posted
Hi all of you. Sorry in advance that I displayed the whole article here (got a bit long) but I think it is a very interesting topic. Would love to talk about it. The trend of having a baby but not being married for various reasons is so total differently then what f.e. Arab culture expects.
In Europe, unmarried parents on rise
More than 1 in 3 children on the Continent are born to unmarried couples, a sixfold increase from the 1970s.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
PARIS – Germany's Bild newspaper has called it "the Steffi Graf trend." And though a pregnant Ms. Graf ended up marrying Andre Agassi a few days before their son, Jaden, was born, Bild has a point. Across Europe, the number of children born to unmarried couples has risen sixfold over the past 35 years to nearly 1 in 3 of all babies, altering the face of the European family beyond recognition - and beyond recall - say demographers and social analysts.
While most governments have regarded the transformation as simply a sign of the times, some experts are sounding the alarm.
Given the relative fragility of de facto unions - and the social implications of single-parent families - "the rise in births outside marriage is a real cause for concern" warns John Ermisch, an economics professor at the University of Essex in England.
If Prof. Ermisch's findings that de facto British unions break up more quickly and more often than marriages apply throughout the continent, points out Dr. Peter Brierley of the Christian Research group in London, the increasing numbers of single-parent families in Europe will mean governments will have to rethink policy on a wide range of issues.
More housing will be needed for more families, more childcare facilities will have to be provided, more thought will have to be given to employing single mothers, and more attention paid to the particular social and educational needs of youngsters brought up by only one parent. All this, with many European countries already faltering under the strain of generous state welfare programs.
Reflecting different social, religious, and economic traditions that have shaped the 25 countries in the European Union (EU), the number of births outside marriage varies widely from one end of the Continent to the other.
In Sweden, the figure is 56 percent. In Greece it is 4 percent. In between come France with 48 percent, Britain at 42 percent and Germany at 28 percent, according to the EU's official statistics branch, Eurostat.
In Germany, one survey shows only 38 percent of women favor marriage
But nearly all nations share two salient factors in common: the numbers have skyrocketed in recent decades, and the increase is due to children born to co-habitating couples, not to single mothers.
"Marriage is no longer considered an indispensable preliminary to welcoming a child" found a recent French parliamentary report on the family, which noted that "free unions" have become much more common - and not just for very young people.
In Germany, a recent Federal Statistics Office survey reached similar conclusions: only 38 percent of women and 30 percent of men see marriage as a necessary part of living together.
In Britain, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found in 1999 that cohabiting couples accounted for 24 percent of the men living in any kind of partnership and 25 percent of women - double the rates prevalent in 1986.
"People these days don't expect their marriages to last, so they think 'why get married in the first place if weddings are expensive and divorce complicated?' " says Dr. Brierley, whose organization provides information to help British church leaders make informed policy decisions.
And where there are cohabiting partnerships, there are babies. "One of the important engines behind the rise in non-marital childbearing," said the ONS study of European trends, "is the rise in cohabitation that has occurred, particularly since the 1980s, in many European countries."
Why a sixfold jump in unwed parents since the 1970s?
Ermisch, the University of Essex professor, sees the origins of the trend in the contraceptive pill, which began to enjoy wide popularity in Europe in the 1970s. "It used to be very costly to delay marriage," he argues.
"Either you didn't have sex or you risked having an illegitimate baby. The pill made delay less costly," he says, and as live-in couples formed - and firmed up - increasingly they decided to start a family.
At the same time, suggests Dirk Konietzka, coauthor of a German study carried out in 2003 by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, "much of it has to do with the modernization of womens' role, and also that women who have children can work. There are fewer reasons to get married."
Changing social mores in societies where religion and churches have suffered declining influence have also had an impact. "It is clearly apparent in all the countries that those who became mothers within marriage were more religious than their counterparts who had their first child in other contexts," says the ONS report, drawing on United Nations figures.
In France, where church-going is rare, "society draws no distinction between couples that are married and those that aren't," points out France Prioux, research director at the National Institute for Demographic Studies. "There is no social disapproval."
Nor are there any legal differences in France between married and unmarried couples when it comes to matters such as inheritance or parental rights. (In Britain, however, unmarried fathers have no legal parental rights if they separate from their child's mother.)
This year's French parliamentary report expressed no concern about the surging trend toward families headed by unwed parents. It pointed out that 92 percent of children born to such couples are acknowledged by both parents by their first birthdays, which suggests that they are born into stable unions.
