Andrew Cherlin's article The Deinstitutionalization of Marriage is an analytical evaluation of the changing themes of the American approach to the relevance of marriage and its evolution over the past century. Through a method of statistical analysis of the changing ideologies and practices of Americans in regards to the institution of marriage Cherlin is able to show that marriage has now become an option rather than a necessity.
In analyzing the recent growth of cohabitation he finds that its practice began as a short term method of reducing the possibility of divorce as cohabitation was viewed as a sort of "trial marriage". However, as time has progressed this trial period has been severely lengthened and has less frequently yielded marriages as its outcome. Through cited statistics he shows that while in the 1970's sixty percent of cohabitations resulted in a marriage within three years, that number has been drastically reduced to thirty three percent in the 1990's.......

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Title: The Deinstitutionalization Of Marriage
Approximate Word Count: 1192
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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