Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
Article IndexBY ADELE SAMMARCO
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
It just may not be a "man’s world" after all.
In the 1950s, it was proper etiquette to get married at a certain, "respectable" age (most typically before age 25 or you would be labeled a "spinster") and have children. Today, women are staving-off marriage and putting their careers first.
And if you are still a skeptic, here are a few memorable lines from "Sex and the City" about marriage:
Samantha: “You get married and hope for the best. If it doesn't work out you'll get divorced.”
Carrie: “No, I can't take a vow of forever and ever if what I mean is for the foreseeable future. I can’t do that to Aidan.”
Aidan, if you do not recall, was one of Carrie’s boyfriends in-between "Mr. Big".
And Samantha, well, let’s just say, her character was considered to be an independent thinker who swore off marriage in exchange for a carefree life of leisure and never settling down.
A recent government poll from the National Center for Health Statistics suggests Samantha just may be on to something.
The study found that nearly 40 percent of women have never been married, and fewer are in their first marriage.
The data takes a detailed look at first marriages and their chances for survival based on 22,682 in-person interviews from 2006 to 2010 with men and women, and not particularly couples, ages 15 to 44. The study has been conducted since 1973 among the women where men were added later.
“With 44 as the age limit, 20 years is the longest marriage duration that can be analyzed”, says Casey Copen, the report's lead author.
According to Copen's study, among the 12,279 women studied, the percentage of those never-married rose to 38 percent from 33 percent in 1995.
The highest percentage of women who have never married was among blacks (55 percent), followed by U.S.-born Hispanics (49 percent), Asians (39 percent) and whites (34 percent).
The percentage of women who were in a first marriage declined to 36 percent, from 44 percent in 1982.
The report reflects not only the "delay in getting married for the first time", but also "that more people are cohabiting," says Galena Rhoades of the University of Denver's Center for Marital and Family Studies, according to USA Today.