Evidence emerging in Britain and France, however, suggests that de facto unions are not as stable as those bound by a legal contract, and that in their wake they leave more children living with only one parent, with all the social, economic, and educational disadvantages that is widely acknowledged to bring.
Ermisch's research, for example, has found that the average duration of a cohabiting union in Britain (though growing longer year by year) is between three and four years - though this is partly explained by the fact that 40 percent of them turn into marriages.
Nonetheless, he calculates, only 35 percent of British babies born to cohabiting parents will live with both of them until their 16th birthday. Seventy percent of children born to married couples will do so, Ermisch says. Children born in cohabiting unions will spend an average of 4.7 years of their childhood with only one parent, compared with 1.6 years for those born in marriage, he says.
While the number of informal partnerships that turn into marriages varies considerably from one country to another (in Italy, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland it is around 70 percent, while in France it is only 32 percent, the ONS found), Ermisch's figures appear to find some echo in France.
In France, free unions may break up at twice the rate of marriages.
There, Ms. Prioux says, only 10 percent of marriages break up within the first five years, compared with 18 percent of free unions. That explains, she adds, why in 1999, 7 percent of 5-year-olds born to married couples had seen their parents break up, compared with 15 percent of children of unmarried couples.
Interestingly, however, that ratio narrowed considerably for French children who had been born 10 years earlier: 20 percent of 15-year-olds born to married parents had seen them divorce, while 25 percent of those born to unmarried parents had experienced their break-up.
"Those informal unions that last seem to last much longer nowadays," suggests Prioux, though she says insufficient research has been done to fully explain the figures.
Whichever way the statistics break down, however, "the trend towards more children being born outside marriage ... will continue unless there is a radical change of heart in the whole of society towards the issue," says Brierley. "I don't think you are going to stop that."
posted
marriage is just a piece of paper. and an expensive one at that.
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
if it was't for pre-marital sex or sex without marriage there wouldn't have been AIDS and such STD's.
Posts: 517 | From: snake city | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
hey tiger how are you? you know the other day i was watching "four wedding and a funeral" and i was really surprised at the end when he told her "how do you feel about spending your rest of life NOT married to me?" he wanted to be with her, but not married. very strange for an arab like me.
what do you think of it tiger? i know you are already married, but would you have children without tying the knot first?
Posts: 4446 | From: Egyptian in Sydney | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
The "original" spread of AIDS had more to do with guys doin' in the the back door, the down-low, you know? Remember the old epidemiology lesson about the "flight attendant?" So I can't see how marriage would help that. The virus was probably picked up by humans from kooky African guys doin' it with apes. Although, it may have been from Africans eating monkey's heads.
There is an interesting point - many Egyptians I know have been taught or otherwise learned that AIDS "came from" prostitutes and that this was the primary way it spread through the human population. Which is false.
It spread across the globe thanks not to "loose women" butt to HOMO sapien men.
Posts: 1161 | From: wo xiang xiao bian ji si le | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I had read and been taught in Health Class origin of AIDs was "bush meat" which is various monkey flesh that loggers are fed instead of other meat when they are on the job clear cutting West African forests.
AIDs has been in various forms in the primate community, it manifests itself differently in humans. Like many feline dieseases. One of the many reasons why you dont' want a primate or cat to bite you.
The "urban legend" was a gay British sailor brought it to the USA, specifically San Francisco.
I'd put my money behind the "bush meat" story.
-------------------- Don't freak out, sonomod, Organized Crime, whatever. If I annoy you its me! Posts: 1765 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
AIDS is manily transmitted through anal sex. Some people like to stick it in all kinds of places. One day you will just heard the new sex tehnique - sticking it in his or her nose.
I don't think it started in Africa with monkeys, it has started with "anal sex - perversion".
Posts: 989 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
My dear, AIDS is just as much transmitted through vaginal sex as it is by anal. Lets realize that AIDS is everyone's problem and in every community. Lets not just attach a stigma to some.
Posts: 166 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Taher - yes it's transmitted in many different ways now, but how AIDS started? By anal sex or by vaginal sex?
Anyways I suggest everyone taking the STD and AIDS test before actual marriage or sexual involvment, and asking for the same examination from your partner and/or future husband-wife.
Posts: 989 | Registered: Aug 2004
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what do you think of it tiger? i know you are already married, but would you have children without tying the knot first?
Hi Yasmine, actually I gave birth to my first child unwed. So yes of course I wouldn't have mind to stay inside a relationship without a marriage certificate. Actually we got quickly married (4 months afterwards) because of strategic and financial reasons, since my husband is employed by the army, we became his dependents, we are moving a lot and so it was more easier to accomplish everything.
