Marriage

We're happy to present this excerpt from one of our favorite sites, YourTango.

The New York Times reported that over half of the births to US women younger than 30 occurred outside of marriage in 2009. Most of the ongoing rise of births to unmarried women occurred to couples living together but unmarried. So why don't these young women want to get married? New York Times experts speculate on a number of economic reasons in a follow-up article in the Motherlode section. They reported that many young parents said “they would like to be married but not now and not to each other.”

The research I did for my forthcoming book, 99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Saying I Do: Your Guide to a Successful and Fulfilling Marriage suggests other important reasons that young women don’t feel ready to marry. Here are seven of the areas that the women who answered my question, “What is the most important thing you wish you had known before you were married?” mentioned most frequently.

1. I wish I’d known what marriage is really like. Many of these women got most of their information (really misinformation) about what marriage was supposed to be like from the media and they believed it until reality struck.
2. I wish I’d known more about myself. These women had very little idea of who they were or would like to be when they were not trying to please the people around them.
3. I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry so I could've taken the time I needed. These women feel pressure to marry prematurely both internally from themselves and from others.
4. I wish I knew just how much family patterns could influence us. These women were so surprised by how difficult it was to blend their own ideas with their husbands’ family influenced ideas of what marriage was supposed to be like.

Finish reading the rest of the story on YourTango: What Women Wish They'd Known Before Marriage

Written by Dr. Laurie Weiss for YourTango.

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Living in a progressive city like New York or San Francisco might give you the impression that fewer women are giving up their maiden names after they say "I do." With a professional career built up, the hassle of paperwork, and emotional ties to your name, for many modern women the change might not be worth it. But in fact, the perception that more women keep their own name is false. Research shows that anywhere from 90 to 98 percent of American women take their husband's name after marriage. And in some places, if you don't, other people will think you are less committed to your marriage.

Pennsylvania State University sociologists looked into how Midwestern attitudes about maiden names compare to those on the East Coast. In the Midwest, only 4.3 percent of women say they want to keep their maiden names, compared to 11.6 percent of women on the East Coast. And the judgment is rising. In 1990, 2.7 percent of students surveyed at Midwestern universities said a woman was less committed to her marriage if she kept her last name. Now that rate has jumped to 10.1 percent. Even so, the women themselves who want to keep their last names say it doesn't reflect their marital commitment.

What do you think about changing your last name after getting married? Do you think of it as a symbol of commitment, or just an inconvenient misogynistic tradition? Would you worry people would judge your decision either way?

With Valentine's Day on the horizon, love is in the air. But while February 14 always conjures up images of roses and chocolate, new research suggests that modern relationships are less traditional. Fewer Americans are getting married and those who do are waiting longer. For Valentine's Day, we partnered with AskMen.com and want to ask our readers if and how their ideas of love and goals for their relationships are changing. And we want to see if the attitudes of men and women about their "love end game" are evolving in the same or different ways. So whether your a man or woman, single or taken, fill out our short survey about love and marriage. You'll be entered to win the ultimate Valentine's date package from Limos.com complete with luxury car service, dinner for two, and flowers! Click here for official rules.

This week's confession comes from our anonymous Confession Booth group in the TrèsSugar Community. Weigh in with your advice below.

I'm 20 about to turn 21, my boyfriend is 21. Weve been together for almost three years, we'll be moving in together in a couple months and plan to get married next year. We've never had huge problems, nothing to make us question our compatibility or future together. We are each other's first partners and we're a bit uneducated in the field of love and life experiences. But we're not immature or wild young kids, he's a cop and I'm in nursing school, it's not like we're trying to figure out our lives.

I'm just a little scared because I keep hearing getting married before 30 is too soon, you'll grow apart and all that. I also hear you should date at least seven people before you settle down. I know what I like in a man, I know my boyfriend is great but all this talk is worrisome. I love him and want things to work out, should we wait until we're older?

