing
division of labor in the home and the increase in
childbearing outside marriage—were well under
way when I wrote my 1978 article, as was
a steep rise in divorce. Here I discuss two more
recent changes in family life, both of which
have contributed to the deinstitutionalization of
marriage after the 1970s: the growth of cohabitation, which began in the 1970s but was not
fully appreciated until it accelerated in the
1980s and 1990s, and same-sex marriage,
which emerged as an issue in the 1990s and has
come to the fore in the current decade.
849
The Growth of Cohabitation
In the 1970s, neither I nor most other American
researchers foresaw the greatly increased role of
cohabitation in the adult life course. We thought
that, except among the poor, cohabitation would
remain a short-term arrangement among childless young adults who would quickly break up
or marry. But it has become a more prevalent
and more complex phenomenon. For example,
cohabitation has created an additional layer of
complexity in stepfamilies. When I wrote my
article, nearly all stepfamilies were formed by
the remarriage of one or both spouses. Now,
about one fourth of all stepfamilies in the
United States, and one half of all stepfamilies in
Canada, are formed by cohabitation rather than
marriage (Bumpass, Raley, & Sweet, 1995; Statistics Canada, 2002). It is not uncommon, especially among the low-income population, for
a woman to have a child outside marriage, end
her relationship with that partner, and then
begin cohabiting with a different partner. This
new union is equivalent in structure to a stepfamily but does not involve marriage. Sometimes the couple later marries, and if neither has
been married before, their union creates a first
marriage with stepchildren. As a result, we now
see an increasing number of stepfamilies that do
not involve marriage, and an increasing number
of first marriages that involve stepfamilies.
More generally, cohabitation is becoming
accepted as an alternative to marriage. British
demographer Kathleen Kiernan (2002) writes
that the acceptance of cohabitation is occurring
in stages in European nations, with some nations further along than others. In stage one,
cohabitation is a fringe or avant garde phenomenon; in stage two, it is accepted as a testing
ground for marriage; in stage three, it becomes
acceptable as an alternative to marriage; and in
stage four, it becomes indistinguishable from
marriage. Sweden and Denmark, she argues,
have made the transition to stage four; in contrast, Mediterranean countries such as Spain,
Italy, and Greece remain in stage one. In the
early 2000s, the United States appeared to be in
transition from stage two to stage three (Smock
& Gupta, 2002). A number of indicators suggested that the connection between cohabitation
and marriage was weakening. The proportion of
cohabiting unions that end in marriage within
3 years dropped from 60% in the 1970s to
about 33% in the 1990s (Smock & Gupta),
850
suggesting that fewer cohabiting unions were
trial marriages (or that fewer trial marriages
were succeeding). In fact, Manning and Smock
(2003) reported that among 115 cohabiting
working-class and lower middle-class adults
who were interviewed in depth, none said that
he or she was deciding between marriage and
cohabitation at the start of the union. Moreover,
only 36% of adults in the 2002 United States
General Social Survey disagreed with the statement, ‘‘It is alright for a couple to live together
without intending to get married’’ (Davis,
Smith, & Marsden, 2003). And a growing share
of births to unmarried women in the United
States (about 40% in the 1990s) were to cohabiting couples (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). The comparable share was about 60% in Britain
(Ermisch, 2001).
Canada appears to have entered stage three
(Smock & Gupta, 2002). Sixty-nine percent of
births to unmarried women were to cohabiting
couples in 1997 and 1998 (Juby, MarcilGratton, & Le Bourdais, in press). Moreover, the national figures for Canada mask
substantial provincial variation. In particular,
the rise in cohabitation has been far greater in
Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. In 1997 and
1998, 84% of unmarried women who gave birth
in Quebec were cohabiting (Juby, MarcilGratton, & Le Bourdais). And four out of five
Quebeckers entering a first union did so by
cohabiting rather than marrying (Le Bourdais &
Juby, 2002). The greater acceptance of cohabitation in Quebec seems to have a cultural basis.
