Marriage Later In Life
...he couple, and curiously enough the woman seemed to receive the most unflattering comments. The tabloids were filled with scandal sheets detailing the escapades of movie stars and politicians, exposing them for the heinous act of living with a lover. In the famous Orson Welles film, “Citizen Kane,” the main character Charles Foster Kane is inhibited from running for president because he was discovered in a “love nest” with a chorus girl. The media is perhaps the most powerful influence on the public’s mindset, and when the media ceased to print stories to expose and admonish celebrities for adultery, the public began aware of the rising universality of cohabitation and to accept it as a simple human situation. When reporters began to speak candidly and compassionately about sex, feminism, and liberal ideas, the common man followed close behind. The old fashioned morals that were so upheld so staunchly in the past crumbled quickly in the 1960s and continue to do the same today. A young person’s standard mindset towards marriage in 2004 is quite blasé. In 1997 alone there were 1,163,000 divorces in the United States of America, 80% of which were caused by irreconcilable differences, thus, a large percent of men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 have experienced or been disillusioned by a divorce of their parents, relatives, or close friend. The turmoil that is witnessed during divorce is often a discouragement to young people when they are faced with their own future marriage. Many are afraid of committing to someone that they do not love without knowing, finding out once they have already had children together, and becoming another statistic on the marriage census. Now more than half of married couples lived together before they were wed and 70% of couples who live together for more than five years eventually marry each other. A male/female union living together outside of marriage is treated almost the same as a married couple, and occasionally given a house warming party and a shower of gifts. Many see this accepting treatment towards cohabiting couples as progressive and understanding, while many others feel that it is an affront to the sacred ties of matrimony. Sociologists and psychologists feel that th...