Variations in Marriage Over Time: An Ecological/Exchange Perspective.

The article focuses on factors that have shaped the trend of marriages over the past 30 years. Marriages have become less attractive and satisfying and contemporary married individuals experience less dependence on their marriages compared to past cohorts. Cultural and societal factors affect the resources men and women bring to marital exchanges. In the American society, the heavy historical emphasis on individualism and an emerging and greater emphasis on egalitarianism over the past 30 years influence the prevailing normative expectations that men and women bring to their marriages. Within the past 30 years, two distinct societal trends have been observed with respect to marriage, that is, divorce replaced death as the most common end point of a marriage, and rates of divorce dramatically increased. Marital instability, tension, and conflict can also be fueled by economic anxiety or provider role anxiety. A new paradigm of marriage has been evolving--a shift driven in large part by feminist discourse.