Talk:Marriage in the United States/Archive 1

External reviews

 * I presume you all have a "welcome" page and are familiar with Wikipedia basics. Please remember that this is an encyclopedia, not a "how to" guide. Please use formal language, the third person, not "you." Quotes should be from a reliable source and stated in a reliable manner: "Men polled said they didn't like marriage because..."(ref). While we are a tertiary source, we are supposed to be authoritative and reliable. BTW, we really shouldn't be quoting other tertiary sources, like textbooks, but we can overlook that for non-controversial stuff. See WP:RS. We are not trying to tell people how to stay married or how to select a partner, but rather who stayed married, who didn't and the academic (polled) reasons why (for example). Sample should be large enough to be credible, not a "University of Pennsylvania" class. A polled class is not credible and should probably be deleted.
 * This should be written like your professor would write it, not like a student! Student7 (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I certainly agree with this, and thank you for your edits. I expect the students to review them and improve their contributions based on them. Few other comments:
 * "Society puts a high value on marriage" - not value, importance. Value suggests a value judgement (pro or against), which is not the case. And of course such claims need citations. Also, how is it US specific? Remember, this is a page about "marriage in the USA", not marriage in general. Only the "In the U.S., polygamy and polyandry are typically viewed as strange and uncommon..." sentence seems to deal with USA - and it is uncited.
 * "A university has developed a framework for marriage in seven domains". What is "a framework for marriage"? This needs clarification, indeed.
 * A bunch of links are broken (Nielsen, Abrams) - they lead to a generic ebsco login page, not to the article page. While those links may work at Pitt, they don't work outside it. Please make the links accessible to people editing from outside the university. For example, Nielsen should link to here. Other references are missing information on author, publisher and such.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 18:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Remember, this is not a political argument page. We should not be "advancing" a political cause. However, the material, if correctly and npov worded, may have that affect! That is okay.
 * But they can't be bald statements. "Homosexuals are more attractive than heterosexuals." Such a statement would need to be worded, "A study by X, suggests that homosexuals are..." or whatever. The more bald and controversial it is, the more it needs careful wording. Objectivity is the key here. While it doesn't work well on religious issues (and maybe this is one! :(, it tends to work, in the long run on political issues. That is, conservatives and liberals arrive, not at a common ground, but at an understanding of the other's opinions, both of which are stated.
 * It is, for example, true that adopted children of homosexuals are as normal as heterosexuals. But this needs more work, better stated, referenced.
 * One of the more believable statements is about homosexual men being more at risk for HIV than lesbians. Because it admits a problem, it is easier to accept the statement about lesbians. (Obviously the whole subsection can't be written in this defensive a manner, but just wanted to point that out). Student7 (talk) 20:10, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

References review
I've added a number of requests for missing information to the existing references. What makes the following websites reliable? www.costofwedding.com, ww.outcast-films.com , greencardmarriage.org , usaimmigrationsupport.comI see several reliable journal references linked through the ebscohost website; please replace those links with a more generic link (Pitt subscribes to ebscohost, but many others don't, and will get just a useless longin page). Just google for the journal article, and link to pages with content you can see outside Pitt network. For example, for the marriage article, this would be better:. Finally, Loving v. Virginia ref is very unclear. Is it a journal article? Please clarify this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 18:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

History section review
Since I was asked to provide a feedback on that section: I think it is maturing well. 1) Issues to be addressed: not enough blue links, on the other hand, an entire sentence should not be a single link (reduce the blue in it to few words). 2) Century should not be capitalized. 3) "By the 1940s marriage between whites and persons of color" - this implies that things might have been fine before 1940s. I'd also like to see a comment about marriage between persons of color - ex. where marriages between Asians and African Americans acceptable back then? 4) Not enough references, I see many unreferenced sentences. Every sentence should have a reference. I'd also suggest using reference ranges of no more than two pages, instead of ~10. which will be much easier once we move from from end-of-para ref to end-of-sentence ref. 5) The marriage models does not flow very logically from the history by date; perhaps reverse the order? 6) Missing any mention of gay marriage. 6) There are numerous more sources that can be consulted to expand this section further; I do expect this section to grow several-fold (in other words, I expect everybody to contribute several pages of text, not ~ half...): a quick Google Book search suggests there is plenty of material to use. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

To Do List
To Do:


 * Maria will expand on the History of Civil Marriage.


