Partnerships

Question 1

What important changes in the pattern of marriage have taken place in recent years?

Answer 1

Fewer people are marrying
There are more people remarrying
People are marrying later
Couples are less likely to marry in church

Question 2

What are the reasons for the changing pattern of marriage?

Answer 2

Fear of divorce
Changes in the position of women
Changing attitudes to women 
Secularisation
Less social stigma attached to alternative couples/ways of living

Question 3

How have attitudes changed to marriage?

Answer 3

• less pressure to marry
• more freedom to choose type
• the quality of a couple’s relationship is more important than legal status

Question 4

How has stigma changed?

Answer 4

• more acceptable to cohabitate, remain single and having children outside marriage

Question 5

How has women’s position changed?

Answer 5

• less economically dependent on men which gives them greater freedom not to marry
• growing feminist view that marriage is an oppressive patriarchal institution that dissuades women from marrying

Question 6

What is cohabitation?

Answer 6

Living together without being married

Question 7

Why has cohabitation increased?

Answer 7

• decline in stigma attached to sex outside marriage
• the young are more likely to accept cohabitation
• increased career opportunities for women
• secularisation

Question 8

Why are couples nowadays less likely to marry in a church?

Answer 8

Secularisation

Many churches refuse to marry divorcees

Question 9

What is the relationship between cohabitation and marriage?

Answer 9

Cohabitation is increasing as marriage decreases

Question 10

What does Chester argue?

Answer 10

For most people, cohabitation is part of the process of getting married. According to Coast, 75% of cohabiting couples say they expect to marry each other.

• many see cohabitation as a trial marriage and tend to marry if it goes well
• most cohabiting couples decide to marry if they have children
• in some cases cohabitation is a temporary phase before marriage because one or both partners are awaiting divorce.

Question 11

How do others see cohabitation?

Answer 11

As a permanent alternative to marriage
Bejin - argues cohabitation among young people represents a conscious attempt to create a more equal relationship than conventional marriage.

Question 12

What did Shelton and John find?

Answer 12

Found that women who cohabit do less housework than their married counterparts.

Question 13

Why have the number of open same sex relationships increased?

Answer 13

Increased social acceptance

Social policy treating people more equally

Question 14

How has Increased social acceptance lead to the increase of open same sex relationships?

Answer 14

• male homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1967 for consenting adults over 21
• more recently the age of consent has been equalised with heterosexuals
• opinion polls show more tolerance of homosexuality

Question 15

How has social policy treated people more equally?

Answer 15

• since 2002, cohabitating couples have had the same right to adopt as married couples
• since 2004, the civil partnership act has given same-sex couples similar legal rights to married couples in respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies and property

Question 16

What does Jeffrey Weeks say?

Answer 16

He describes gay families as ‘chosen families’ and argues they offer the same security and stability as heterosexual families.

Question 17

Why have the number of one-person households (singletons) increased?

Answer 17

• increase in separation and divorce
• more people are remaining single
• ‘creative singlehood’
• too few partners available in age group

Question 18

How has the increase in separation and divorce lead to more one-person households?

Answer 18

Following divorce, any children are more likely to live with their mother; their father is more likely to leave the family home

Question 19

Who talks about ‘creative singlehood’ and what is it?

Answer 19

Peter Stein - it is the deliberate choice to live alone

Question 20

Who is more likely to experience few partners available in their age group?

Answer 20

Mainly older widows

Question 21

What is LAT?

Answer 21

Living apart together - in a significant relationship, but not married or cohabitating

Question 22

What did Duncan and Phillips find for the British Social Attitudes Survey?

Answer 22

1 in 10 adults are living apart together. They found that both choice and constraint play a part in whether couples live together. For example, some said they couldn’t afford to. However a minority chose to live apart because they wanted to keep their own home.