Popenoe And Dafoe Whitehead's Article 'The State Of Our Union'

Your life can set up a disaster or can make it worth so much. In David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s article “The State of Our Union,” the topic of marriage and divorce are discussed. This paper shows and discusses the chances of divorce, the statistics on cohabitation, and economic benefits of being married. This paper is a summary of the article. This topic is important because it affects our everyday lives (Popenoe and Whitehead 390-402).
According to David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s article “The State of Our Union,” many people are get married at an older age. We know they are getting married older because data from a study shows the marriage numbers for 1,000 girls aged fifteen and older who are unmarried. For example,
the study is conducted and in the year 2005 only 40.7 thousand girls were married, in comparison to the year 1960 when 73.5 thousand girls were married showing fewer women are getting married as the years become more current. On average 76.9 percent of married people aged eighteen years old between the years of 1973-2004 said their marriages were “very happy” (Popenoe and Whitehead 391-393).
In David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead article “The State of Our Union,” it explains that basically those who are married are more, or have a better chance of being wealthier than those who are not married. Those who have never married have a reduced wealth of seventy-five percent. (Popenoe 394), this shows the benefits of marriage financially. Also, the cost of divorce is ridiculously high for both the couple and “a single divorce costs the state and federal governments about $30,000” (Popenoe and Whitehead 395). The evidence shows that the economic downfall of divorce (Popenoe and Whitehead 395).
According to the article by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead article “The State of Our Union,” It is a known phenomenon that divorce rates have increased quite a bit over the years.
Back in the early 1900’s divorce wasn’t looked at often. Due to religious values, cultural or even moral views, divorce was not familiar. In the late 1900’s to early 2000’s numbers of divorced women age fifteen and older went up through the years drastically until the year of 1990 when divorce rates started to decrease. According to the article by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe, the chances of divorce may be much lower than expected. To summarize it states that with a higher income, or having a child after being married for a while, longer marriage, and religious values will decrease your chances of divorce. These reasons give ideas to prevent divorce. It can also show ways that the chance of divorce can increase in a couple if they do not experience some of those advantages. (Popenoe and Whitehead 396-398).
David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead explain that although many don’t believe in unmarried cohabitation, over the years it has become more common. The article “The State of Our Union” shows that now over forty percent, contain children. Having a child in that situation may prove problems down the road, as parents are not “tied down” or “locked into” the relationship leaving many children without both parents. Also separating is cheaper than divorce for these types of couples. Also
from a religious view, it is not ideal and in some cases frowned upon (Popenoe and Whitehead 398-402).
The article by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead article “The State of Our Union” gives us a reason as to why this topic is important is because it very well can affect our lives, our future generations’ lives as well. People may marry for the wrong reasons which skew the purpose of marriage, and some are trapped. Divorce rates have declined slightly, age or marriage increased, and so did the number of couples living together unmarried. All reason points to looking at past statistics and learning from them. (Popenoe and Whitehead 390-402).