 * Dave will expand on the Demography section.


 * Kazzandra will expand on the Sociology section.


 * Eric will create a section on civil unions/homosexual marriage ceremonies. This section will follow the section called "Wedding ceremonies."


 * Brianna will expand on "Green Card" Marriages.


 * Each group member picked which section they would like to be most responsible for. Resources for the sections listed above will be added below this list. Also, if one person finds something that may be beneficial to another member, please let that person know about the resource.

KazzandraT (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi! I am the Wikipedia online ambassador for your class. The above plan looks good. Don't forget to use references that are secondary sources. All the best! Bejinhan   talks   03:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Restructuring
Like many articles, this one "just grew." The current framework seems a bit odd since it was "done by committee" (like most maturing articles!). It needs restructuring IMO. Some subsections are wrongly named. Others need to be regrouped. It would seems to me, for example, when LGBT marriage is mentioned, that all other applicable material should be in the same subsection (just a for instance), rather than having the info scattered since it all seems to relate. That just came to mind and there are others as well, like "models" which don't seem like "history" to me, but rather current. Student7 (talk) 15:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. Could you give more examples as to what should be restructured and renamed? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:04, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, "law" is separate from "same sex unions" but covers that topic as well. "Same sex unions" also covers religion, so hard to restructure.
 * BTW, same sex material is becoming a bit WP:UNDUE weight. Again, not anyone's fault. It's just that it seems out of proportion in length considering that maybe 2% of the population is affected. Compared to different-sex unions, it has maybe 60-70% of the space? (just guessing). Again, just commenting generally, not suggesting cuts. Student7 (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Deadline for Good Article Nomination
Hey, We have till Monday to edit our article so it is ready to go to be evaluated. Please do your best to try and edit over the weekend.

Bed28 (talk) 01:20, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Preeeliminary review
Since I see a lot of work has been done over the past few days, here are few issues from a quick overview about issues that need to be addressed before GA (a more detailed review will follow within a few days).
 * per Manual of Style/Lead section, lead should be a comprehensive summary (abstract) of the rest of the article, and should not contain new information. It does not seem to me like your lead is either.
 * the titles of various sections are improperly capitalized, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)
 * Demography section should be expanded, or the expansion needed tag needs to be removed if it has been done already
 * reference density is insufficient. Every sentence should be referenced, unless it is truly obvious (per Verifiability and You don't need to cite that the sky is blue).


 * the article ("Green Card" Marriages section) does not have enough blue links, per Manual of Style/Linking it needs to be wikified


 * there are multiple problems with references. Some of them are tagged; other references are bare (missing all information) or unused. Please ensure that information is provided (author, title, publisher, date, and such) for all of them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Further comments:
 * There are outstanding citation needed tags
 * Wedding ceremonies section should link to Weddings in the United States, consider using
 * The first para of Sociology with stats should probably be moved to Demographics section
 * Sociology section should be retitled sociology of marriage and link to sociology of marriage article through main; you may want to see if that article has anything that could be used to expand this section
 * What was the exact name of the Northwestern University course, who taught it, what was the reception and is it still being taught?
 * Residential patterns is too short for a section. Either expand it or merge with another section.
 * I'd suggest moving the sociology section to before the law; for example the law discusses legality of polygamy but it is defined only later, in the sociology section
 * I'd like to see the discussion of legality of polygamy expanded into at least one decent paragraph; similarly the anti-miscegenation laws should have a longer paragraph then two sentences, too.
 * Same-sex marriage section should probably follow the law section, as it seems to flow from it more logically then the wedding ceremonies. Those could follow the sociology section. Green card marriages section is another one that seems to follow law, followed by divorce.
 * We need to have a section (doesn't have to be long, nor should it require much work) summarizing the three relevant issues in see also (cohabitation, civil unions, and domestic partnership). You should be able to do with copying the lead from those articles(assuming it is well written and comprehensive), and referencing it (which again shouldn't be a problem IF those articles are properly referenced). This section should briefly tell the readers what those three terms mean, what are the trends, and it should probably be the last section in the article.
 * --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * So I copied most of the lead from domestic partnerships and referenced the page as you said, but am I taking you too literally or is that ok, because it sounds like plagiarism and I just want to clarify. Eaj15 (talk) 18:00, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Copying within Wikipedia is acceptable due to the free license it uses, although one should provide attribution, preferably in the edit summary. Noting on talk what source you used like above is fine, too. See Copying within Wikipedia for more information. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

