The irony - married couples now a minority

[ps1074]

I find it quite ironic that while republicans are running on 'family values' and 'sanctity of marriage', they apparently let married couples slip into minority :rofl:

Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.

The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/15census.html?hp&ex=1160884800&en=48d4d829974274d5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[izzie]

1. I think we like to look back and say it was always good.

As if the Victorians had some thing we wanted to have. And each age has done the same. Picking your own mate has hardly been better then having your parents do it. They used to be apart in other ways than our modern divorce. I think their was a world study on this a this modern way of marriage a few years ago and it is world wide. The family values of the GOP is a fallacy

[SoCalDem]

2. Not surprising to me at all

There has been a paradigm shift.. When women did not seek higher education, they HAD to get married if they wanted a family because they could never support them alone..and there was a terrible stigma attached to out-of-wedlock children...and women put up with rotten marriages because there was a stigma attached to divorce as well..

Times have changed.. women now CAN support a family alone, and they are not willing to put up with a rotten marriage.

The whole "white-picket-fence, sheep dog, and station wagon" dream of suburbia is as dead as the original Lassie..

It only really existed for a select few in real life..but the propaganda of it still lives on in movies and tv..

People do buy the "dream" with every penny they can borrow..but they soon figure out that they have little time to actually enjoy it, and every penny they earn goes to just hanging on to it by a fingernail..

It's no wonder people are so unhappy, when they see how they "should" be living, every time they turn on tv or buy a ticket..and yet they know in their hearts they will never live like that...

[Captain Hilts]

3. Yes, women had to get married for economic reasons.

So many colleges, universities were off limits to them.

[w4rma]

4. Folks aren't making as much as they used to. It used to be that only

the husband had to work. But now both the husband and wife have to work to maintain a family. Folks have less of a reason to marry if they aren't planning to build a family, or if they don't feel financially secure enough to.

[rfranklin]

5. If they lett gays marry, we'll regain the majority!

C'mon married people let's fight for a bigger slice of the pie!

[POAS]

6. Well if Clinton didn't get a BJ then.... n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Think of it this way: Less married couples means the divorce rate is

also reduced overall in the population.