Why marry? Understanding marriage in modern Britain

Carter, Julia

Abstract

In the early 1990s Anthony Giddens proposed that major changes in working life, equal rights and globalisation trends had impacted significantly on the ways in which men and women relate to each other in their personal lives (Giddens 1992). This breakdown in traditional restrictions around courtship arguably led to more ‘experimental’ intimate ties that could be broken easily and at will: the emphasis being on flexibility, negotiation and contingency. Others, however, suggest that it is still important to consider the stabilising influence of the ‘family.’ Carter and Duncan (2018), for example, demonstrate that there is much continuity in family life practices, such as in marriage, women’s marital name changing and weddings, and that the notion of ‘change’ is often over-stated in discussions of the family.

• Journal Article Type: Other
• Acceptance Date: May 16, 2018
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Deposit Date: Aug 14, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 28, 2018
• Journal: Sociology Review
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 2
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/861265
• Publisher URL: https://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/subjects/sociology/products/a-level/sociology-review-online-archive
• Contract Date: Aug 14, 2018