1940 study
@Ruby2010: I moved this material into "history" when I found that the study, presented as "current" was fairly ancient. The conclusion could be supported by the reference. Last line does sound a bit or-ish. Student7 (talk) 02:51, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Ref formatting
The following refs need to be formatted with the Template:Cite web template :

There are probably others too. Just make sure that as many parameters (author, title etc) as possible are filled in. Thanks,  Ruby  2010/  2013  23:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Matrilocal, Patrilocal, Aunt-local
People tend to live with whoever will have them when they are deficient of funds. There are no specifics here to tie any of this to the United States. No figures on which is "prefered" in the US, if any stats are available. And how about Sibling-local, or roommate-local? Student7 (talk) 18:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Context needed :) How does this relate to the article? Could you expand a bit? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 19:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It relates to the article because the article concerns marriage, as does newlywed residential patterns. There were no stats that I could find on which is preferred in the US. KazzandraT (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * There are two problems as I see it. The first is that the article is about the US. Therefore we must show some association between material we insert and the United States. If we can't, it shouldn't be here.


 * The second is that, to me, this sounds like saying that people live in two story houses and making a real point that they are therefore basement-dwellers, 1st floor dwellers, or second-floor dwellers. Great! We've "categorized" apartment folks. Okay. But so what? What is the relevance, even in a general Marriage article? It might be relevant in India or some clearly patriarchal or matriarchal society article to demonstrate that the society is structured in that fashion. But otherwise it seems to serve no utility. Student7 (talk) 20:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't mean to be rude but nowhere in that section did I state they live in the basement and so on. When a couple gets married, they need a place to live, so they either live with one of the couple's parents or they live together in a separate place. This is why it is relevant to a marriage article. In all honesty, you should really work on how you state your opinion/view because the whole "great!" and "but so what?" comments come off as very rude.
 * KazzandraT (talk) 05:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I apologize for my rudeness.
 * My meaning is that everything in an encyclopedia is there (or should be there) for a reason. What is the reason for "matrilocal" being there? I do not see that it serves any purpose in an American article. Nor have I seen any attempt to relate it to the rest of the article. It might go into a higher level article on Marriage, generally. But it doesn't seem to belong in an American article.
 * This is not personal. If we insert things that seem "interesting" but are, in reality, irrelevant to the topic, it makes the article harder to read. This is the difference between a "paper" which may be read once, and an encyclopedia, which may be read multiple times.
 * My intent on the apartment dweller was to demonstrate that anything can be placed in this encyclopedia if (and only if) it is made relevant to the article. (Or, for most of it, that there is an implied relevance). That has not been done in this case. It appears to be an "empty factoid" without any relevance to "American marriage" whatever.
 * I do not know how to make this clearer, since you have declined my apartment analogy.
 * It would be like saying that some married people are exactly 5 feet tall, others are 6 feet tall. And there are some that are 5" 6" tall.
 * And this would be true.
 * But what would be the relevance?
 * If (and only if) I could say that Americans (and for this article, they would have to be Americans) who are exactly 5 feet tall marry and stay married for 50 years, people who are 6 feet tall almost never marry, but if they do, they don't stay married for more than a year.
 * At this point, and only at this point, does the factoid become useful. Otherwise, it would be a useless, stand-alone factoid without any relevance whatsoever.
 * It would be essentially non-WP:TOPIC. It would be helpful to look over material on your welcome screen, if you have one (I will check when I leave this page).
 * Wikipedia is not a "free for all" where we can merely throw in material that "seems interesting." It needs to be relevant as well and help the article make a significant point. Student7 (talk) 18:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Four maps
This is really WP:OR observation by editor. Really should have summary of article that accompanied these maps somewhere. Sure maps aren't copyviolation? This summary might also put the "observations" in context. WHY would anyone outside the US CARE where marriages or divorce predominated? Student7 (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