Francophone Quebeckers have substantially
higher likelihoods of cohabiting than do
English-speaking Quebeckers or Canadians in
the other English-speaking provinces (Statistics
Canada, 1997). Céline Le Bourdais and Nicole
Marcil-Gratton (1996) argue that Francophone
Quebeckers draw upon a French, rather than
Anglo-Saxon, model of family life. In fact,
levels of cohabitation in Quebec are similar to
levels in France, whereas levels in Englishspeaking Canada and in the United States are
more similar to the lower levels in Great Britain
(Kiernan, 2002).
To be sure, cohabitation is becoming more
institutionalized. In the United States, states and
municipalities are moving toward granting cohabiting couples some of the rights and responsibilities that married couples have. Canada
has gone further: Under the Modernization of
Benefits and Obligations Act of 2000, legal
Journal of Marriage and Family
distinctions between married and unmarried
same-sex and opposite-sex couples were eliminated for couples who have lived together for at
least a year. Still, the Supreme Court of Canada
ruled in 2002 that when cohabiting partners dissolve their unions, they do not have to divide
their assets equally, nor can one partner be compelled to pay maintenance payments to the
other, even when children are involved (Nova
Scotia [Attorney General] v. Walsh, 2002). In
France, unmarried couples may enter into Civil
Solidarity Pacts, which give them most of the
rights and responsibilities of married couples
after the pact has existed for 3 years (Daley,
2000). Several other countries have instituted
registered partnerships (Lyall, 2004).
The Emergence of Same-Sex Marriage
The most recent development in the deinstitutionalization of marriage is the movement to
legalize same-sex marriage. It became a public
issue in the United States in 1993, when the
Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a state law
restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples
violated the Hawaii state constitution (Baehr
v. Lewin, 1993). Subsequently, Hawaii voters
passed a state constitutional amendment barring
same-sex marriage. In 1996, the United States
Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act,
which allowed states to refuse to recognize
same-sex marriages licensed in other states. The
act’s constitutionality has not been tested as of
this writing because until recently, no state allowed same-sex marriages. However, in 2003,
the Massachusetts Supreme Court struck down
a state law limiting marriage to opposite-sex
couples, and same-sex marriage became legal in
May 2004 (although opponents may eventually
succeed in prohibiting it through a state constitutional amendment). The issue has developed
further in Canada: In the early 2000s, courts in
British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec ruled
that laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex
couples were discriminatory, and it appears
likely that the federal government will legalize
gay marriage throughout the nation. Although
social conservatives in the United States are
seeking a federal constitutional amendment, I
think it is reasonable to assume that same-sex
marriage will be allowed in at least some North
American jurisdictions in the future. In Europe,
same-sex marriage has been legalized in
Belgium and The Netherlands.
Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage
Lesbian and gay couples who choose to
marry must actively construct a marital world
with almost no institutional support. Lesbians
and gay men already use the term ‘‘family’’ to
describe their close relationships, but they usually mean something different from the standard
marriage-based family. Rather, they often refer
to what sociologists have called a ‘‘family of
choice’’: one that is formed largely through voluntary ties among individuals who are not biologically or legally related (Weeks, Heaphy, &
Donovan, 2001; Weston, 1991). Now they face
the task of integrating marriages into these
larger networks of friends and kin. The partners
will not even have the option of falling back on
the gender-differentiated roles of heterosexual
marriage. This is not to say that there will be no
division of labor; one study of gay and lesbian
couples found that in homes where one partner
works longer hours and earns substantially more
than the other partner, the one with the less
demanding, lower paying job did more housework and more of the work of keeping in touch
with family and friends. The author suggests
that holding a demanding professional or managerial job may make it difficult for a person to
invest fully in sharing the work at home, regardless of gender or sexual orientation (Carrington,
1999).
We might expect same-sex couples who have
children, or who wish to have children through
adoption or donor insemination, to be likely to
avail themselves of the option of marriage. (According to the United States Census Bureau
[2003b], 33% of women in same-sex partnerships and 22% of men in same-sex partnerships
had children living with them in 2000.) Basic
issues, such as who would care for the children,
would have to be resolved family by family.
