The Changing Landscape of Love and Marriage

Abstract

Celebrities breaking up, making up, and having kids out of wedlock. Politicians confessing to extramarital affairs and visits to prostitutes. Same-sex couples pushing for, and sometimes getting, legal recognitionfor their committed relationships. Today's news provides a steady stream of stories that seem to suggest that lifelong love and (heterosexual)marriage are about as dated as a horse and carriage. Social conservatives continue sounding the alarm about the consequences of the decline ofmarriage and the rise of unwed parenting for children and for society at large. Are we really leaving behind the old model of intimacy, or are these changes significant but not radical? And what are the driving forces behind the changes?