LGBT
This subsection is inordinately long. It repeats material that has already been stated, however differently. Repetitive arguments needs to be merged. Boutilier might qualify as a separate article and one linked reference could be made to it.

A reader should not be able to tell from reading the article that the editor has a pov, though many of us do. It should be objectively written. This subsection is somewhat pov. The tone needs changing. It is not an automatic "abuse of rights" that Congress has law x. It is what Congress has done and should be objectively reported. We report what is, not what "should" be. And we report it in a way that makes each change or no change look normal. Student7 (talk) 13:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Historic background for low marriage rates among blacks
Re: "African Americans have married the least of all of the predominant ethnic groups in the U.S. with a 29.9% marriage rate."

This difference should be put in historical perspective.

The lower marriage rates of African Americans arises directly from a long series of laws targeting black marriage:

1. Enslaved blacks were denied legally-recognized marriage (hence ceremonies such as "jumping the broom.")  The denial of legally valid marriage served the convenience for slaveowners who might wish to sell one but not both of a couple. All slave children were by definition "illegitimate" and could likewise be sold without concern for any legally enforceable rights to a parent-child relationship. After the American Civil War, special statutes legitimated certain marriage-like relations between freed African-American couples, and their children were acknowledged to have rights to parental support, but no tradition of marriage had been allowed to develop over the generations.

2. After the Civil War, miscegenation statutes continued to void and punish attempted marriages of blacks to whites.

3. In the latter 20th Century, children of a couple could receive needed governmental assistance (e.g., W.I.C.) only if there were not, in their home, two parents required by law to support the children. If unemployed, the children's father had reason not to live in the family home, or if he did, to avoid marriage to their mother. Legal obligations to provide child support depended on marriage in most states) (in Texas and Ohio, until 1972 Supreme Court decisions). A man without a job was thus worth more to the physical needs of his family if he were gone, rather than present in the home.  The persistent high rate of black unemployment, directly connected to separate and inferior schools under Jim Crow laws, exacerbated this problem.  A generation of black youth were thus raised in fatherless homes.

As these laws were finally repealed or amended toward the end of the 20th Century, allowing the tradition of marriage to begin to recover among American blacks, the rate of marriage began to decline generally among all ethnic groups. This decline affected black as well as non-black marriage rates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdnctx (talk • contribs) 16:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The above is very interesting. Feel free to convert it to prose (i.e. no bullet points) and enter it into the article (with reliable sources of course).  Ruby  2010/  2013  17:28, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. 1 is true. But there were "slave marriages" that lasted as long as the pair were together.
 * 2 is true, but this was a time when few people married outside of their race anyway. Asians (Chinese-Americans, for example) married Chinese-Americans. While true, this did not curtail marriage opportunities very much. But from the Civil War onward, most adult blacks were married. Probably into the 80-90% range, not much fewer than whites, I would suspect.
 * This leaves 3, the modern reason, the real reason, for today's catastrophic marriage rates. An "unintended consequence" of an otherwise well-meant law. The first two are "merely historic" and belong in some other article. Student7 (talk) 22:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Decline of marriage
I disagree with Nat's deletion of my new section. I was starting to write about the effects of the decline in marriage; perhaps I should have made that more clear.

