Effects of ‘Marrying for Love Model’ on Marriage in the US

            The two words, marriage and love often appear together. This leads people to perceive that these two words go hand in hand. According to Stephanie Coontz, however, love has not been compatible with marriage throughout most of human history (“The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love” 251). In the essay “Marriage and Love,” Emma Goldman, a Russian-born American writer, even describes “[love and marriage] are, in fact, antagonistic to each other” (Goldman). Nevertheless, the marriage model which advocates the idea that marriage should be based on love and companionship has prevailed in most Western societies and motivated changes in marriage-related issues, such as meaning of marriage, divorce rate, and family structure in the US (Coontz, “The Origins of Modern Divorce” 9; Amato 961).

Coontz traces the history of “marrying for love” (“The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love” 250), and she reveals that Enlightenment signaled the advent of this marriage model (257). According to Coontz, Enlightenment and individualistic philosophy fostered freedom, individual rights, equality, justice, and market economy in Western societies through the eighteenth and nineteenth century (257-58). These social changes encouraged people to choose their partners based on love (257). In the paper “Tension Between Institutional and Individual Views of Marriage,” Paul R. Amato also points out that by the end of the nineteenth century, urbanization, industrialization, and revolutionary ideas, such as equality and freedom, were widespread in the US; subsequently, individuals were increasingly free from the influence of family, community, and traditional norms (961). Especially, as young people’s socioeconomic status grew, individual preference expanded in determining whether to marry, whom to marry, and when to end the marriage throughout the 20^th century (961).

As love increased its significance in marriage, the transition from institutional to individual views of marriage occurred (Amato et al. 18). In the book Alone Together, Amato et al. state that marriage has been referred to as a social institution which regulated individuals’ behaviors and organized interpersonal relationships in the US for a long time (1). Specifically, according to Coontz, people married to expand resources which help their family and race thrive regardless of cultural differences until social, economic, and political changes affected people’s behaviors (“The Origins of Modern Divorce” 8-9). Marriage was, at times, used as a tactic to make alliances or an opportunity to improve socioeconomic status in the past (8). However, as marriage based on personal preference prevailed, marriage became a lifestyle choice rather than social institution and a path through which individuals achieve self-development rather than a goal in life (Amato at al. 2; Cherlin 853).

In the paper “Tension Between Institutional and Individual Views of Marriage,” Amato points out that marriage-related social phenomena have also notably changed in the US over the last several decades (959). Amato et al. characterize the changes in marriage that have occurred in the US over the last several decades as follows: “[t]he growing popularity of nonmarital cohabitation, the increase in  the percentage of children born outside marriage, the rise in age of first marriage, the continuing high divorce rate, and the declining of remarriage rate” (1). Specifically, as of 2004, statistics of marriage show that the divorce rate has doubled since 1960 and the number of unmarried cohabitating couples is steadily increasing in the US (Popenoe and Whitehead 268-72).

Regarding divorce rate, in the paper “The Origins of Modern Divorce,” Coontz notes that the marrying for love model is responsible for the increasing rate of divorce (9). Marrying for love has developed the “recipe for marital happiness” (Coontz, “The Radical Idea of Marrying for love” 254) and has led people to have expectations to fulfill happiness by pursuing the recipe: true love, intimate and egalitarian relationship, mutual communication, and faith and loyalty to each other (254-57). Even though the recipe was rarely practiced in reality, the expectations to realize happiness by following this recipe were getting higher throughout the 20^th century (Coontz, “The Origins of Modern Divorce” 11). The more people pursued their expectations, the more people were disappointed with marriage (11-13). This led to the reality that divorce rate steadily increased in the US by the late 20^th century, points out Coontz (14).

Another considerable marriage-related social issue that the marrying for love model brought about is changes in family structure in the US. In the paper “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage,” Andrew J. Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University, describes the trend that marriage is becoming a personal choice as “deinstitutionalization of marriage” (848). Cherlin then discusses two aspects of deinstitutionalization of marriage. One is the emergence of same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage has received much attention from the public since the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a law limiting marriage only to opposite-sex couples was against the Hawaii state constitution in 1993 (850). The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts accepted marriage between same-sex couples on November 18, 2003 (“Same Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships”). In 2007, New Jersey passed civil union legislation which provides same-sex couples with state-level rights (Nelson). As of 2010, according to National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and District of Columbia issue marriage license to same-sex couples. Besides these legal changes, citing the statistics of the US census, Cherlin points out that family structure in the US has been changing (851). As of 2000, 33% of women and 22% of men in same-sex partnerships lived with children (851). According to Cherlin, same-sex couples already describe themselves as ‘family’ even though, by the definition, they do not mean traditional family based on legally married opposite-sex couples (851). The other aspect is the growth of unmarried cohabitation. The figures in Popenoe and Whitehead’s paper “The State of Our Union” show the number of unmarried cohabitating couples has steadily increased in recent decades (272). Moreover, the population of unmarried cohabitants living with children has grown (Seltzer 1247). California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington have laws that provide unmarried couples with almost all spousal rights within the states (NCSL). As Cherlin points out, cohabitation is gradually considered to be an acceptable union in the US (849). In the study “Families Formed Outside of Marriage,” Judith A. Seltzer also notes that cohabitation has become one of family types in the US (1247).

According to the studies mentioned above, marriage in the US has been in noticeable transition for the last several decades. Marriage as an institution is losing its meaning and authority it used to have in the past. Today, marriage is not just a goal in life but is considered to be a lifestyle choice and a path through which individuals achieve self-development. The change in points of view on marriage has led to the trend that union formation and family type are gradually getting diversified. These changes in marriage followed the expansion of individual rights and socioeconomic changes like the improvement of woman’s socioeconomic status. Especially, according to Coontz, it is marrying for love that has been the epicenter of the changes in marriage (“The Radical Idea of Marrying for love” 260).  

Works Cited

Amato, Paul R. “Tension Between Institutional and Individual Views of Marriage.” Journal of

            Marriage and Family 66.4 (2004): 959-65. Print.

Amato, Paul R., et al.  Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing. Cambridge:

            Harvard UP, 2007. Print.

Cherlin, Andrew J. “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage.” Journal of

            Marriage and Family 66.4 (2004): 848-61. Print.

Coontz, Stephanie. “The Origins of Modern Divorce.” Family Process 46.1 (2007): 7-16. Web.

            26 Mar. 2010. .

---. “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love.” Writing and Reading Across the

            Curriculum, 10^th ed. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen. New York:

            Pearson/Longman, 2008. 250-61. Print.

Goldman, Emma. “Marriage and Love.” Anarchism and Other Essays, 2^nd ed. New York:

            Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. 233-45. Anarchy Archives. Web. 25 Mar.

            2010. .

Nelson, Christine. “Civil Union & Domestic Partnership Statutes.” NCSL.org. National

            Conference of State Legislatures. Mar. 2008. Web. 1 Apr. 2010. .

Popenoe, David, and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. “The State of Our Unions.” Writing and

            Reading Across the Curriculum, 10^th ed. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen.

            New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008. 263-75. Print.

“Same Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships.” NCSL.org. National

            Conference of State Legislatures. Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2010. .

Seltzer, Judith A. “Families Formed Outside of Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and Family

            62.4 (2000): 1247-68. JSTOR. PDF file.

The Mind and the Body ②–The relationship between stress and health

MRI brain scans show that people who have been under the prolonged influence of stress hormones have a shrunken hippocampus. One probable implication is that stress, a process by which people perceive and respond to certain event called stressor, might lead to serious physical consequence. Although some research remains inconsistent, others show that psychological factors like stress induce or affect physical illness, such as coronary heart disease and the immune system related disease. The influence of stress on health can vary with characteristics of stressor, individual response specificity and personality, and type of illness, which operate simultaneously.

The evidence that psychological factors and biological factors intricately interact and affect human health might provide clues for delineating the relationship between the mind and the body. The so-called mind-body problem has been debated in terms of dualism and monism or materialism, idealism, and neutral monism since ancient Greek. Whichever side is taken, it is increasingly accepted that mind and body interplay as a whole and affect each other as research of stress-related illness illustrates. This holistic concept of mind and body has led to health psychology in which some research aims to prevent or relieve stress-related illness.

Accumulated studies have confirmed that stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, redistributing blood-flow, and so on. The generalized sympathetic arousal activity alerts the body by triggering an outburst of stress hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine. While rebuilding the energy supply depleted by sympathetic activity, the parasympathetic nervous system reverses these processes. According to research, when fluctuation of these two sub-autonomic nervous systems goes beyond a certain range, change in physiology can bring people psychological disorders, such as anxiety disorder, and/or physical consequences, such as coronary heart disease or hypertension. For example, when an individual is threatened by stress, one’s active sympathetic nervous system redistributes blood-flow to the muscles from internal organs, such as the liver which removes cholesterol and fat from the blood. Thus, the blood may contain excess cholesterol and fat that later get placed around the heart. Research of the relationship between personality and coronary heart disease implies that aggressive achievers, who are type “A” individuals in terms of Friedman and Rosenman, are readily affected by stress and are more likely to have heart attack. Although the general relationship is not conclusive, some research demonstrates that an individual’s negative traits like hostility and anger correlates with coronary heart disease.

Research in psychoneuroimmunology shows that stress can also lead an individual to be susceptible to disease related to the immune system. The immune system, which is the body’s defense mechanism against infectious disease and cancer, includes disease-fighting agents, such as lymphocytes and macrophage. Type “B” lymphocytes release antibodies that fight bacterial infections; type “T” lymphocytes attack cancer cells, viruses, and other foreign bodies. Another agent, the macrophage patrols the body, and identifies and ingests harmful invaders. The nervous and endocrine systems have an effect on the immune system through regulating the secretion of stress hormones. Stress triggers physical arousal, diverting energy from the immune system to the muscles and brain, which, in turn, suppresses or deactivates the disease-fighting agents. According to the research that tested medical students’ blood periodically, the immune cells’ activity and their secretions decrease during the exam, which refers as to naturalistic minor event or stressor. Some research shows that during a stressful period, people are more likely to get cold, and surgical wounds heal more slowly.

It is still an open conclusion that deterioration of the immune system by stress is linked to the progression of AIDS from HIV infection and of cancer. Nevertheless, stress-related illness research steadily shows that stress can affect people’s physical illness. From the cognitive perspective, when people appraise stressors as unpredictable and uncontrollable, people are more likely to be vulnerable to disease. Cognitive therapy attempts to alleviate stress by changing the coping process. Besides this, some research shows that social support for cancer patients, stress coping skill techniques, and exercise can promote health by managing stress. 

Review–Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology

In presidential address to section III of division 12 in APA, McFall (1991) articulated the principle that “scientific clinical psychology is the only legitimate and acceptable form in clinical psychology.” While underpinning this principle, Lilienfeld et al. (2003) show the fear that scientific foundations in clinical psychology are eroding due to proliferation of scientifically unproven or questionable theories and techniques. The notion that clinical psychologists and practitioners, who are accountable for public health, should not apply pseudoscientific techniques is both desirable and indisputable. With regard to differentiating science from pseudoscience, however, the authors lead readers to keep questioning. 

Lelienfeld et al. gather essences of science from several scientists and philosophers. From original standpoints, the authors incorporate these essences into indicators of pseudoscience. Most indicators, which imply a scientist’s attitudes, are convincing. Nonetheless, whether psychologists can make use of falsification as a criterion for sorting out pseudoscience is questionable. When scientists apply strictly falsification from Popper’s standpoint, the range of science would get narrower (Pigliucci, 2010). In fact, Popper (1974) describes the psychoanalytic theories of Freud pseudoscientific and calls psychology qua science. Even Bunge (2006), who submits several features of science beyond falsification, classifies psychology as semi-science. Although this classification does not indicate that psychology is pseudoscientific, it implies that psychological science has characteristics different from hard science like physics. A question derives from this point. Is it reasonable to employ falsification from Popper’s standpoint, which could bring about controversy, when psychologists judging theories and techniques in psychology for weeding out pseudoscience? The authors render ad hoc hypothesis, which derives from falsification, instead of directly suggesting falsification as a criterion. This confusing inquiry leads another question. How precisely can scientists tell science from pseudoscience? McNally (2003) points out that the boundary between science and pseudoscience is not clear-cut. Although Pigliucci appreciates attributes of science, he also notes that “science is characterized by fuzzy borderline with other types of inquiry that may or may not one day become science.”  This comes up with the concern that imprudent classification can lead science to dogmatism. Hence, despite fatal consequences of pseudoscience, it does not look advantageous to sort out pseudoscience according to criteria which entails controversy.

Considering history of psychology, move to pursue science like EST (Empirically Supported Treatment) movement which looks like self-defensive response is reasonable. Nonetheless, emphasis on research and practice based on empirical evidence entails a concern. The emphasis tends to reduce scientific knowledge to method like experiment in laboratory. History of science illustrates that sifting science according to strict criteria or community interest could impede new findings. As heliocentric theory, theory of relativity, and studies of brain plasticity show, new evidence has overturned established beliefs. On the other hand, some theories of philosophy of mind, which mainly deal with unobservable phenomena which rarely provided empirical evidences, have evolved toward cognitive science due to findings from neuroscience (e.g., Schwartz’s therapy for OCD). Those examples don’t justify the fact that clinicians practice based on questionable techniques which might bring about harm, nor do the examples deny that there is distinctive quality of science. Psychology is recognized as a soft science because it deals with “complex layers of causality” different from hard science (Pigliucci). From this perspective, too much emphasis on empirical evidence, especially randomly controlled trials, might distort characteristics of psychology, which involves human behavior and mental process with complex layers of causality. 

References

Bunge, M. (2006). The philosophy behind pseudoscience. Skeptical Inquirer, 30 (4), 19-27.

McFall, R. M. (1991). Manifesto for a science of clinical psychology. Clinical Psychologist, 44, 75-88.

McNally, R. J. (2003). The demise of pseudoscience. The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, 2 (2).
Pigliucci, M. (2010). Nonsense on stilts: How to tell science from bunk. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Popper, K. R. (1974). Intellectual autobiography. In P. A. Schilpp. (Ed.), The philosophy of Karl Popper (3-181). La Salle, IL: The Open Court Publishing.
Schwartz, J. M., & Begley, S. (2002). The mind and the brain: Neuroplasticity and the power of mental force. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Young, L. J. (2005). EST, MCE, MCC: The abbreviating of psychology. Retrieved from http://www.academyprojects.org/young.html