Hey, I love Hugh Grant. I watched a week ago Bridget Jones Diary again, how funny. But my absolute favorite movie with him is "9 months" with Julianne Moore. He's playing a guy who is in a steady relationship for couple of years and his girlfriend is sincerely looking for more, babies and marriage. Well, she becomes pregnant and he has a hard time dealing with the fact that he will become a father. You know people advise him to get rid off his little sports car since it will not be big enough to hold also a baby car seat and also to give his 16-year-old cat away, his buddy which he loves so much and is half blind by the way. Anyway, the story has a happy ending ...... watch it. Oh and Robin Williams plays a Russian born gyn doctor who is totally wacky! Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
the AIDs stuff written here is shocking! i am stunned at the lack of reasoning.... i wont try to change your opinions but if anyone is at all interested in reading a very good, non-biased site on the subject then please give this a quick scan.....
i seriously think some of you could do with an update. lets all be educated... right?
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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can i ask people here what they think actual marriage does for a relationship.
i dont mean the legal/financial aspects, cause that all equates to the piece of paper.
and im not sure if you can separate the religious side of it or not, but try not to think of it as the religious aspect is based on how god sees you, right (or not)?
what changed when you got married?
what do you think will change when you get married?
why wont you marry?
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Fore me nothing changed when we got married. The changing point was when we got kids. He started spending more time working and me less time working. So insted of being lovers/boyfriend-girlfriend we became mom and dad. Never got out of the house unless the kids was with us. No romatic dinners or get-aways, - no movietrips, no long romantic walks in the woods/beach. The hole thing was "wrapped" around our wonderfull kids and now we dont have anything to talk about except the kids....... I think his was not participating in our kids upbringing and he think I dont appricate the work and money he earn. Posts: 1215 | From: Nowhere | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
i personally dont want to get married, i am financially independent, so why would i want to risk that?
i would however like to have 'the big day'.... im gutted i never got to wear the big white dress and do the whole wedding thing!
if/when i meet mr right, i would like to have some sort of humanist ceremony, to show our friends and family our love and commitment to eachother, and have them share in it, i actually think that helps cement your relationship.
i do wonder if id married my kids dad, would we still be together? or would we still be tied together desperately unhappy?
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Tibe... the more i read about your previous relationship... the more i think you will eventually, (maybe after a year or so) sort things out.
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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I love babies, pity abou the husband that comes with them. I reckon the thing about these days is, its easier for a woman to have her children and support herself and them and therefore she doesnt have to put up with a husband.
Sounds good to me.
Posts: 458 | From: Egypt | Registered: May 2005
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what do you think of it tiger? i know you are already married, but would you have children without tying the knot first?
Hi Yasmine, actually I gave birth to my first child unwed. So yes of course I wouldn't have mind to stay inside a relationship without a marriage certificate. Actually we got quickly married (4 months afterwards) because of strategic and financial reasons, since my husband is employed by the army, we became his dependents, we are moving a lot and so it was more easier to accomplish everything.
Hey, I love Hugh Grant. I watched a week ago Bridget Jones Diary again, how funny. But my absolute favorite movie with him is "9 months" with Julianne Moore. He's playing a guy who is in a steady relationship for couple of years and his girlfriend is sincerely looking for more, babies and marriage. Well, she becomes pregnant and he has a hard time dealing with the fact that he will become a father. You know people advise him to get rid off his little sports car since it will not be big enough to hold also a baby car seat and also to give his 16-year-old cat away, his buddy which he loves so much and is half blind by the way. Anyway, the story has a happy ending ...... watch it. Oh and Robin Williams plays a Russian born gyn doctor who is totally wacky!
hey i watched bridget jones diary yesterday, AGAIN i just love it. i also read the book
also liked nine months, i saw it years ago.
Posts: 4446 | From: Egyptian in Sydney | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Charm El Feikh?: Tibe... the more i read about your previous relationship... the more i think you will eventually, (maybe after a year or so) sort things out.
Perhaps you are right - the love is still there -but we just have so different way of thinking. He is satisfied with our life and have no dreams or visions fore our/his future. I bet we would be living the same place, doing the same things, saying the same things in 40 years if I wasn't unhappy with our life. He is so predicteible and Im to impulsiv and at the end I felt I was choking - some people might prefer to call that stability and secure....... Perhaps its the age difference that "finally" got to us. Im 27 and he just turn 41. Posts: 1215 | From: Nowhere | Registered: Feb 2006
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sticking it in his or her nose. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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i just love it. i also read the book![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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