The Institution of Marriage in the USA. How Has It Changed Over Time?

The Institution of Marriage in the USA. How Has It Changed Over Time?
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The United States is currently faced with declining of the most critical institutions of the nation. Most of these organizations have lost their forms and moral ideals that empower our public principles. America’s current most essential challenge is to strengthen the ethical habits and ways of living that make democracy possible. Steven Lock suggests that the American institutions have traditionally been organized around gender that is progressively deteriorating (Nock, p.22). Specifically, the continued significance of gender in marriage helps explain many modern-day family problems. The key is to reestablish marriage to a privileged status from which both partners gain irrespective of gender. The marriage institution in the United States has increasingly been destabilized for the past 40 years, according to a report published in 2009 by scholars and advocates (McCarthy). Referring to the post by McCarthy in the Washington post in 2009, the US marriage index has significantly declined over the years from 1970 to 2008 scoring 76.2 and 60.3 respectively.
The marriage institution in the America has gone through many hurdles that some citizens have even considered it a dying system. A poll by TIME/Pew in 1978 revealed a 28% of the population who thought marriage was becoming obsolete. Since 1978, so much has happened with the passing of that famous imperial marriage and the entrance of Divorce Court. The society has now turned into Modern Family where a family consists of 3 children, an adopted Vietnamese baby, gay uncles, a grandpa’ with a Colombian2nd wife and a dorky stepchild. In addition, Family Ties (a nuclear family with three kids) is increasingly evident. Though unexpectedly, some political nuptials have survived (e.g. Bill and Hillary Clinton), while others have indiscriminately failed (e.g. Al and Tipper Gore) (Luscombe, p.46).
The state of marriages in the US has tremendously changed over the years. These changes are purported to many different reasons including income of the breadwinners of the family. Reports by TIME/Pew show that age and income determine chances of happiness in marriages. However, the royal wedding of the 20th century, in 1981 celebrated a wedding that terminated in scandals and eventually death and worldwide mourning (Luscombe).
Marriage has conventionally been based on dependencies of many types. However, women’s financial dependencies are the most obvious. The current American world is such that both men and women are economically independent; however, the advantages of pooled incomes may not be sufficient to sustain couples during those unavoidable times when love dwindles. The writers of A Call to Civil Society refer to the concept as: "the philosophy of expressive individualism—a belief in the "independence of the self is nurtured by gender equality and individual financial liberation. In the lack of unequal economic dependencies, unions must become an advantaged status again, or else separation rates will persist and marriage rates will continue to fall (Nock, p.27). To make it a privileged status, we should inst...