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Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century
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Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "Family Studies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2025) | Viewed by 11292

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Chris Wienke

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Sociology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA
Interests: family; sexuality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In many countries, including virtually all OECD countries, marriage rates have declined over the past few decades. For example, in Portugal, the Netherlands, and Japan, the number of marriages per 1000 individuals fell from about 10 in 1970 to three, four, and five, respectively, in 2019.

Yet, marital decline is not the only story to tell about the current state of marriage. In fact, despite recent trends, millions of people continue to get married each year. And many others tell researchers that they want to get married someday. While marriage may never again be as popular as it was at its peak in the mid-twentieth century, the institution has not exactly become obsolete. Instead, marriage remains a way of life, albeit one of many, for people around the world.

This Special Issue seeks contributions from social scientists who are interested in understanding what marriage means today, how it operates, what difference being married makes in family and personal lives, and why the institution still appeals to people at a time when marriages are becoming less common and alternatives to marriage are proliferating. Contributors are encouraged to submit original research, reviews of the literature, and theoretical papers. We especially welcome work that challenges or complicates declinist narratives about the state of marriage in the twenty-first century.

Please submit your proposals and any questions to Prof. Dr. Chris Wienke. Final papers are due on 15 November 2024 for peer review.

Proposals should be one page in length and include a title, an abstract explaining its relevance to the Special Issue topic, a description of the population, and the methods used (if applicable). Also include author names and affiliations.

Dr. Chris Wienke
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • marriage
  • remarriage
  • same-sex marriage
  • marital relations
  • marital status
  • attitudes toward marriage
  • social institutions
  • deinstitutionalization
  • social norms
  • social change

