Marriage is considered as an important stage in the life of every person when any man or woman is ready to become responsible for building strong relations with a partner and for creating a family as a significant social institution. Thus, the society consists of many families, and marriage is the most traditional way to create a family in order to provide the personal and social development of an individual.
This statement can be discussed as one of the main reasons for getting married. Nevertheless, there are a lot of other reasons for persons’ marrying each other which depend on the peculiarities of the historic development of the American society and the current tendencies in its progress. To answer the question about the reasons for marriages, it is important to determine such main aspects as the role of tradition, love, benefits, satisfaction of psychological and sexual needs and to focus on their further discussion.
Why do people choose to get married? In spite of the high rank of divorces in the society, people continue to create new families actively. There is also a tendency to marry for the second and third time after living in unhappy marriages and overcoming the problematic divorces. It is important to note that the general rate of marriages declines, but it is still high in comparison with the rate of divorces (Popenoe and Whitehead).
People continue to find security in the traditional social institution which has deep historic roots. Nevertheless, the correlation of reasons for getting married changes with references to the development of the persons’ social needs. The hierarchy of these reasons depends not only on many social factors but also on individuals’ expectations. Today, the role of economic benefits is significantly high, and it can be compared with the situation which was typical for the nineteenth century.
People are inclined to get married in order to improve their social state or gain the definite status with the help of a spouse. Moreover, marriages can be planned with accentuating the necessity to combine the fortunes and receive a lot of advantages from this kind of arrangement. From this point, both women and men want to marry persons without any problems with finances.
However, economic reasons are often discussed as insignificant in comparison with the necessity to emphasize love or affection. If in the nineteenth century love between the partners was often the result of the years of being in marriage, today love is the most important reason for getting married (Coontz).
Marriage is traditionally based on the idealistic vision of it as the happy union of a man and a woman whose affection depends on deep romantic feelings. Nevertheless, all the marriages can be classified according to the definite criteria and be happy or unhappy, ended or not with a divorce, and revealing many other significant factors. People agree to marry because all of them hope to have happy marriages, but their expectations are often not fulfilled (Patz).
Today, the necessity to marry in order to state love between partners and create a family is changed with the necessity to accentuate the level of intimacy between a man and a woman. Thus, the priority of love is changed with such an important factor as the satisfaction of the psychological, emotional, and sexual needs (Coontz; Popenoe and Whitehead).
Marriage has lost its legal and social status, and many people choose not to marry anyone (Popenoe and Whitehead). However, the majority of couples in spite of the status of their relationships seek for the successful partnership and psychological comfort. Marriage can be discussed as a kind of the guaranty of being psychologically satisfied in relations with a partner.
Moreover, it is the highest stage of the relations’ development. Those people who are married feel more comfortable in the society because of the fact the modern society is based on the institution of marriage when it is analyzed without references to all the progressive and popular trends. Marriage is a kind of security and an advantage for a person to develop the social relations and build interactions effectively.
The desire to satisfy psychological, emotional, and sexual needs without paying much attention to the romantic aspect of marriage also depends on the results of the women’s emancipation (Popenoe and Whitehead). Modern women are financially independent, and the improvement of their financial state cannot be discussed as the key reason for their getting married.
Love and romantic feelings are discussed as significant reasons for young women’s marrying a definite man. It is more typical for the present-day situation to marry in order to find a kind of stability and understanding in the family. Thus, the creation of the family is the way to build strong partnership which depends on the intimacy and emotional comfort, and the next step is the decision to have a child (Patz).
Marriage is a reasonable stage which follows the romantic relationships between persons, but the decision to get married is based only on affection when these persons are young and have many expectations. It is possible to state that people marry each other to be happy in their family life, but the most frequent reasons are to be satisfied in their emotional and sexual life and to meet their certain hopes.
To conclude, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the modern marriages in the USA are the results of the persons’ decision-making process when they assess all the possible advantages and disadvantages of marriages and correlate their current social status with that one acquired after marriage. Today, the idea of marriage depends on the economic benefits as it was centuries ago, but this fact is not overestimated because of the results of the women’s emancipation in the American society.
Modern representatives of the American society are aware of their possibilities, rights, and freedoms. They choose to get married because they assess all the psychological, emotional, sexual, and social benefits of the process. However, romantic feelings and love are still discussed as important reasons for people’s getting married and creating families in order to live a long and happy life together.
Works Cited
Coontz, Stephanie. “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love”. Research and Composition in the Disciplines. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen. USA: Pearson, 2011. 378-389. Print.
Patz, Aviva. “Will Your Marriage Last?” Research and Composition in the Disciplines. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen. USA: Pearson, 2011. 443-448. Print.
Popenoe, David and Barbara Whitehead. “The State of Our Unions”. Research and Composition in the Disciplines. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen. USA: Pearson, 2011. 390-402. Print.