Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage.

TLDR

The book examines changing American attitudes toward marriage, noting that while marriage remains valued, Americans marry later, divorce more readily, and are increasingly reluctant to remarry, and it traces these trends from WWII to the 1990s, including the rise of cohabitation and single life. The purpose is to update data and analyses on marriage trends, adding new findings on cohabitation, revising the discussion of racial differences, and exploring marriage’s societal meaning. The methodology involved updating all graphs and tables, incorporating new data on cohabitation, revising the black‑white differences chapter, and adding a new chapter on the meaning of marriage.

Abstract

Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage explores Americans' ambivalence toward marriage: we continue to value it highly, but we also marry later, dissolve the marriages we make more readily, and are more reluctant to remarry than ever before. In a revision and enlargement, Andrew Cherlin examines the course of family life in America, including cohabitation, marriage, divorce and remarriage, from the end of World War II through the early 1990s. He also assesses the causes and consequences of these trends, ranging from the anomaly of the 1950s, when marriage rose, divorce declined, and couples had large families, to the rapid increase in cohabitation and single life. For this edition, Cherlin has updated all of the graphs and tables, and presented new findings on cohabitation and its relationship to marriage. He has also completely rewritten the chapter on black-white differences. It is now an essay on one of the most troubling public policy issues: the relations among race, poverty, and marriage. And in a new chapter, he explores the meaning of marriage in our society.