Where We've Been and Where We're Going

Where We've Been Hello! Welcome to my blog where I talk all about the family! I am excited about today’s topic! To talk about where we are going, or where we want to go, we need to talk about where we started. In today's blog post, I wanted to talk about the evolution of the American family. This was something that was interesting to me, so I did some research and here is what I found! The common structure of the family has changed dramatically over time. The resources that I used will be linked below if you’d like to read more! The Beginning Back when our country was founded, the common family structure was a husband, wife, and their biological children. At this time, if people could get married, they would and they would usually stay married to their spouse until death. Divorce was very rare at this time! At this time, after marriage, a woman would lose her legal existence, property rights, and other rights. The husband was the provider for the family. It was against the law to live with each other outside of marriage but by the 1800s this law was less of an issue. The Middle In the 19th century, things were beginning to change a bit in regard to the rights and obligations of couples, but the average family continued to consist of a man and woman and biological children. In the 20th century, things began to change when the rate of cohabiting couples began to increase. There also began to be an increase in the number of households headed by an unmarried person. As the number of cohabiting couples went up, so did the divorce rate. Today Today we see a dramatic increase in couples that cohabitate. There is a belief that we must “test run” marriage before getting married but research has found that this does not make your chances of staying together any better. We see an increase of children being born out of wedlock and an increase in divorces. In 2004, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage which has changed the direction of the previously common family structure. It is also becoming more common for children to be raised in single parent homes. Where are we going? It is hard to know what the typical family will look like in 5, 10, or even 30 years but we know that there are going to be many changes made. What consequences will these changes make? Sources https://online.csp.edu/resources/article/the-evolution-of-american-family-structure/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol36_2009/summer2009/the_evolution_of_the_american_family/