Product Description: The population of the United States is growing inexorably older. With birth rates historically low and life expectancy continuing to rise, the age distribution of the population in the United States is growing steadily older. This demographic shift is occurring at a time of major economic and social changes, which have important implications for the growing elderly population...read more

As divorce rates in the United States reach alarming levels, the institution of marriage receives more and more criticism as an unrealistic endeavor. However, the contributors to this volume view marriage as a vital social institution, not merely one kind of intimate relationship. They argue for stronger support through legal and policy reform in order to strengthen for the benefit of individuals, communities, and the nation. The contributors address hot-button issues such as same-sex marriage, effects of divorce on children, and the role of fathers in addition to issues such as the permanence of marriage, covenant marriage, and the role of religion in marriage. This work brings together the work of respected legal scholars and social scientists, who articulate why we should care about strengthening the institution of marriage, what we can do, and what challenges we face.Despite dramatic social change, marriage remains a critical social institution that promotes individual, family and community well being. The contributors to this book believe that marriage deserves our best efforts to revitalize it instead of a conscious agenda of benign neglect. Here, assembled in one place, is a clear pro-marriage research and policy agenda aimed at revitalizing this insitution based on principles of the best interests of children, husbands and wives, and society at large. Contributors from both the social sciences and legal studies illuminate critical issues from a variety of important perspectives, providing a comprehensive and respectful treatment of a timely and often divisive subject. (view table of contents)

An in-depth comparion of married and single life offers compelling evidence that getting and staying married promotes the happiness, physical health, psychological and emotional well-being, sexual vitality, and financial success of men, women, and their children. Reprint. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The Ties That Bindwas organized to review and assess the scientific evidence about the causes of trends in marriage and other forms of intimate unions. The contributors address these two questions: What do we know about the factors that influence the formation of marriages and other intimate unions, the timing of union formation, and the forms that unions take? What factors explain the dramatic changes in union formation we have observed over recent decades? Edited by Linda J...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Is the American family a thing of the past? Almost anyone can tell a story that illustrates how dramatically things have changed in the past decades. Nonmarriage, childlessness and divorce are commonplace. Most children leave their parents' home and live for increasing periods before marriage as independent adults...read more