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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25 pages, 337 KiB  
Article
Resisting Heteroarchy in the United States: Queer Women’s Attitudes Toward Marriage
by Sarah Adeyinka-Skold
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(4), 228; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14040228 - 7 Apr 2025
Viewed by 454
Abstract
Although same-sex couples have had access to legal marriage since 2015, the current literature does not ask young adults who identify as part of the LGBTQ community about their desire to be married. Using interviews with 36 women who self-identified as queer, I [...] Read more.
Although same-sex couples have had access to legal marriage since 2015, the current literature does not ask young adults who identify as part of the LGBTQ community about their desire to be married. Using interviews with 36 women who self-identified as queer, I find that they are more likely to desire marriage. However, an important segment is also ambivalent about legal marriage. I also find that women who want to be married are more likely to highlight the benefits of marriage, including the opportunity to resist heteronormative beliefs and practices in their marital relationships. Women who reject or are ambivalent about marriage are more likely to highlight the drawbacks of the institution. I argue that both groups of women use their emphasis on the benefits or drawbacks of marriage to resist heteroarchy and other intersecting oppressions they still face despite the legalization of same-sex marriage, without compromising their identity as queer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century)
16 pages, 254 KiB  
Article
Principled Faithfulness: A Measure of Moral Reasons for Fidelity and Its Associations with the Tendency to Engage in Extramarital Relationships, Moral Emotions and Emotion Regulation
by Carmen Gabriela Lișman and Andrei Corneliu Holman
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(2), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14020081 - 31 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1985
Abstract
The prevalence of infidelity is high, although it can have destructive impacts on marital relationships. Most past research has focused on utilitarian concerns against extramarital behavior, analyzing the motivational forces that either deter or foster infidelity as a function of the rewards and [...] Read more.
The prevalence of infidelity is high, although it can have destructive impacts on marital relationships. Most past research has focused on utilitarian concerns against extramarital behavior, analyzing the motivational forces that either deter or foster infidelity as a function of the rewards and costs that unfaithful behavior would involve for the individual. The present research (total N = 1067 Romanian married participants) aimed to highlight the intrinsic moral concerns that deter infidelity in marital relationships by applying the general framework of the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). The first study developed a measure of the moral reasons for fidelity and examined its dimensions and psychometric properties. The second study investigated its factorial validity and its relationships with the actual tendency to engage in unfaithful behaviors, the intensity of moral emotions toward infidelity, and the use of different emotion regulation strategies. Overall, the results suggest four types of moral reasons for fidelity: heeding rules, reciprocal ownership, loyalty, and decency and nonmaleficence, and the new scale emerged as having satisfactory psychometric proprieties. Higher scores were positively associated with moral disgust, anger, and contempt toward unfaithful marital partners and compassion toward their spouses, as well as cognitive reappraisal and endorsement of the five moral domains described by MFT. Also, married individuals scoring higher on this measure were also found to have a lower propensity toward infidelity. These findings pinpoint a fine-grained outline of the moral underpinnings of fidelity and indicate their potential relevance for the actual tendency to engage in extramarital relations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century)
26 pages, 348 KiB  
Article
The Biggest Decision of Your Life(Time)? Examining the Politics of Married at First Sight
by Samantha Majic and Zein Murib
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(11), 618; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13110618 - 13 Nov 2024
Viewed by 4013
Abstract
Lifetime’s “Married at First Sight” (MAFS) aired its seventeenth season in 2024, averaging 2.58 million viewers per weekly episode. In this paper, we ask, how does MAFS reflect and intervene in contemporary marriage politics, particularly regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality [...] Read more.
Lifetime’s “Married at First Sight” (MAFS) aired its seventeenth season in 2024, averaging 2.58 million viewers per weekly episode. In this paper, we ask, how does MAFS reflect and intervene in contemporary marriage politics, particularly regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality in the U.S.? To answer this question, we draw on scholarship about marriage as a political institution, and on reality TV as a window into contemporary socio-economic issues. Using interpretive, feminist methods of analysis, we find that MAFS reflects and intervenes in contemporary marriage politics by offering viewers a very traditional and exclusionary version of the institution at a time when it and everything else (reproductive rights and same-sex marriages, to name just two examples) is in flux. However, even as it attempts to offer a “balm” to all of this upheaval, in practice, the show’s “experimental results” offer something more complex, which both reflects the contemporary realities of marriage and attracts viewers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century)
12 pages, 563 KiB  
Article
Exploring Marital Quality in Parents of Children with Autism: Identifying Barriers and Facilitators
by Ayelet Gur and Yifat Golan Bayazy
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(6), 287; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13060287 - 27 May 2024
Viewed by 2857
Abstract
The current study aims to examine the factors that facilitate or act as barriers to the marital relationships of parents of children with ASD. In total, 150 parents of children with ASD participated in this study. An online qualitative survey tool was utilized [...] Read more.
The current study aims to examine the factors that facilitate or act as barriers to the marital relationships of parents of children with ASD. In total, 150 parents of children with ASD participated in this study. An online qualitative survey tool was utilized to collect data, which were subsequently subjected to thematic analysis. Through qualitative analysis, three major themes emerged: (1) Psychological and Emotional Experiences, (2) Sense of Partnership, and (3) The Rich get Richer, including sub-themes such as formal support systems, a strong marital relationship prior to ASD diagnosis, and limited family resources. The findings suggest that elements of the marital relationship can serve as valuable resources for parents of children with ASD in coping with the challenges of parenthood. Conversely, the study highlights certain factors that act as barriers to the marital relationship. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century)
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28 pages, 465 KiB  
Commentary
Beyond Equality—Non-Monogamy and the Necropolitics of Marriage
by Daniel Cardoso and Christian Klesse
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(4), 233; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14040233 - 10 Apr 2025
Viewed by 1097
Abstract
‘Marriage equality’ has been a widely used slogan and mobilizing concept for LGBTQ+ rights’ movements across the globe striving for formal recognition for ‘same-sex’ or ‘same-gender’ marriages. In this article, we critically interrogate the terminology and political rationality that have given shape to [...] Read more.
‘Marriage equality’ has been a widely used slogan and mobilizing concept for LGBTQ+ rights’ movements across the globe striving for formal recognition for ‘same-sex’ or ‘same-gender’ marriages. In this article, we critically interrogate the terminology and political rationality that have given shape to ‘marriage equality’ campaigns. We demonstrate the structural erasure of non-monogamous relations and populations from the changes hoped for and envisioned in these mobilizations. The lack of any genuine and substantial concern with consensual non-monogamies (CNMs) from most of the literature in the field highlights the close entanglement of marriage with monogamy. As a result, ideas are scarce about how meaningful and adequate legal recognition and social policy provisions for a wide range of intimate, sexual, familial, and/or caring bonds or constellations on the CNM continuum could look like. We argue that the critique of the mononormativity inherent to marriage is fundamental to understanding the role of this in the 21st century. We identify the roots of the mononormativity of marriage in its governmental role as a necropolitical and biopolitical technology, evidenced by its ‘civilizing’ function in white settler colonial projects. Because of this, an expansion of the call for equality to include non-monogamous populations does not resolve but rather aggravates the problem. We conclude that any truly queer politics of CNM consequently needs to be anti-marriage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Marriage in the Twenty-First Century)
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