The onslaught of megaselling relationship books like Elizabeth Gilbert's "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage," which sits at No. 9 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for the week of Feb 19, and Lori Gottlieb's "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough," which is at No. 18, might lead you to believe that female commitment-phobes and uberpicky daters are the modern obstacles to relationships and marriage.

Yet a 2007 poll by Meredith, a research and marketing company, found that 73% of women born between 1977 and 1989 place a high priority on marriage. That sounds right to me. It's an attitude that surfaced again and again in the interviews I conducted with young women for a book project on the long-term unmarried relationship. Unlike our boomer and hippie mothers who broke the rules of the '50s, my generation is marriage-minded. But society's messages to young women are so mixed that the path to that goal has been obscured and, at times, blocked. Those of us in our 20s and 30s know that dating—and getting into a relationship that leads to marriage—is at turns ambiguous, arduous, perplexing and often heartbreaking. ...

The more pressing dating issue for young women today is not that they are skeptical about marriage or too choosy, but that their potential spouses are in less of a hurry to tie the knot than they are. A 2005 poll, "Coming of Age in America," which surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds, found that women had the edge on eagerness: 55% said they would like to be married in the next five years, compared with only 42% of men.

Labels: committed relationships, culture, dating, gender differences, heterosexual couples, Marriage, men, women

posted by Eve at 11:56 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Call it shacking up, living in sin or love without the paperwork -- more older Canadians are choosing it over traditional marriage.

The most recent census figures show big increases in the number of people over age 50 in common-law unions, with the most significant growth in the early-60s crowd. At the same time, the practice has nearly flatlined or even declined among the twenty- and thirtysomethings who used to scandalize their parents by moving in together.

The baby boomers are inflating the ranks of the 50-plus in general, but experts say that between more liberal social attitudes, a "been there, done that" mentality among those who have been divorced and the lack of financial incentive to marry, many older Canadians simply don't feel the need to walk down the aisle.

"We choose to stay common-law because, quite frankly, there's nothing in it for us to get married. There's no financial advantage; we need to file our income tax together anyway," says Jenni Hopkyns, 61, who's been living with her partner, Mike, in Victoria for four years. "We said 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' It seems to be working well."

Hopkyns had been married twice before and her 67-year-old partner had been married once, and she says seeing marriage vows break down makes another ceremony less enticing.

"It's not to mean that we're any less committed, because I wouldn't say that at all," she says. "We've just made a commitment to each other every day."

Between 2001 and 2006, the most recent year for which census data are available, the number of Canadians in common-law relationships shot up 77 per cent among those ages 60 to 64 and between 44 and 64 per cent for all other age groups over 50.

Labels: Canada, cohabitation, committed relationships, common-law, Marriage

posted by Eve at 12:08 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...They asked more than 1,300 young Minnesota adults about their most recent sexual encounters, their self-esteem and their emotional well-being. Interestingly, only about one-fifth of the subjects said their last encounter was casual. But their overall emotional status was no different than the four-fifths who said they were in committed relationships with their most recent sexual partner. ...

The researchers surveyed 1,311 young adults in Minnesota, pulled from a group they began following years ago as part of a major ongoing research study in adolescent health and nutrition. All the people in the study were sexually active and answered a series of survey questions about their last sexual encounter, depressive symptoms and self-esteem.

The researchers divided the responses by how the subjects described their most recent sexual encounter. About 25 percent said it was with a committed partner, 55 percent said it was an exclusive dating partner, 12 percent said it was with a close, but not sexually exclusive, partner, and 8 percent said it was a casual acquaintance.

That breakdown fits with other similar surveys of young adults, Eisenberg said.

But what was different is that they found no differences in reports of depression or self-esteem, regardless of gender or the type of most recent sexual encounter, she said. ...

They did find some differences among the groups. Black men, for example, were more likely than white men to describe their last sexual encounter as casual. And twice as many men as women said their last sexual encounter was casual - 29 percent compared to 14 percent.

That difference raises the obvious question: How can there be twice as many men having casual sex as women? The answer, Eisenberg said, most likely lies in cultural norms that make it more acceptable for men to describe their sexual encounters as casual.

