The deinstitutionalization of American marriage
2004/10/12 by Andrew J. Cherlin · 1,756 citations
Health Professions · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cohabitation #Context (archaeology) #Criminology #Family Dynamics and Relationships #Gender studies #History #Homelessness and Social Issues #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #Law #Meaning (existential) #Political science #Prestige #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology #State (computer science) #Symbolic interactionism #The Symbolic #Transition (genetics)
paper · doi:10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00058.x
published in Journal of Marriage and the Family 66(4), 848-861 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2004/10/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract
This article argues that marriage has undergone a process of deinstitutionalization—a weakening of the social norms that define partners' behavior—over the past few decades. Examples are presented involving the increasing number and complexity of cohabiting unions and the emergence of same‐sex marriage. Two transitions in the meaning of marriage that occurred in the United States during the 20th century have created the social context for deinstitutionalization. The first transition, noted by Ernest Burgess, was from the institutional marriage to the companionate marriage. The second transition was to the individualized marriage in which the emphasis on personal choice and self‐development expanded. Although the practical importance of marriage has declined, its symbolic significance has remained high and may even have increased. It has become a marker of prestige and personal achievement. Examples of its symbolic significance are presented. The implications for the current state of marriage and its future direction are discussed.
Citations
Cited by
- Parenthood, Childlessness, and Well‐Being: A Life Course Perspective
- Between Tradition and Modernity: “Leftover” Women in Shanghai
- Research on Marital Satisfaction and Stability in the 2010s: Challenging Conventional Wisdom
- Division of Labor, Gender Ideology, and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia
- The digitalization of family life: A multilevel conceptual framework
- Looking beyond marital status: What we can learn from relationship status measures
- Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003
- A Marriage Premium for Whom? Sexual Identity, Relationship Status and Earnings
- Family Systems and Parents’ Financial Support for Education in Early Adulthood
- The Economic Foundations of Cohabiting Couples’ Union Transitions
- Joint pot or separate purses? Unpacking the cohabitation-marriage gap in income pooling across Europe
- The variability of age at first marriage across birth cohort and education level: the case of Taiwan
- Changing Attitudes toward Marriage and Children in Six Countries
- Breaking Free of the Iron Cage: The Individualization of American Religion
- (Not) alone: Single life and solo-sociality in a familialist society
- Recent Trend in the Prevalence and Correlates of Depression Among Chinese Young Adults from 2010 to 2018
- Parental divorce is not uniformly disruptive to children’s educational attainment
- The Myth of Mutuality: Decision-Making, Marital Power, and the Persistence of Gender Inequality
- Attitudes Toward Mononormativity and Polyamorous Legal Rights in the US
- Singlehood in Indian context: A mixed-method investigation of psychological impact and perspectives on reasons, advantages and disadvantages of remaining single
- Who drove the marriage rate decline in the wake of the Great Recession?
- The Suffocation of Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow Without Enough Oxygen
- State of our Unions
- ‘My life has changed, but his life hasn’t’: Making sense of the gendering of parenthood during the transition to motherhood
- Trends in Relative Earnings and Marital Dissolution: Are Wives Who Outearn Their Husbands Still More Likely to Divorce?
- The Role of Romantic Partners, Family, and Peer Networks in Dating Couples’ Views About Cohabitation
- “Everything's There Except Money”: How Money Shapes Decisions to Marry Among Cohabitors
- Cohabitation and children's living arrangements
- Reassessing the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Instability
- The Specter of Divorce: Views From Working‐ and Middle‐Class Cohabitors
- Family Formation Trajectories in Romania, the Russian Federation and France: Towards the Second Demographic Transition?
- How Similar are Cohabiting and Married Parents? Second Conception Risks by Union Type in the United States and Across Europe
- The Effect of Union Status at First Childbirth on Union Stability: Evidence from Eastern and Western Germany
- Happiness, Post-materialist Values, and the Unmarried
- A ‘brave thing to do’ or a normative practice? Marriage after long-term cohabitation
- The Rising Expectations of Marriage: What We Do and Do Not Know
- Demografía de las parejas homosexuales en España
- Cohabitation [wikipedia]
- Marriage [wikipedia]
- Assortative matching among same-sex and different-sex couples in the United States, 1990-2000. [europepmc]
- Subjective Well-Being by Partnership Status and Its Dependence on the Normative Climate. [europepmc]
- Marital quality and health: a meta-analytic review. [europepmc]
- The Decoupling of Marriage and Parenthood? Trends in the Timing of Marital First Births, 1945-2002. [europepmc]
- Cyclical Cohabitation Among Unmarried Parents in Fragile Families. [europepmc]
- Attitudes on marriage and new relationships: Cross-national evidence on the deinstitutionalization of marriage. [europepmc]
- Digital Dating: Online Profile Content of Older and Younger Adults. [europepmc]
- The Growing Racial and Ethnic Divide in U.S. Marriage Patterns. [europepmc]
- The Influence of Parental Education on Timing and Type of Union Formation: Changes Over the Life Course and Over Time in the Netherlands. [europepmc]
- Marital Status and Perceived Discrimination among Transgender People. [europepmc]
- Personality change among newlyweds: Patterns, predictors, and associations with marital satisfaction over time. [europepmc]
- Mental Well-Being Differences in Cohabitation and Marriage: The Role of Childhood Selection. [europepmc]
- Marriage, Cohabitation, and Divorce in Later Life. [europepmc]
- Do Marriage and Cohabitation Provide Benefits to Health in Mid-Life? The Role of Childhood Selection Mechanisms and Partnership Characteristics Across Countries. [europepmc]
- Mind the "Happiness" Gap: The Relationship Between Cohabitation, Marriage, and Subjective Well-being in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway. [europepmc]
- The relationship context of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S. [europepmc]
- Divorce Attitudes among Older Adults: Two Decades of Change. [europepmc]
- The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change. [europepmc]
- Bridewealth Marriage in the 21 st Century: A Case Study from Rural Mozambique. [europepmc]
- Marriage intentions, desires, and pathways to later and less marriage in Japan. [europepmc]
- Socioeconomic differentials in fertility in South Korea. [europepmc]
- Does Time with Dad in Childhood Pay Off in Adolescence? [europepmc]
- The destabilization and destandardization of social roles across the adult life course: Considering aggregate social role instability and its variability from a historical-developmental perspective. [europepmc]
- Dissolution of Non-cohabiting Relationships and Changes in Life Satisfaction and Mental Health. [europepmc]
- Relationship Quality in Midlife: A Comparison of Dating, Living Apart Together, Cohabitation, and Marriage. [europepmc]
Related