The only thing that would make me leave him is if he cheated on me, sure sometimes I get annoyed by him but we've never had problems. I think why wait until we're thirty when we're both mature and know who we are? I always hear, well you're different in your twenties, wild and just looking for fun. In your thirties you're an adult, mature. But I think that's how we are now, we're both on the same page. All this talk about divorce makes me scared to get married, but I really want to . . . what are your thoughts on age of marriage, about my situation?

There's lots of cool stuff going on in our community — join it, check it out, share your posts or advice in the great groups, and maybe we'll feature it here on TrèsSugar!

This week's confession comes from our anonymous Confession Booth group in the TrèsSugar Community. Weigh in with your advice below.

I have been dating a guy for 7.5 years. We have not married yet because we met when I was very young — just 16. Now that I'm 24, he has been saying things like "We should get married soon." Even though I'm very happy and touched that he wants to marry me, I feel like I am not ready to marry him.

Part of it is because I myself do not feel mature and ready to be in marriage, to be someone's wife. I feel as though that is a whole new set of responsibilities, despite how long we have already been together, and I need more time to ready myself mentally.

But secondly, I also I feel like I'm not 100% sure about entering a marriage with a few current things going on in our relationship. Sometimes I feel like I can't absolutely trust every single word coming out of his mouth, and sometimes he seems to doubt what I say too. We have had a history where we both caught the other person lying a few times. Plus he's in a career highly popular with women wanting a piece of him (and his co-workers) and in order to fit in with them he is required to spend a lot of time partying and they always bring a lot of beautiful, sexy women to the parties. That in itself makes me hesitate.

On top of it all, I am a jealous and insecure person, and I want to conquer those inner devils the best I can before I step into a life-long commitment.

At this point I have probably made you all think that I'm a mess and so is our relationship, but I would still like some honest advice. Thanks in advance for even reading all this.

There's lots of cool stuff going on in our community — join it, check it out, share your posts or advice in the great groups, and maybe we'll feature it here on TrèsSugar!

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

Bride Wars. Bridezillas. Bridalplasty. Shedding for the Wedding. Platinum Weddings. Say Yes to the Dress.

If you flip through the channels, it looks like all of America is altar-bound.

But in fact, the Pew Research Center found that American marriage rates are at an all-time low: Only 51% of Americans over age 18 are married. Marriage rates have declined by 5% between 2009 and 2010 and 21 percentage points since 1960, when 72% of adults were married.

Are We Aging Out of Marriage?

It’s no surprise that things are very different today from only a few short years ago — see cell phones, laptops, tablets and the Facebook timeline. The big things are changing, too.

Half of men getting married for the first time are 29 years or older and half of women marrying for the first time are 27 or older, which means that many Americans are tying the knot well past age 30. Of course, the big 3-0 is getting younger and younger, so the news isn’t revelatory, but for reference, remember that Marie Antoinette married at age 14. In more recent history, Elizabeth Taylor’s first marriage took place when she was only 18.

Marriage and Money

So, what does all this have to do with money? A lot, it turns out.

First, married people tend to accumulate money. As Pew researcher and senior writer D’Vera Cohn explains in The Huffington Post, "Some of that might have to do with who chooses to get married, that is, people who are educated have less of a decline in their marriage rates than people who are less educated. We also know that the kind of partnership marriage encourages is one in which you plan for the future, share your assets, build wealth together. There isn’t that evidence yet for people who live together."

Second, beyond the married couple’s individual finances, their marriage affects the wider economy. Married people wait to make big purchases and investments until they’ve "settled down." Those purchases include houses, children, property . . . the big things that keep our economy spinning in a way that rent checks and vodka sodas can’t manage.

We're not saying that marriage will make you rich, or that opting out of the contract keeps you from being so. But research shows that marriage is good for our finances and good for the economy at large, so it follows that a decline in marriage rates isn’t exactly helping us climb out of the recession crater.

There goes the bride.

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