The obligations of the partners to each other following a marital dissolution have also yet to be
worked out. In these and many other ways, gay
and lesbian couples who marry in the near
future would need to create a marriage-centered
kin network through discussion, negotiation,
and experiment.
Two Transitions in the Meaning of Marriage
In a larger sense, all of these developments—the changing division of labor, childbearing outside of marriage, cohabitation, and
gay marriage—are the result of long-term
cultural and material trends that altered the
851
meaning of marriage during the 20th century.
The cultural trends included, first, an emphasis
on emotional satisfaction and romantic love
that intensified early in the century. Then, during the last few decades of the century, an ethic
of expressive individualism—which Bellah,
Marsden, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton (1985)
describe as the belief that ‘‘each person has
a unique core of feeling and intuition that
should unfold or be expressed if individuality is
to be realized’’ (p. 334)—became more important. On the material side, the trends include the
decline of agricultural labor and the corresponding increase in wage labor; the decline in child
and adult mortality; rising standards of living;
and, in the last half of the 20th century, the
movement of married women into the paid
workforce.
These developments, along with historical
events such as the Depression and World War
II, produced two great changes in the meaning
of marriage during the 20th century. Ernest Burgess famously labeled the first one as a transition ‘‘from an institution to a companionship’’
(Burgess & Locke, 1945). In describing the rise
of the companionate marriage, Burgess was
referring to the single-earner, breadwinnerhomemaker marriage that flourished in the
1950s. Although husbands and wives in the
companionate marriage usually adhered to
a sharp division of labor, they were supposed to
be each other’s companions—friends, lovers—
to an extent not imagined by the spouses in the
institutional marriages of the previous era. The
increasing focus on bonds of sentiment within
nuclear families constituted an important but
limited step in the individualization of family
life. Much more so than in the 19th century, the
emotional satisfaction of the spouses became an
important criterion for marital success. However, through the 1950s, wives and husbands
tended to derive satisfaction from their participation in a marriage-based nuclear family
(Roussel, 1989). That is to say, they based their
gratification on playing marital roles well: being
good providers, good homemakers, and responsible parents.
During this first change in meaning, marriage
remained the only socially acceptable way to
have a sexual relationship and to raise children
in the United States, Canada, and Europe, with
the possible exception of the Nordic countries.
In his history of British marriages, Gillis (1985)
labeled the period from 1850 to 1960 the ‘‘era
852
of mandatory marriage.’’ In the United States,
marriage and only marriage was one’s ticket of
admission to a full family life. Prior to marrying, almost no one cohabited with a partner
except among the poor and the avant garde. As
recently as the 1950s, premarital cohabitation in
the United States was restricted to a small
minority (perhaps 5%) of the less educated
(Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991). In the early
1950s, only about 4% of children were born
outside marriage (U.S. National Center for
Health Statistics, 1982). In fact, during the late
1940s and the 1950s, major changes that
increased the importance of marriage occurred
in the life course of young adults. More people married—about 95% of young adults in
the United States in the 1950s, compared with
about 90% early in the century (Cherlin,
1992)—and they married at younger ages.
Between 1900 and 1960, the estimated median
age at first marriage in the United States fell
from 26 to 23 for men, and from 22 to 20 for
women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003a). The birth
rate, which had been falling for a century or
more, increased sharply, creating the ‘‘baby
boom.’’ The post-World War II increase in marriage and childbearing also occurred in many
European countries (Roussel, 1989).
But beginning in the 1960s, marriage’s dominance began to diminish, and the second great
change in the meaning of marriage occurred. In
the United States, the median age at marriage
returned to and then exceeded the levels of the
early 1900s. In 2000, the median age was 27 for
men and 25 for women (U.S. Census Bureau,
2003a). Many young adults stayed single into
their mid to late 20s, some completing college
educations and starting careers. Cohabitation
prior to (and after) marriage became much more
acceptable. Childbearing outside marriage became less stigmatized and more accepted. Birth
rates resumed their long-term declines and sunk
to all-time lows in most countries. Divorce rates
rose to unprecedented levels. Same-sex unions
found greater acceptance as well.
During this transition, the companionate m …
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