I'd like some help describing how marriage has declined, in terms of percentages; or in comparison with divorce rates or numbers of couples simply "living together". We should also point out what sociologists and social critics have said about the effects the decline has had on society as a whole, or on children in particular. Does this increase poverty? Who says so? What evidence do they give? Why do they think the decline is related to poverty?
 * A new Pew Research Center report confirms that marriage continues to lose market share among Americans to other arrangements, such as cohabitation or living alone.

These are the types of things that should be in the article. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Except the quotes you were putting forth weren't on the effects of the decline in marriage. The New Yorker quote was on the effect of out-of-wedlock children, which may be an argument for why marrying if you're having kids would be a good idea (but even then, it's a weak source; being a New Yorker staffer does not make one a sociologist). The Manhattan Institute quote isn't about marriage, it's about single-parenting, and soon covers that ("Some are raised by a man and woman who, though living together, are not married"). So the items you were adding were a couple steps removed from the topic they were being raised under. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:49, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see, like degrees of Kevin Bacon. I guess you're looking for information that's more pertinent. Thanks for taking the time to explain that. --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Children not suffering during divorce?
A quote from "Fagan" says "Each year, over 1 million American children suffer the divorce of their parents; moreover, half of the children born this year to parents who are married will see their parents divorce before they turn 18." I may have paraphrased this insufficiently and perhaps need to quote it directly. Anyway, it got deleted in the purge with all the other stuff. Student7 (talk) 16:15, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Despite your claim in the recent edit, that quote is from the last century, a predictive quote referring to those born in 2000. It doesn't speak to current situation, and shouldn't even be used to describe the children referred to, as those kids are now 2/3s of the way through those 18 years, and there would be much more actual data on what has happened to them than this prediction. (And to be clear, the divorce rate has been lowering - "Divorce rates have been going down for the last few decades. Data indicates that the marriages are lasting longer in the early 2000s than they did in the 1990s" - which would impact the current applicability of both of the statements.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You are correct. I have changed the date to 2000. They don't rerun all studies every year to suit Wikipedia editors. They are usually expensive in the way of time, money, or other resources.
 * Not understanding why this has to be so precise, and other statements do not. Are you suggesting that divorce does not negatively affect children? What statistics, however old, do you have to support that claim? Student7 (talk) 23:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What's the point of including an old prediction about what will happen to kids born in 2000? By now, it's either proving accurate, in which case we should be showing the facts, or it has proven inaccurate, in which case the prediction is pointless. Unless the prediction itself is notable, it seems fairly pointless to include a prediction this old. I'm not suggesting that divorce doesn't negatively effect some or most kids, but that reaction is not 100%. This quote is basically using "suffer" to mean "experience"; it doesn't have the support to say that 100% of those will suffer from the divorce. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

candor vs love
I'm a little confused, it says "Rarely in American history has love been seen as the main reason for getting married" but candor is love, this sentence is contradictory in nature for if you love someone you will have good candor with them, otherwise it's just an illusion of love and/or lust.
 * See the comments under History.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:23, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

History Section
Hey Ruby! In regards to your comment about where does this quote begin and end...do you mean which page number? I am a little confused. If you could give me some clarification that would be great. Thanks!!! Mookielynn18 (talk) 21:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is more with the unclear marking of the quote in text. Is "the ideal mate" part of the quote, too? Also, you are using both ' and ", and missing the opening ", as far as can tell. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 19:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Piotrus has my correct meaning. The different quote marks (') threw me off. Also, I replied to this comment above in the GA review instead of this section (so more clarification can be found above). Thanks,  Ruby  2010/  2013  19:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It is quoting Adams in the middle of a quote by Coontz. There's no need to quote Coontz directly here, and if she is quoted, it should be explicit: "Coontz says..." I have changed it from a direct quote of Coontz.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)