Americans Continue Love Affair With Marriage

Which most closely captures your view of marriage?

A: Marriage is fundamentally about mutual happiness, and I married or want to marry because I generally agree with my upbringing and religious beliefs that living together is wrong — or, marrying just seems like the right thing to do.

B: Marriage is fundamentally about safeguarding and honoring my relationship, and I married or want to marry to secure legal protections that anything short of marriage just can't provide.

C: Marriage is fundamentally about bearing and raising kids.

After reading the Pew Research Center's fascinating new survey on Americans' attitudes toward marriage, I predict that if you picked A, you're heterosexual and probably under 65.

If you, like me, are gay, you picked B.

If you picked C, you're heterosexual, and there's a good chance you're retired or Hispanic. Fewer and fewer Americans share your child-centered view of marriage.

American attitudes toward marriage are very much in flux, producing survey results that are intriguing but sometimes contradictory or downright baffling. (See the report at pewresearch.org.)

For loyal fans of marriage, there's good news: Even with high divorce rates, marriage is still highly valued and is increasingly viewed as a commitment that a couple makes for their mutual happiness and fulfillment.

And, whether they realize it or not, heterosexuals have started to think more like gay couples — about the importance of sharing household chores, for example, and even about children. Parents are wild about their own kids, but most adults don't see children as essential to a good marriage.

The Pew survey gives me new insights into why so many heterosexuals don't yet understand — or support — the desire of gay couples to legally marry.

Pew asked married folks why they opted to marry instead of just live together. Almost no one mentioned the legal protections — from hospital visitation guarantees to inheritance rights — that accompany marriage.

Because marriage licenses are so easy for them to obtain, heterosexuals enjoy the luxury of taking those protections for granted. That makes it very difficult for them to fathom how vulnerable gay couples feel while marriage remains out of reach in every state except Massachusetts.

Other tantalizing Pew results:

The single biggest change Pew found was in what people say makes a marriage work: Only 41 percent think children are very important for a successful marriage, a 24-point drop since 1990. Sharing household chores has jumped 15 points, to 62 percent, in 17 years. Both signal a huge rethinking of gender roles.

What's the main purpose of marriage? Mutual happiness, said 68 percent. Just 21 percent said producing and bringing up children.

More Americans say it's a "bad thing" for single women to have children (66 percent) or for unmarried couples to have them (59 percent) than object to gay couples raising children (50 percent).

Nearly half of married Americans say they married because they view living together as wrong or because it's what their religion or parents expected. Only 2 percent married to make their commitment legal. Is living together a trial marriage? Two-thirds of the unmarried couples who share the same address say no.

Marriage will keep winning American popularity contests because adaptability is one of its most enduring traits. Personally, I find that encouraging.

Deb Price of The Detroit News writes the first nationally syndicated column on gay issues. To find out more about Deb Price and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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