"Young women have more of a tendency to characterize it as more special than, perhaps, the man did," she said.

Labels: committed relationships, gender differences, premarital sex, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 2:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Most of us know people who are in love, plan to marry and currently live together. It’s sort of the new premarital counseling program. I visited a church out West that had a “pre-marriage” ceremony for a couple living together. No license. No wedding dress. Just a prayer of blessing to hold them over until the couple walked down the aisle—a kind of marital “appetizer,” I guess. I asked the pastor why they did it. He said, “The couple believes they are married in the eyes of the Lord, and we just wanted them to feel affirmation in our community.”

Labels: cohabitation, committed relationships, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, religion

posted by Eve at 4:45 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

After my post about people’s fondness for other people’s partners, (“Do Single Women Seek Attached Men?”), more than 300 Lab readers weighed in with their anecdotes and theories. Now here’s some more guidance from the expert who coined the term for this practice: mate poaching.

David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of many books, including the “Evolution of Desire,” the 1994 book that introduced the term “mate poaching,” and the forthcoming “Why Women Have Sex,” co-written with Cindy Meston. His paper with Dr. Meston about the 237 reasons for having sex inspired a most lively discussion here at the Lab last year.

Dr. Buss told me that he tried to come up with a less pejorative term than “mate poaching” but wasn’t able to find one. Here’s his reaction to the debate that’s been going on at the Lab, along with some findings about men who poach:

John Tierney’s piece on mate poaching clearly struck a powerful chord, evoking an amazing array of excellent insights and personal experiences. As someone who has published on the topic in articles and in books, I thought I’d add my two cents to the discussion.

A couple important distinctions are worth introducing. The first is the distinction between poaching for short-term sexual encounters versus poaching for more committed mateships. The first scientific study of mate poaching (Schmitt & Buss, 2001) found that substantially more men (60%) than women (38%) admitted to having attempted to poach an already mated person for a sexual encounter. The sex difference was smaller for long-term mate poaching, but still present—60% of the men and 53% of the women.

Similar sex differences have been discovered in the most massive cross-cultural study of mate poaching ever conducted [by my colleague David Schmitt], which involved 16,954 participants from 53 different countries. So although the study reported by Tierney highlighted the interesting finding for single women, available evidence suggests that men are more likely than women to mate poach, or more likely to admit to it, a sex difference especially pronounced for sexual liaisons.

Labels: committed relationships, gender differences

posted by Eve at 8:48 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Researchers have debated for years whether men or women are likelier to engage in “mate poaching.” Some surveys indicated that men had a stronger tendency to go after other people’s partners, but was that just because men were more likely to admit engaging in this behavior? Now there’s experimental evidence that single women are particularly drawn to other people’s partners, according to a report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by two social psychologists, Melissa Burkley and Jessica Parker of Oklahoma State University.

Noting that single women often complain that “all the good men are taken,” the psychologists wondered if “this perception is really based on the fact that taken men are perceived as good.” To investigate, the researchers quizzed male and female undergraduates — some involved in romantic relationships, some unattached — about their ideal romantic partner.

Next, each of the experimental subjects was told that he or she had been matched by a computer with a like-minded partner, and each was shown a photo of an attractive person of the opposite sex. (All the women saw the same photo, as did all the men.) Half of the subjects were told that their match was already romantically involved with someone else, while the other half were told that their match was unattached. Then the subjects were all asked how interested they were in their match.

To the men in the experiment, and to the women who were already in relationships, it didn’t make a significant difference whether their match was single or attached. But single women showed a distinct preference for mate poaching. When the man was described as unattached, 59 percent of the single women were interested in pursuing him. When that same man was described as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent were interested. The researchers write:

According to a recent poll, most women who engage in mate poaching do not think the attached status of the target played a role in their poaching decision, but our study shows this belief to be false. Single women in this study were significantly more interested in the target when he was attached. This may be because an attached man has demonstrated his ability to commit and in some ways his qualities have already been ‘‘pre-screened” by another woman.

Labels: committed relationships, gender differences, men, universities, women

posted by Eve at 6:37 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: committed relationships, divorce, donor conception, family structure, gay marriage, parenting, remarriage

posted by Eve at 2:58 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT