FIRST PERSON SINGULAR is a guide to surviving, thriving and sometimes just getting through a single day. Created by Wendy Braitman

According to data from Pew Research Center and the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 96.6 million single Americans. Just 51 percent of the adult population is married, compared with 72 percent in 1960. And a recent Pew/Time Magazine survey found that 39 percent of people think marriage is becoming obsolete.


Our survey was by no means scientific, but it helps to know from whom these responses are coming. The average age of our survey participants was 46.2 years old. Women made up 82 percent of the respondents; men, 18 percent. About 35 percent said their annual income was under $50,000; 41 percent were making between $50,000 and $100,000; and 23 percent bring in more than $100,000 a year.

The burdens of poverty affect most, if not all aspects, of social relations. Most prominently (and unsurprisingly), women carry the greatest burden of the social predicaments that arise from a dire lack of economic security.  Women in groups hit hardest by financial strain easily become seen as sources of further strain on their families. Education is often either inaccessible or seen as an unnecessary part of a young girl’s growth and life.

This is not always necessarily the case, as there is much evidence that shows support of girl-child education by, specifically, mothers who realize the role education can play in providing a better life for their children. Yet, despite this, in many instances across the world (primarily in developing countries, but not limited to them), young girls are forced to accept the strain upon their families that they are perceived to pose. This position can lead many young girls, either by coercion by family or by “choice,” onto the road towards prostitution, sex slavery, or even suicide.  Yet perhaps the most common result is marriage.

An article published earlier this month on EurasiaNet explores the impact of poverty on “early marriage” in Tajikistan. The article cites a recent study by the Eurasia Foundation that looks at the issue of “informal justice” in Tajikistan. While looking at a variety of issues, the article dedicates a good amount to gender relations, specifically the issue of non-state-administered justice for women in unregistered marriages, which come in a variety of flavors, one of which is early marriage. Marriage before the age of 18 is illegal under Tajik law and subject to harsh punishment.

However, it is commonly practiced and encouraged by many religious clerics who not only feel it is sanctioned within Islam but also believe it to be a solution to the problems of poverty faced by women in a country ravaged by years of war.

Program:  Out Loud
Air date:  Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Short Description:  Queering Sex, Love and Relationships
To celebrate Valentines Day, we are queering sex, love and relationships with a two hour special! It is our Spring Membership Drive, as well, so we're offering some special thank you gifts for new and renewing members!

We welcome Myshkin, from Myshkin's Ruby Warblers, to the show and we'll feature new music from her latest record 'That Diamond Lust'. Myshkin donated copies of this CD and a pair of tickets to her record release show at the Alberta Rose Feb 25! We'll offer these thank you gifts to new and returning members who call during the show!

We also welcome Molly Franks, Health Educator from Multnomah County Health Department's STD/HIV/Hep C programs. Molly will update us on the Health Department's health promotion work, and we discuss latest trends with sexually transmitted infections. She also shares tips for preventing STIs, where to get tested for STIs, and why communication is so important in relationships.

Kyle Z, Certified Clinical Sexologist and a certified Sex Educator, joins the conversation later in the show. Kyle will address common questions about sexual health, and he'll offer tools for self care for healthy relationships.

Have any questions about taking care of your body while you enjoy healthy sexuality? Kyle welcomes questions from the community about sexual health, healthy relationships, preventing sexually transmitted infections, and just about anything you might ask about sex. If you would like to submit questions for Kyle to answer on air, please email us at OutLoudRadio@gmail.com

Tune in Tuesday Feb 14 from 6 to 8pm for queering sex, love and relationships.

Three years after the voluntary medical male circumcision (MC) campaign rolled out in the Orange Farm Township in South Africa, the first “real world” results are available showing a marked reduction of HIV acquisition among circumcised adult men with a 55 percent lower HIV prevalence (proportion of HIV-infected people) among circumcised men compared to their uncircumcised counterparts and overall reduction in HIV incidence (the number of new cases) among men 15 to 34 years old of 76 percent.

Earlier randomized controlled studies have shown medical male circumcision to reduce the risk of men acquiring HIV through vaginal sex by up to 60 percent. It is rare indeed for on-the-ground implementation of an intervention to yield even greater efficacy than was measured in a randomized clinical trial.

The ANRS 12126 trial involved 110,000 adults and shows MC roll-out is effective at the community level in curbing the spread of HIV. The free service was offered to all willing male residents 16 years of age and older.

More than 25 separate studies in the past two decades find that marital quality takes a dive with a baby's birth: babies raise stress, reduce happiness and otherwise upset the household, experts say. The movie, out Friday, points to that in a tagline: "Love. Happiness. Kids. Pick two."
"Kids do lower marital satisfaction and there's not much we seem to be able to do to prevent it," says Brian Doss, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. He is among researchers whose intervention studies haven't succeeded in stopping sharp declines in relationship satisfaction. "The fact that we've been largely unsuccessful may suggest it's a really difficult and tough experience and it's not necessarily a deficit in these couples' relationships or how they're approaching it."
Ninety percent of the 218 couples in an eight-year study Doss co-authored experienced a decline in satisfaction, he says.

Homa Sapiens Says:
March 7th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Were I to pronounce a distaste for Islamism or Homosexuality or Judaism or Feminism any one of those groups could claim to be a victim of hate speech.

That’s not exactly true. Gerd’s post didn’t merely express a distaste for a large group of people: it also expressed a desire to legally prohibit an important aspect of their lives– an aspect that is entirely legal for another group which Gerd happens to belong to.

That’s what makes it hate speech.

Jonas Sicking Says:
March 7th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Graydon’s comment here is great.

Simply saying “we’ll publish anything” is neither a wise policy nor the policy that you actually follow. I won’t express an opinion about if Gerv’s post constitutes hate speech (as that likely varies by country), but if someone were to publish unambigious hate speech I’m pretty sure the person would get kicked off planet and the post removed from the feed.

I also don’t buy the argument made by various commenters here (not the authors of the original blog post) that “well, planet contains a lot of left-wing comments too”. If there are hateful left-wing comments on planet that’s just as bad. It’s not an ok to be exclusionary even if other people have excluded you. That just means that more people are exclusionary. If you anyone putting offensive of exclusionary contents on planet, speak up, even if the contents is left-wing.

Justin Scott (fligtar) Says:
March 7th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Some of the comments and blog post replies seem to miss the very important point that just because *you* aren’t made to feel unwelcome or demeaned by someone’s comments doesn’t mean that others aren’t.

If you see the post as purely a political opinion, that’s your perspective. To others, the post made them feel unwelcome and demeaned, and broke their trust in Planet Mozilla and/or Mozilla. Please respect that and don’t dismiss them simply because you don’t see it that way.

The increasing popularity of intermarriage. About 15% of all new marriages in the United States in 2010 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, more than double the share in 1980 (6.7%). Among all newlyweds in 2010, 9% of whites, 17% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 28% of Asians married out. Looking at all married couples in 2010, regardless of when they married, the share of intermarriages reached an all-time high of 8.4%. In 1980, that share was just 3.2%.
Gender patterns in intermarriage vary widely. About 24% of all black male newlyweds in 2010 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds. Among Asians, the gender pattern runs the other way. About 36% of Asian female newlyweds married outside their race in 2010, compared with just 17% of Asian male newlyweds. Intermarriage rates among white and Hispanic newlyweds do not vary by gender.
At first glance, recent newlyweds who “married out” and those who “married in” have similar characteristics. In 2008-2010, the median combined annual earnings of both groups are similar—$56,711 for newlyweds who married out versus $55,000 for those who married in. In about one-in-five marriages of each group, both the husband and wife are college graduates. Spouses in the two groups also marry at similar ages (with a two- to three-year age gap between husband and wife), and an equal share are marrying for the first time.
However, these overall similarities mask sharp differences that emerge when the analysis looks in more detail at pairings by race and ethnicity. Some of these differences appear to reflect the overall characteristics of different groups in society at large, and some may be a result of a selection process. For example, white/Asian newlyweds of 2008 through 2010 have significantly higher median combined annual earnings ($70,952) than do any other pairing, including both white/white ($60,000) and Asian/Asian ($62,000). When it comes to educational characteristics, more than half of white newlyweds who marry Asians have a college degree, compared with roughly a third of white newlyweds who married whites. Among Hispanics and blacks, newlyweds who married whites tend to have higher educational attainment than do those who married within their own racial or ethnic group.
Intermarriage and earnings. Couples formed between an Asian husband and a white wife topped the median earning list among all newlyweds in 2008-2010 ($71,800). During this period, white male newlyweds who married Asian, Hispanic or black spouses had higher combined earnings than did white male newlyweds who married a white spouse. As for white female newlyweds, those who married a Hispanic or black husband had somewhat lower combined earnings than those who “married in,” while those who married an Asian husband had significantly higher combined earnings.
Regional differences. Intermarriage in the United States tilts West. About one-in-five (22%) of all newlyweds in Western states married someone of a different race or ethnicity between 2008 and 2010, compared with 14% in the South, 13% in the Northeast and 11% in the Midwest. At the state level, more than four-in-ten (42%) newlyweds in Hawaii between 2008 and 2010 were intermarried; the other states with an intermarriage rate of 20% or more are all west of the Mississippi River. (For rates of intermarriage as well as intra-marriage in all 50 states, see Appendix 2.)
Is more intermarriage good for society? More than four-in-ten Americans (43%) say that more people of different races marrying each other has been a change for the better in our society, while 11% say it has been a change for the worse and 44% say it has made no difference. Minorities, younger adults, the college-educated, those who describe themselves as liberal and those who live in the Northeast or the West are more disposed than others to see intermarriage in a positive light.
Public’s acceptance of intermarriage. More than one-third of Americans (35%) say that a member of their immediate family or a close relative is currently married to someone of a different race. Also, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) say it “would be fine” with them if a member of their own family were to marry someone outside their own racial or ethnic group. In 1986, the public was divided about this. Nearly three-in-ten Americans (28%) said people of different races marrying each other was not acceptable for anyone, and an additional 37% said this may be acceptable for others, but not for themselves. Only one-third of the public (33%) viewed intermarriage as acceptable for everyone.
Divorce. Several studies using government data have found that overall divorce rates are higher for couples who married out than for those who married in – but here, too, the patterns vary by the racial and gender characteristics of the couples. These findings are based on scholarly analysis of government data on marriage and divorce collected over the past two decades.

You need to understand that humans are fucked up creatures. It's very difficult for anyone to change. Abuse is cyclical in nature, meaning we often repeat what we have seen or endured through perpetration or victimization later in life. A child who is witness to or the victim of consistent abuse may not take on the behavioral patterns as an adult, but he or she still knows the process like the back of their hand. We engage in dysfunctional behavior even if we are aware of its effects because it is comfortable.

While the official definition of marriage as a right shared only between one man and one woman still stands on the federal lawbooks, one federal department has made its official definition of family more queer-friendly.
Today, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it has formally rewritten its official definition of "family" that's used to determine eligibility for public housing. The official "family" already specifically includes people without kids and single people, but under today's new rules this simple sentence is added onto the official family definition: “Family includes but is not limited to the following, regardless of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status...”

HUD has been attacking housing discrimination against LGBT folks for the last few years, launching studies of discrimination and updating its policies to make it clear that it's against the rules to ban someone from public housing because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Oregon is one of 20 states with laws that already prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Asked about the HUD change two weeks ago, Portland Housing Commissioner Nick Fish said, "For a federal government that's been unable to move on marriage equality, to say that discrimination based on orientation is unacceptable is a big deal. It's a big step forward for establishing the rights of a whole class of people."

A quick note about arranged marriages in South Asian Muslim culture: They’re not forced, “blind”, or mandatory, especially not in 2012 New York. Gone are the days when girls would strut in front of a man’s family, serve chai, and share a special talent to impress her possible in-laws. Professional matchmakers and house visits still exist, but the internet has made it easier for men, women, and (of course) their parents to cast a wide net and connect with people from all over the country who share their values and interests. There’s also the alternative track: a “love marriage,” in which two people meet, fall in love, and marry without any assistance or interference from their families. This is what the average American would expect out of marriage. My parents are not thrilled with this idea.

Angry Brides, a Facebook game in which you play an angry Indian wife who bludgeons her husband with frying pans and shoes.

Totally sexist, right? But the company that made it, Indian dating site Shaadi, has discovered a loop hole for offensiveness: "creating awareness."

Full size
Shaadi says Angry Brides "creates awareness" about dowry-related abuse, which is when a groom's family abuses a bride to blackmail her family into paying additional dowry money post-nuptials. India recorded 8400 dowry-related deaths in 2010, plus "90,000 cases of torture and cruelty toward women by their husbands or family."

To express contempt for dowries, Shaadi encourages Facebook users to bludgeon their virtual husbands with virtual household objects. Here I am selecting a shoe to throw at my doctor husband. Every time I hit him, I earned money for my "anti-dowry fund," which is basically just a scoreboard, because it's not like Shaadi is giving money to charity or anything.

And so we return to the central conundrum: Does Shaadi's purported positive intent justify the ludicrously mixed message of combating domestic violence with more domestic violence? Or is everyone just a capitalist pig, and Angry Birds knock-offs are dumb, the end.

I read this article when it first appeared in the Atlantic, and after stumbling upon it again, I take issue with some of the author's, well... issues.

I think this is a very instructive piece in that it touches on the bizarre frame of mind a lot of women work themselves into that pretty much assures they will never find a man. The requirements for the author's Mr. Right are ludicrously abstract and laughably childish. He must “delight in the small things,” have a sense of “wonderment,” “view the world” in the same way, and be “curious.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Even if a man existed who possessed those qualities, how would you be able to tell? Listen up ladies: if these “requirements” are on your checklist for keeping a man at any point in your life, you are a lunatic.

Delving a little deeper reveals what Ms. Gottlieb really thinks a man’s role should be in a marriage. He’s just someone to take “out the trash and set up the baby gear, and he provides a second income.” In other words, a cash machine/servant/babysitter who you never have to have sex with, but will still massage your back for way longer than “two minutes.” Sounds lovely, where do I sign up? Realistically, the author should just marry some poor sap and promptly get divorced, since a transfer of material wealth without any real human contact will allow her to dote on her precious, male role-model-less kid undisturbed. Either that, or just admit she’s a lesbian.

I'm not sure how far back the saying goes (if you can find an early literary use of this aphorism, please share). Presumably, its origins lie in the not-so-distant past when women were far more dependent on their husbands than they may be today. As historians like Stephanie Coontz have shown, the ideal of marriage as a lifelong love affair — or even an enduring friendship — is relatively new. Many of what we think of our as deepest romantic ideals date back only a little more than a century.

Yet the fact that marriages in the more distant past were more concerned with property (and with reassuring men that they could know who their children were) doesn't mean that a husband's romantic devotion didn't have a vital purpose. In a world where women were essentially chattel, marriage marked the moment at which a woman was transferred from father to husband. The choreography of the familiar American church wedding service reflects this still. At marriage, a husband acquired the right to beat or otherwise mistreat his wife. But legally sanctioned opportunity is not automatic obligation. A man could, if he wanted, refuse to exercise any of the rights of domination he had. What would hold him back from doing the violence that he was allowed to do? Love. Or so goes the theory. In reality, as experts in intimate partner violence agree, plenty of abusive men claim to be head over heels in love with the women they harm.

In our own world, this tenacious bit of conventional heterosexual wisdom reflects a different assumption. A man who loves his wife (or a boyfriend who loves his girlfriend) more than she loves him in return will, as my friend's little sister told us at the engagement party, be less likely to cheat. Greater male passion isn't about protecting a woman from intimate violence as much as it is about reducing the risk of infidelity. Based on the intuitive but unverifiable assumption that men in love are less likely to be unfaithful, the theory also offers a secondary reassurance to women. If he loves you more than you love him, and he cheats on you, at least your diminished investment will inoculate you against the worst emotional effects of sexual betrayal.

RICK SANTORUM'S WIFE DATED THE DOCTOR WHO DELIVERED HER, AN ABORTION PROVIDER 40 YEARS HER SENIOR

Nancy Hass at The Daily Beast on the odd past of Karen Santorum, who is now as strictly anti-abortion as her husband:

But Mrs. Santorum, 51, apparently wasn’t always committed to the cause. In fact, her live-in partner through most of her 20s was Tom Allen, a Pittsburgh obstetrician and abortion provider 40 years older than she, who remains an outspoken crusader for reproductive rights and liberal ideals. Dr. Allen has known Mrs. Santorum, born Karen Garver, her entire life: he delivered her in 1960.

“Karen was a lovely girl, very intelligent and sweet,” says Allen, who at 92 uses a walker but retains a sly smile. A wine aficionado who frequented the Pittsburgh Symphony and was active in the local chapter of the ACLU, he lives with his wife of 16 years, Judi—they started dating in 1989, soon after he and Garver split—in the same large detached row house where he lived with the woman who would become Santorum’s wife.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked as a psychologist, treating issues of sexuality in my clinical practice, in several states in the American south west. I’ve seen scores of patients who have what most people would consider to be a highly active sex life, but I haven’t diagnosed anyone, ever, as being “addicted” to sex. I’ve publicly challenged the validity of sex addiction, and this has brought me trouble. I’ve been accused of being “evil”, “dangerous” and “heartless”. Sex addiction therapists have attacked me — I’ve even been accused of being a sex addict myself, told that I am in “denial” about the danger of my own sexual desires.
But the fact is, there’s no standard definition of sex addiction. It hasn’t been recognised as a bona fide disease by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the medical profession’s bible when it comes to mental health, so, instead, there are a dozen or so competing definitions and no two psychotherapists who apply the concept in the same way. A diagnosis is based on a therapist’s own idea of what constitutes an excessive amount of sex. But the mistake all these “experts” make is to try to apply the characteristics of drug and alcohol addiction to sex, claiming too much sex works like a drug, causing cravings, withdrawals, tolerance (the need for increasingly powerful “hits”) and a downward spiral in which sex “takes over their life”.

LETTERS FROM MEN WHO GO TO STRIP CLUBS

is an online project that launched on October 26, 2011. It was created by journalist and blogger Susannah Breslin. Why do you go to strip clubs? EMAIL your stories. All letters and their authors will remain anonymous.

The only problem is when I witness real vulnerability.

One of my friends declined a lapdance offer because he didn't have a girlfriend at the time and didn't want to go home with blue balls. One of the businessmen was obviously lonely more than he was admiring, as naked as the woman talking with him. One groomsman was obviously far too admiring, and his apathy toward his current relationship was suddenly and vividly apparent. One stripper was obviously very keen for private performances, clearly needing the higher payout with some sense of urgency.

All of that is uncomfortable to witness, because none of it can be commented on nor helped without becoming far too intimate far too fast. The club creates the illusion of heterosexual intimacy, a coy game of it, but it refuses to actually allow or engage the real thing. So long as everyone involved simply enjoys the game, all is well; but the moment someone needs more than the game, they absolutely cannot have it, and so they stand there, open and raw and unable to share. Most of the other dudes are too engaged to notice, but the detached strippers and the detached gay man notice.

It is profoundly uncomfortable. It is the price of a fun outing, the price of not being entranced by the ladies. I see cute straight men letting their guard down and baring themselves, and there's rarely a thing I can do about it beyond sending a stripper their way. I get to feel generous and thoughtful, but I do so fundamentally at their expense.

More than 100 people packed into the Q Center on North Mississippi last Sunday, November 6, for one of BRO’s town halls on the issue. The news wasn’t good. Though the conversational campaign has upped voter support in Oregon nine percent in 18 months (whoa), polling still shows only about 48 percent of Oregonians back gay marriage.
“All the political campaigners are really clear with us,” Thomas Wheatley, BRO’s organizing director told the crowd. “We’ve got to have a big buffer of support, something that can withstand their negative ads.”
As a case in point, in California in 2008, the anti-gay marriage measure Proposition 8 was trailing by three percentage points eight weeks before election day. But the measure surged to victory thanks to a full-court press of ads from gay-marriage opponents.


Looks like Oregon’s 14,979 same-sex couples really have to wait another two years to get the rights of full citizens.

The ring - platinum, with a brushed finish and his wedding date inscribed on the inside - fits snugly on his exposed left ring finger, and in two seasons it has yet to fall off or even come loose. In truth, Fitzpatrick said he found discussing it more uncomfortable than wearing it. He does so for "personal reasons, not for everybody to talk about." But people do talk about it, particularly now that Fitzpatrick has piloted the Bills to a 5-2 record and a first-place tie with New England atop the A.F.C. East.

When Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie first noticed Fitzpatrick's ring last season, he said he had to look twice, so unfamiliar was the sight. During games, Cromartie protects his ring beneath a glove. Some players, like Tampa Bay cornerback Ronde Barber, wear a rubber band to signify their commitment. Barber's teammate, Brian Price, said his wife, Candice, understands why he does not wear his ring.

"She knows I'm her king, and she's my queen, so she doesn't care," said Price, a defensive tackle. "When I'm out there, I'm not married and I don't have family. Off the field, I'm all hers. But on the field, I'm a monster. And I don't want my queen to be associated with a monster."


Given that the N.F.L. seems to levy fines at the drop of a helmet for the slightest uniform infraction, it may be somewhat surprising that Fitzpatrick is permitted to wear the ring at all. But wearing jewelry constitutes an escape from conformity. League policy prohibits only "metal or other hard objects that project from a player's uniform, including from his shoes."

Today’s 18- to 29-year-olds value parenthood far more than marriage, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of attitudinal surveys.

A 2010 Pew Research survey found that 52% of Millennials say being a good parent is “one of the most important things” in life. Just 30% say the same about having a successful marriage– meaning there is a 22 percentage point gap in the way Millennials value parenthood over marriage.

When this same question was posed to 18- to 29-year-olds in 1997, the gap was just 7 percentage points. Back then, 42% of the members of what is known as Generation X said being a good parent was one of the most important things in life, while 35% said the same about having a successful marriage.

“You have to be ready to leave behind your entire life, your identity of a wife, of a normal family,” the woman, now 43, said in an interview. “You have to be ready to call the man you once loved a rapist.

“I just couldn’t do it before. But that night I knew, if I didn’t leave him, I would die.”

Norway vies with its Nordic neighbors for the title of most gender-egalitarian country in the world. Yet gender equality still seems to stop at the bedroom door, and even here, women who recounted their experiences declined to be identified, fearful still of retribution.

Sexual violence against women in Scandinavia shares characteristics seen in more unequal societies: It is all too common and rarely reported, and those who commit it are even more rarely convicted. Ancient prejudices about male prerogative and modern assumptions about female emancipation conspire to create a thick wall of silence, shame and legal ambiguity.

One in 10 Norwegian women over the age of 15 has been raped, according to the country’s largest shelter organization, the Secretariat of the Shelter Movement. But at least 80 percent of these cases are never brought to official attention and only 10 percent of those that are end in a conviction, the Justice Ministry says.

Nowhere is this taboo more stubborn than in the family home, long considered off-limits for law enforcement and the state.

“The statistics tell us that the safest place for women is outside, on the street — most rapes happen at home,” said Tove Smaadahl, general manager of the Shelter Movement. In a 2005 survey by the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 9 percent of female respondents in a relationship reported experiencing sexual assault.

“No, we don’t have equality between men and women,” Ms. Smaadahl said, “not until we have addressed the issue of relationship rape.”

But Norway is still one of 127 countries in the world — including 12 members of the European Union — that do not explicitly criminalize rape within marriage, according to a survey of women’s access to justice published by U.N. Women last July.

While all Western nations have now removed exemptions for husbands from rape legislation, preconceptions about sexuality in marriage live on, said Laura Turquet, chief author of the U.N. 2011 Progress of the World’s Women report.

Norway and other Scandinavian countries got there relatively early, in the 1960s and 1970s. But Germany only removed its spousal exemption in 1997. In 1993, North Carolina became the last U.S. state to do so. Until 1992, Britain had a common-law principle that assumed the marriage contract implied consent.

IN THE 1990S, Stephanie Coontz, a social historian at Evergreen State College in Washington, noticed an uptick in questions from reporters and audiences asking if the institution of marriage was falling apart. She didn’t think it was, and was struck by how everyone believed in some mythical Golden Age of Marriage and saw mounting divorce rates as evidence of the dissolution of this halcyon past. She decided to write a book discrediting the notion and proving that the ways in which we think about and construct the legal union between a man and a woman have always been in flux.

What Coontz found was even more interesting than she’d originally expected. In her fascinating Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, she surveys 5,000 years of human habits, from our days as hunters and gatherers up until the present, showing our social arrangements to be more complex and varied than could ever seem possible. She’d long known that the Leave It to Beaver–style family model popular in the 1950s and ’60s had been a flash in the pan, and like a lot of historians, she couldn’t understand how people had become so attached to an idea that had developed so late and been so short-lived.

For thousands of years, marriage had been a primarily economic and political contract between two people, negotiated and policed by their families, church, and community. It took more than one person to make a farm or business thrive, and so a potential mate’s skills, resources, thrift, and industriousness were valued as highly as personality and attractiveness. This held true for all classes. In the American colonies, wealthy merchants entrusted business matters to their landlocked wives while off at sea, just as sailors, vulnerable to the unpredictability of seasonal employment, relied on their wives’ steady income as domestics in elite households. Two-income families were the norm.

Many studies have found a link between how well men do economically and their height. A recent German study, for example, found that for each additional standard deviation in height (an increase of about 7 cm) West German men are paid a 4% wage premium. So for example, a man who is less than 165 cm  (5’5”) tall is, on average, paid 562€ less per month than a man who is between 185 and 195 cm (6’1” to 6’5”). Other studies that look at data from countries throughout the developed world have found very similar results – taller men do better on average in the labor market.

There are several reasons why this relationship exists beyond simple workplace discrimination, not the least of which being that adult height is related to socio-economic status in childhood. But it isn’t just income that is causing short men to fair worse on the marriage market; even when we control for income women prefer taller men.

So where is Wade getting all these dollar values for warm bodies anyway? Ah, that's the WhatsYourPrice.com difference: The site's raison d'etre is to get folks to set their bidding price for a hot date—to establish, through open trading, a stable market value for everyone who's seeking companionship. "Most of us are already pretty familiar with the idea of buying a first date," Wade's site states, but "an economic model of pricing and paying for a first date did not exist in the real world...until now." Basically, if you're "young and attractive" by WhatsYourPrice.com standards, you can put yourself up for a first-date auction and make some dough. And if you're a lonely guy with money to spend, you can buy yourself a first date with an insanely attractive woman. All the while, you're providing Wade with macro data on his macabre sexual-slave market. It's like some grand Nate Silver experiment, only, you know, completely douchey.

To be fair, Wade understands the sensitivity of his work. The Ash-Demi post includes this disclaimer:

While some of you may find this study to be offensive, please understand that it is not our intention to offend. The price value of an attractive male or female in this study is calculated from over 180,000 first date offers traded between members of our website. Our study is meant only to let us understand how humans, from a sociological and quantifiable point of view, evaluate each other.

The very next line of the "study" begins: "The following is the Cougar value graph and the Cub value graph." Don't try to fight it, folks: It's only science!

If marriage is to mirror this principle, we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself, but that she is to be chosen by a man and marriage is to be an unbreakable arrangement between the man and her father. Based on this reasoning, we have shunned a standard proposal and wedding ceremony, because if I had asked her to marry me (which I did not) then I would have given her the decision to marry me rather than selecting her and taking her myself. Furthermore, if we had exchanged conventional marriage vows, our union would have been based on X’s will and consent, which are not Biblical factors for marriage or salvation.


As Quiverfull Believers dig ever-deeper into their Bibles in search of the truly “biblical model” for godly marriage, ideas about courtship and “betrothal” are becoming increasingly savage and brutish. It would seem unlikely that Courtship standards could get even more oppressive considering that Christian notions of “biblical match-making” have already been taken to outrageous extremes.

Josh Harris started a back-to-bible-living revolution among Christian young people when he advocated the courtship model in his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. What – no dating for teens? Now that’s a radical concept! As “bible believers” jumped on the bandwagon of father-led pairing of qualified young men and women in serious pursuit of marriage, popular Quiverfull patriarchs took biblical courtship to a new level of paternal domination as they pointed to Old Testament examples of “betrothal” as the very best way to ensure the future success of Christian marriage.

The Senate, in a 30-16 vote, agreed to let voters decide during the May primaries whether the state Constitution should ban same-sex marriage. The House approved the measure the day before, 75 to 42.

It is already illegal for people of the same sex to marry in North Carolina. If the amendment passes, it will serve to reinforce that ban and make it more difficult for future legislatures to extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples.

It could also call into question domestic partnership benefits offered by public institutions and the application of domestic violence laws, said Holning Lau, an associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina. The proposal also would bar the state from sanctioning civil unions. Originally, backers wanted the issue on the ballot in November 2012, where it might help attract voters more likely to vote against President Obama and Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat. To quell accusations that the ballot initiative was driven solely by politics, the date was moved to the state’s primary election in May.

Secretary of State Kate Brown will join Basic Rights Oregon and the Bus Project for a Community Outreach Event and BBQ Sunday, August 14 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Eastrose Unitarian Fellowship (1133 NE 181st Ave.–between Halsey and Glisan).
The event is being forged to capitalize on the momentum stemming from New York state’s gay marriage victory last month. As the tide turns in public favor for marriage equality, community work by BRO will similarly be vamped up to promote a  ballot measure campaign to legalize gay marriage in Oregon.

Bradford Wells, a U.S. citizen, and Anthony John Makk, a citizen of Australia, were married seven years ago in Massachusetts. They have lived together 19 years, mostly in an apartment in the Castro district. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied Makk's application to be considered for permanent residency as a spouse of an American citizen, citing the 1996 law that denies all federal benefits to same-sex couples.

The decision was issued July 26. Immigration Equality, a gay-rights group that is working with the couple, received the notice Friday and made it public Monday. Makk was ordered to depart the United States by Aug. 25. Makk is the sole caregiver for Wells, who has severe health problems.

Bradford Wells, a U.S. citizen, and Anthony John Makk, a citizen of Australia, were married seven years ago in Massachusetts. They have lived together 19 years, mostly in an apartment in the Castro district. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied Makk's application to be considered for permanent residency as a spouse of an American citizen, citing the 1996 law that denies all federal benefits to same-sex couples.

The decision was issued July 26. Immigration Equality, a gay-rights group that is working with the couple, received the notice Friday and made it public Monday. Makk was ordered to depart the United States by Aug. 25. Makk is the sole caregiver for Wells, who has severe health problems.

Seattle Weekly published a remarkable cover story last week. Over the course of more than 6,000 words, it made the argument that true crime author Ann Rule made a series of mistakes and false conclusions in her book, Heart Full of Lies.

The book tells to story of the shooting death of Oregon pilot Chris Northon. He was killed by his wife, Liysa. Seattle Weekly’s story argued that she “was failed by her original lawyer, an overzealous district attorney, and Rule, who claimed that Liysa was not the battered wife she’d portrayed herself to be, but rather a sociopath who’d concocted tales of abuse as a justification for shooting her husband.”

The author of the piece is Rick Swart, the editor and publisher of the Wallowa County Chieftain, a community newspaper in the area where the crime took place. He pitched the piece to Seattle Weekly and they published it last week.

The problem is Swart committed a massive failure of disclosure. Here’s how Seattle Weekly’s Caleb Hannan explains the issue in his editor’s note, which is here and was added to the top of the cover story:


What Swart failed to reveal to us is that he’s now engaged to Liysa.

While many of us worry about protecting our private information from large corporations like Google and Apple, the reality is that those closest to use are more likely to care about our emails, calling and browsing history than some corporate Big Brother. According to a new study by electronics review and shopping site Retrevo, 30% of all the men in this study and 35% of women have ever checked the email or call history of someone they are dating. For married couples, those numbers are slightly higher (32% for men and 41% for women) and – no surprise – parents are just as likely to spy on their kids (37%) as they are to spy on each other.

Despite momentum for same-sex marriage in legislatures, the courts and public opinion, there's one place that seems out of step with this shift: the workplace. A recent study finds that about half of gay and lesbian white-collar workers are not "out" when they're in the office.

Oregon is the freest Pacific state and the top state in terms of personal freedom. Moreover, Oregon enjoyed the greatest increase in freedom of any state since 2007 and the highest positive jump in the overall rankings (from #22 to #8). This was primarily due to big improvements in the quality of its court system, the enactment of same-sex civil unions, and a substantial decline in tax collections (from 9.7 percent to 8.8 percent of personal income). Despite the low taxes, government spending in Oregon remains much too high, resulting in relatively high state debt. Public safety, administration, and environment and housing look particularly ripe for cutting. Gun control laws are a bit better than average. Marijuana possession is decriminalized below a certain level, and there is medical marijuana (cultivation and sale are felonies, though). However, arrests for victimless crimes are surprisingly high (though Oregon’s drug law-enforcement rate declined markedly since 2007). Oregon is one of the few states to refuse to authorize sobriety checkpoints. It is also the only state besides Washington (and now Montana, which allowed it after the closing date on our data) to permit physician-assisted suicide. Private- and homeschool regulations are quite reasonable. Oregon also does quite well in terms of asset forfeiture. The state’s cigarette taxes are higher than most, and its smoking bans were recently tightened. Oregon’s spirits tax is the highest in the country and quite extreme (though interestingly, its neighbor, Washington, is the only other state three standard deviations above the national average). State land-use planning is very advanced. The minimum wage is the second highest in the country when adjusted for average wages. Labor laws are generally poor. Occupational licensing is excessive. However, health-insurance coverage mandates are a bit below the national average.

The wife of a Snoqualmie man charged with domestic violence endured eight years of beatings, cigarette burns, lashes with a fishing pole and slashes with a hunting knife before she finally called police, court documents allege.

And even then, it was a threat to her dog that prompted her to call 911 last week, according to the documents filed in King County Superior Court.

Geoffrie C. Glass, 38, was charged Monday with domestic-violence assault, domestic-violence harassment and a firearms violation.

Bail was set by a King County District Court judge at $1 million at the request of prosecutors. The high bail was the result of a threat made by Glass, prosecutors said.

The couple spent much of their time apart since Democrat Kurt Schrader, 59, was elected represent the Fifth District in 2008. He won the seat vacated by Darlene Hooley. <br />
<br />
The Schraders were a political team. She served as her husbands' chief of staff during in the early years in the Legislature, where he served for 15 years. <br />
<br />
<br />
Martha Schrader was appointed Clackamas County commissioner 2003 and was re-elected twice. She was appointed to her husband's state senate seat after he was elected to Congress. She lost a close Senate race last fall. <br />
<br />
During Martha Schrader's time on the county commission there were rumors that the couple's marriage was in trouble. <br />
<br />
Martha Schrader announced Tuesday that next year she will seek another term on the county commission.

The difference in attitudes between those aged 18 to 34 and those aged 55 and older was stark when it came to pornography, with 42 percent of the younger group polled by Gallup saying that it was morally acceptable, in contrast to 19 percent of those in the older group.
In general, Americans in the "broadest" sense agreed on certain behaviors they believe are morally wrong, Gallup reported.
For example, at least eight in 10 U.S. adults interviewed in the survey said extramarital affairs, polygamy, cloning humans and suicide were wrong, while least six in 10 people surveyed said pornography and cloning animals were morally wrong, Jones said.
On the question of gay and lesbian relationships, 66 percent of younger Americans said they were moral — 13 percentage points higher than among the older cohort.
While there is no final tally on the number of lesbian, gay, or bisexual Americans, those surveyed believe the number was higher than nine years ago, with half of those polled saying at least 20 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian.

When it comes to premarital sex, Americans aged 18 to 34 were even more enthusiastic, with 71 percent approving. But just 47 percent of older Americans approved of sex before marriage.

55 percent of Democrats, for example, said abortion was acceptable, while only 18 percent of Republicans believed abortion was morally OK.

At Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, professor Marina Adshade teaches a popular undergraduate course called "Economics of Sex and Love," in which students apply the analytical and statistical tools available to economists to examine human sexuality. Topics in the course—which Marina will explore in this blog, too—include dating and marriage, promiscuity, infidelity, risky sexual behavior, the relation between sex and happiness, and markets for sex such as prostitution, pornography, and lap dancing.Economic theory suggests that sex makes people happy. Marina finds that economics plus sex is also very satisfying.  May this blog be as good for you as it is for her.

Asked to evaluate the reasons they got married, married respondents place the greatest value on love (93% say this is a very important reason), followed by making a lifelong commitment (87%), companionship (81%), having children (59%), and, at the bottom of the list, financial stability (31%). Unmarried adults order the reasons the same way when asked to evaluate why they would consider getting married. But if economic security is no longer a key reason people marry, the lack of economic security nonetheless appears to be a key reason people don't get married. In 1960, there was virtually no difference by socio-economic status in the proclivity to marry: 76% of college graduates and 72% of adults who did not attend college were married. By 2008, that small gap had widened to a chasm: 64% of college graduates were married, compared with just 48% of those with a high school diploma or less. During this same period, the income gap between the well-educated and the less-educated -- and between the rich and poor -- also widened substantially. A 2010 Pew Research survey finds that among the unmarried, there are no significant differences by education or income in the desire to get married; just under half of the college educated (46%) and those who have a high school diploma or less (44%) would like to get married. Likewise, roughly similar shares of the unmarried who earn above and below $100,000 a year would like to marry. But the survey also finds that the less education and income people have, the more likely they are to say that in order to be a good marriage prospect, a person must be able to support a family financially.

One of the most common requests we receive is from students seeking statistics for their reports and from programs seeking statistics to bolster their requests for grant money and other funding. This page should point you in the right direction for finding up-to-date information covering a variety of statistical reporting on abuse issues, whether you are looking for frequently cited resources or for statistics by state.

It must be noted however, that there always remains the "gray element" in crime; that is, those incidents which occur but are never reported or are classified in ways which make it difficult to determine the true nature of the incident.

A prime example of this is domestic violence in same sex couples. Whether it's because the officer taking the report didn't know, didn't care or didn't want to "call it that", or because the parties involved were reluctant to expose the nature of the relationship, most domestic violence incidents between gays and lesbians end up classified as "assault" or "battery" - seriously skewing the true statistics and making it almost impossible to use the common statistical reports for guidance or insight into the issue.

Another often problematic example occurs when trying to extrapolate information from statistical reports where external factors play an important role, yet aren't accounted for. Any amount of research concerning victimization is bound to run into strange and misleading numbers.

An obvious example of this concerns abuse in low vs. high income families. While on the surface, it may appear that low levels of income go hand-in-hand with higher levels of domestic violence, one must keep in mind that available income has significant weight on the options available to victims.

In May 2005, in Grants Pass, Oregon, Wendy Maldonado was arrested and charged with the murder of her husband, Aaron.[1] According to Wendy Maldonado, the incident took place after almost 20 years of violent domestic abuse committed by Aaron against his wife and their four sons. Days later her eldest son, Randall (known as Randy), was arrested for his part in the killing. In 2006, a plea bargain led Wendy and Randy to plead guilty to the reduced charges of manslaughter.[2] Wendy was sentenced to 120 months imprisonment and Randy to 75 months imprisonment.[1] Before sentencing, Randy was detained in jail while Wendy was allowed home on bail to take care of her other three children.
The film follows Wendy in the final days before she begins her sentence and includes home video footage of the family over the years of the Maldonado's marriage, and interviews with friends, family members and neighbors, some of whom witnessed the domestic abuse.[1]

"The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages"

The research suggests "that there is little or no average effect of [family meal frequency] on child cognitive and behavioral outcomes during the period from kindergarten to eighth grade." Previous studies may not be wrong, but their results "should be interpreted with caution," according to Daniel P. Miller and Wen-Jui Han. The two acknowledge that their research did not look at older teenagers; earlier research has suggested that adolescents who often have family meals are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol or to have behavior problems.

A recent Pew Research Center report on family issues includes some data on frequency of family meals, taken from a survey of adults last October. Among parents of children under age 18, half say they have dinner every day with some or all of their children, 34% say they have family meals a few times a week, 11% say they do so occasionally and 3% say they never do.

Today's 18- to 29-year-olds value parenthood far more than marriage, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of attitudinal surveys.

A 2010 Pew Research survey found that 52% of Millennials say being a good parent is "one of the most important things" in life. Just 30% say the same about having a successful marriage -- meaning there is a 22-percentage-point gap in the way Millennials value parenthood over marriage.

When this same question was posed to 18- to 29-year-olds in 1997, the gap was just seven percentage points. Back then, 42% of the members of what is known as Generation X said being a good parent was one of the most important things in life, while 35% said the same about having a successful marriage.

I was lucky in being able to see how a rape victim should be treated afterwards: with love and respect, acceptance for what happened. She was never blamed for the rape. But she was also portrayed as completely innocent and the rape was implied to have been violent.

What I also took away from the conversation with my mother was this: rape makes babies. So for a long time, I thought rape was the verb for sex. I mashed my bootleg Ken and Barbie together, Barbie saying "rape me."

The thing about this is that even in these imaginations, where in my head, women are more or less always seducing men, the word I used was "rape". Because the one time I used the word "fuck" I was told it was a bad word. My family didn't speak any Chinese dialects around me (and certainly NEVER sex-related topics in dialects) nor did I know Malay well enough. So in my understanding, this action which tended to result in pregnancy, which I knew anyway was something adults did for pleasure, was "sex" when it was a noun, but the verb was "rape".

It would be a few years before I understood that rape is a bad thing, only after several newspaper reports using the word to describe really awful situations.

Su última exposición individual ha sido Marry Me en el Espacio GB-Sevilla, 2010.

when you first began to sense you are seeing signs of a cheating spouse, immediately comes the pain of feeling inadequate. Why else would they wander? The message you receive: you are no longer enough. You no longer satisfy. You have become dull and uninteresting.
Recovering from Infidelity: Where Did It All Begin?
Which, of course, could be not true at all. The impetus for the betrayal could easily lie with what is going on with your spouse or partner and have little to do with you.
This feeling of I-am-no-longer-enough is particularly hard on women due to the worship of youth in our culture, but believe me, it is difficult for men as well.
Because we have defined our life with our partner, that definition has “meaning” to us. If a person off the street approached you and told you were plain and uninteresting, I doubt you would care much. Bugger off, leave me be. But, when it comes from a trusted partner, it carries weight. It has “meaning.”

the U.S. has one of the highest marriage rates as well as one of the highest divorce rates. According to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), there were more new marriages per 1,000 people in the U.S. in 2006 (7.4) than in any European Union (EU) country, with the exception of Cyprus, at a comparable time. In France and Italy, for example, just 4.2 new marriages were formed per 1,000 people in 2005, and the rate was even lower in the Eastern European countries of Hungary (4.1), Bulgaria (3.9) and Slovenia (3.2).

In the mid-2000s, the number of divorces per 1,000 people in the U.S. was considerably higher than the average for EU countries (3.7 vs. 2.1). The divorce rate was especially low in Italy, where there was less than 1 divorce per 1,000 people (0.8). France and Germany fell in the middle of the EU pack, with divorce rates of 2.2 and 2.3, respectively, while former Soviet republics Lithuania (3.4 divorces per 1,000 people) and Latvia (3.3) had the highest divorce rates.

The researchers surveyed 3,240 men and 3,304 women who were married, living with a partner or in a relationship, asking them about their satisfaction with their sex lives. A majority of men (54 percent) and nearly as many women (42 percent) said they were unhappy with the frequency of sex, according to the report, published in the March issue of The Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.

For most men, the complaint was that they weren’t having sex often enough. Among women who were unhappy about the frequency of their sex lives, two-thirds said they weren’t having enough sex, but a third complained they were having more sex than they wanted.

Among the respondents, 73 percent were married, and 60 percent had been with their spouse or partner for 10 years or more. Men ages 35 to 44 who had been with a woman for six years or longer were the most likely to be unhappy with how often they had sex.

Men and women who were unhappy with the frequency of sex in their relationship were also most likely to report lower levels of overall relationship satisfaction.

Currently, there are five states plus the District of Columbia where marriage of same-sex couples is recognized. In each of those places, the freedom to marry was achieved through action by the courts and/or a vote of the legislature. That is simply not an option in Oregon.

In 2004, Oregon voters passed Measure 36, which amended the state constitution to specifically exclude gay and lesbian couples from marriage. Basic Rights Oregon worked with the best attorneys in the state and challenged this measure in court, but the Oregon State Supreme Court refused to take up the case. And the Oregon legislature does not have the authority to amend our constitution – they can only refer the issue back to the voters.

This means that to win the freedom to marry, the voters themselves must amend the state constitution to replace the current discriminatory language with inclusive language.

Because the courts have refused to take action and the legislature cannot amend the constitution, the only way to achieve the freedom to marry for all committed couples in Oregon is through the ballot.

The exciting news is that Oregon is poised to be the first state in the nation to win freedom to marry by a vote of the people. The tide of public opinion is already moving in our direction. Our job is to accelerate the pace of change by building awareness and educating our friends, family and neighbors.

Interesting debate over adding a single letter (and just what it means):

Married people exercise less than single people do. I know this because married couples have told me so—56% of people we surveyed said they gained weight after they got married. Everyone has their excuses: They’re too busy with their demanding jobs, too exhausted by their demanding children, too lazy to get off their demanding couches. But the real reason is moral hazard, or the tendency to take more risks and behave more irresponsibly when there are no consequences. Moral hazard is one reason the country’s biggest financial firms bet the house on subprime mortgages—they knew if worse came to worst, Uncle Sam would be there to bail them out.

Some 54% of married people, according to our research, wish they were having more sex, and the people who are doing it more also report being happier in their relationships. Not saying one causes the other, but there’s a definite correlation, for what it’s worth. The #1 reason people say they don’t do it more: They’re too tired.

What also makes pre-adulthood something new is its radical reversal of the sexual hierarchy. Among pre-adults, women are the first sex. They graduate from college in greater numbers (among Americans ages 25 to 34, 34% of women now have a bachelor's degree but just 27% of men), and they have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. These strengths carry women through their 20s, when they are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even out-earning their brothers and boyfriends.

marriage was a kind of pleasant business partnership in which both partners walked a fine line between cheerful (he) and deferential (she).

Of course, the saddest thing about these charts, which were created from surveys of real men and women of the 1930s by Scientific Marriage Foundation founder George Crane, is that the answers are so different. I don’t suspect my female forebears had a craving for red nail polish, but it is comforting to think that these days, fewer and fewer people would even blink at the sight of anyone wearing any color of nail polish, least of all red. Nor would they necessarily mind if a woman had crooked seams in her hose, or if she didn’t “dress for breakfast.” These small fashion statements speak loudly of how times have changed.

As for the men’s chart, it’s particularly depressing that women wanted men to read aloud newspapers, books, and magazines to them, and it makes you wonder whether we’re about to find out about some horrible Way Things Were, like that women weren’t required to learn how to read in school, but no one has let on until now because they thought it would make us sad.

Effective immediately, U.S. residents can choose between “In a domestic partnership” and “In a civil union,” along with the usual roster of relationship options, which currently include Single, In a relationship, Engaged, Married, It’s complicated, In an open relationship, Widowed, Separated and Divorced.

These two new options should be rolled out to residents of other countries soon. In countries where same-sex marriages are already legal, these options will not appear.

Google has rolled out a dedicated site where consumers can create a wedding website, edit photos and plan their wedding using wedding-specific templates in Google Sites, Google Docs and Picnik. The company announced the move today on its official Google blog.

If you know you want an open relationship, stick to that from the beginning. Make agreements about it while it's still an abstract concept and you're both so silly in love that anything feels possible. It won't be an easy discussion, even so. But if you wait, the scared partner tends to think, "This is all That Other Person's fault. Everything was fine until she/he came along!" That's neither accurate nor helpful.

However, a poly-confident partner should not cruelly disregard a nervous lover's feelings. Here's my advice: Be honest about how you'd like your open relationship to look and then exercise only a fraction of the consented-to latitude at first, until your partner learns to trust you. Once a relationship is closed, it's hard to reopen. But if it stays open, and adjusting it becomes not a matter of if but how, then your relationship has a better chance to evolve and flourish.

An Iowa state elected official—can you guess which party?—trots out a tired, false, and repeatedly debunked stat to justify banning gay marriage: gay people have lower life expectancies than straight people. And since we don't contribute as much to society as "normal people that do not enter into that kind of relationship," we clearly shouldn't be allowed to marry. (The haters use these false stats to argue against our right to be at all.)

First: those stats are bullshit. And second...

Even if it were true—even if gay people had lower life expectancies (which we do not)—and if that "fact" all by itself was a justification for banning same-sex marriage, why stop with gay people? Iowa should ban fat marriage. There are, according to the state of Iowa, more than 1.4 million obese people living in Iowa. That's nearly 30% of the state's population, and those numbers just keep rising. The social costs of Iowa's obesity epidemic are pretty staggering—and those costs include including premature death and lower average life expectancies for Iowans.

Since we know that obesity is "contagious"—someone with an obese spouse is 37% more likely to be or become obese—then we shouldn't permit the obese to marry. If an outright ban on fat marriage seems too draconian, then we shouldn't permit the obese to marry the non-obese. The odds that the skinny spouse will be ultimately be seduced into the risky obese lifestyle are simply too great and the potential health consequences too severe.

The Effects of Incarceration on Intimate Partner Relationships

Contents:
Decreased Likelihood of Marriage and Family Involvement
Impact of Imprisonment on Intimacy and Commitment
Barriers to Contact and Communication
Role Changes
Psychological Changes
Economic and Emotional Strains Associated with Single Parenting
Community-Level Effects
Positive Perceptions of Partner Incarceration from Women
Research Limitations

The recession also appears to have staved off divorce in some instances (Fig. 5). Among married Americans who say they were considering divorce or separation prior to the recession (about 5 percent of all respondents in the survey), 38 percent say that the recession has caused them to put aside divorce or separation.

Divorce is expensive, so when the economy tanked, a lot of unhappy couples decided it just wasn't the time to split. Some held off when they couldn't sell their home. Federal figures suggest the divorce rate fell about 7 percent between 2006 and 2009, and divorce lawyers across the country saw business dry up. But that's changing.

"I would say that over the last six months, the activity in our firm has probably picked up by 20, 25 percent," says Sandy Ain, a divorce lawyer in Washington, D.C.

states that allow gay marriage vs states that allow cousins to marry

I learned my first lesson about prison: There is no weather inside. It was always dank and musty, with little light and less air. Prison administrators had arranged for me to meet two lifers, Rob and John, which taught me lesson No. 2: Prisoners don't talk about their crimes. We talked about the food (passable), the guards (good and bad), the time (endless). They took me on a tour, showed me square cells the size of my bathroom, all concrete and steel, most of them double-bunked since the population had expanded beyond the building's capacity.

The prisons had become punch lines in our town, where much of the population earned their living as guards, administrators and contractors. It's amazing to me what I believed back then: that rapes and murders were daily and acceptable fare, that people in prison had little to nothing in common with me.

He did want me to get one thing straight, and fast -- that John, the prisoner assigned to be my "source," was NG. "No good," he translated. "He's a rat." It was the rats, he explained, who told The Man whatever The Man wanted to hear. Rats were allowed to start fights, take drugs, get drunk, all without risking bad reports or sudden transfers. All a prisoner had to do, Will said, was sell his soul.

Writes Amy Friedman on Salon,
Here's my sensational headline: "She married a murderer." But what I've found is that most of us who marry convicted men are not mad. (I've also found that most men in prison — even those guilty of the worst crimes — are not monsters.) Our stories are complicated — like every true love story is.

Being a prisoner's wife requires mighty resistance — to the mind-numbing, bureaucratic prison system itself, but even more, to those who so casually dismiss us as less than, those who see us not as people who deserve support and respect but who deserve contempt.

The divorce rate for prison marriages is reportedly extremely high.

Clearly this pornographic paradigm shift reflects social and economic changes. The desire to cater to the new kind of man and the woman with increased purchasing power has led the savvy pornographer to see that the real prize isn’t getting into women’s pants, but into their pocketbooks.

Yet a funny thing might happen on the way to reaching the female consumer. If Playboy’s programming is successful, the stereotypical image of porno will shift—the portrait of a couple will replace the lone male wanking it away from his wife. 

Thus, Playboy, which has played a tremendous role in dictating American male desire, is making a radical plea. It’s asking you, the individual who typically uses visual erotic stimulation as a mode of escaping reality to, in the immortal words of Stephen Stills, “Love the One You’re With.”

The Flores' wedding at the Community Life Center at Washington Park East Cemetery here illustrates a growing trend.
Across the USA, funeral homes are building and marketing such centers as not just a place to mourn the dead but as sites for events celebrating the living, including weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, holiday parties and proms.
The lure? It is often less expensive; there is greater availability; and the settings — inside and outside — can be nothing short of wedding-picture perfect.
Flanner & Buchanan Funeral Centers opened the $10 million Community Life Center in 2001, but it had a slow start. As recently as 2009, it hosted just 10 weddings. Then Carla Fletcher took over as special events coordinator in March. The center now holds a dozen events each month and has nearly every Friday, Saturday and Sunday booked this year, including 99 weddings, as well as bookings that stretch into 2012, she says.


In a 2010 association survey, almost 10% of the 627 funeral home owners who responded said they owned or offered a community or family center in addition to traditional funeral facilities.