| The United States has historically had
higher rates of marriage than those of other industrialized countries. The
current annual marriage {{U}}(56) {{/U}} in the United States--about 9
new marriages for every 1,000 people--is {{U}}(57) {{/U}} higher than it
is in other industrialized countries. However, marriage is {{U}}(58)
{{/U}} as widespread as it was several decades ago. {{U}}(59) {{/U}}
of American adults who are married {{U}}(60) {{/U}} from 72 percent in
1970 to 60 percent in 2002. This does not mean that large numbers of people will
remain unmarried {{U}}(61) {{/U}} their lives. Throughout the 20th
century, about 90 percent of Americans married at some {{U}}(62) {{/U}}
in their lives. Experts {{U}}(63) {{/U}} that about the same proportion
of today's young adults will eventually marry. The timing of marriage has varied {{U}}(64) {{/U}} over the past century. In 1995 the average age of women in the United States at the time of their first marriage was 25. The average age of men was about 27. Men and women in the United States marry for the first time an average of five years later than people did in the 1950s. {{U}}(65) {{/U}}, young adults of the 1950s married younger than did any previous {{U}}(66) {{/U}} in U.S. history. Today's later age of marriage is {{U}}(67) {{/U}} the age of marriage between 1890 and 1940. Moreover, a greater proportion of the population was married (95 percent) during the 1950s than at any time before {{U}}(68) {{/U}}. Experts do not agree on why the "marriage rush" of the late 1940s and 1950s occurred, but most social scientists believe it represented a {{U}}(69) {{/U}} to the return of peaceful and prosperity after 15 years of severe economic {{U}}(70) {{/U}} and war. |