"Just over two-thirds (67 percent) of the nation's 73.7 million children younger than 18 lived with two married parents in 2006. Also in 2006, there were an estimated 5.8 million stay-at-home parents: 5.6 million mothers and 159,000 fathers.

... The majority of men and women in 2006 had been married by the time they were 30 to 34 (71 percent), and among men and women 65 and older, 96 percent had been married."

"The other day, I was getting ready to check out of a hotel in Moldova, where I had spent a couple of weeks working. I missed my family and was eager to go home. As I prepared to leave the room, giving the bed a quick, final pat-down in case I'd left anything behind, I felt my wedding band suddenly slide off my ring finger.

I heard the ring softly clunk against wood in the corner of the room, but it had vanished. I looked around desperately. I moved some furniture, searched under the bed. Nothing. I felt the room spin. Suddenly, I was aware of being in a foreign country, far from home.

I have worn my wedding ring every single day since my wedding more than seven years ago. I had never misplaced it before. But there I was staring at my bare finger. I noticed the indentation left by the ring, like a phantom band, and the skin tone of this narrow groove, a shade paler than the rest. I felt guilty, as though I had committed an act of infidelity. I imagined my wife's quiet disappointment; there is nothing in the world quite like it. My hand grew heavy.

I wondered whether I, or someone else, would eventually find my ring. Would I be able to claim it? I regretted that my wife and I had never etched our initials into our rings. After we were married, a jeweler told us that it would take about five weeks to etch our names into our bands, and we thought that seemed too long to be ringless.

Then, just as suddenly, I saw my ring. I calmly picked it up and put it back on. I felt relieved, restored. I also felt vulnerable. And I missed my family. 

Who's Leading the Retreat from Marriage?   

In recent decades, demographers have documented a remarkable "retreat from marriage" in the United States.  This retreat is evident in data showing that between 1970 and 1995 the percentage of Americans 15 or older who ever marry fell from 97% to 89% of women and 96% to 83% of men.  During the same period, the average age at first marriage rose from 21.8 years to 26.6 years for American women and from 23.4 to 28.6 for American men.  Even more recent data indicate that "the U.S. withdrawal from marriage has continued through 2003."  Scholars have understood for some time that "the retreat [from marriage] has been accompanied by increases in women's paid employment, declines in the male/female wage differential, greater income inequality among men, and the persistence of racial gaps in economic status." Now researchers from Pennsylvania State University have published a study identifying just which segments of the population are leading this problematic retreat from a basic social institution.  Their findings indicate the emergence of a troubling cultural rift separating those with economic and social resources from those without such resources.

The Penn State researchers base their investigation on data collected between 1989 and 1991 in Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, noting that "the male and female percentages ever marrying in [these] three states are fairly similar to those in the United States as a whole."   Though they see nothing in marriage data that distinguishes these three states from the rest of the country, they do see strong evidence that different social groups within these states are moving apart in their marital behavior.  The Penn State scholars thus report that "groups associated with more economic resources-that is, whites compared to blacks and more educated persons compared to less educated persons-were more likely to marry." 

The data indicate that-depending on the state examined-between 83 and 89 percent of white men and 88 and 92 percent of white women will marry during their lifetimes, compared to between 68 and 86 percent of black men and 60 and 82 percent of black women.  "The percentages ever marrying for black men and black women," the researchers remark, "were substantially lower [than for white men and white women].  With mortality ignored, about 40% of black women in North Carolina and Wisconsin would never marry before age 50 under the rates observed during 1989-1991."

A differential pattern shows up again in statistical relationships between marriage and education.  The data show that "those with 16 or more years of education were typically most likely to marry" and that those with fewer than 12 years of education were least likely to marry.  Among those with 16 or more years of education, 91 to 95 percent of women and 90 to 95 percent of men were likely to marry.  Among those with fewer than 12 years of education, only 55 to 81 percent of women and 60 to 81 percent of men were likely to marry. 

Combining statistics for race and education, the researchers calculate that "the percentages ever marrying for blacks with fewer than 12 years of education range from 38% to 65%, whereas the comparable figures for whites with 16 or more years of education are 89%-96%"

Surveying the overall pattern, the authors of the new study plausibly conclude that "the retreat from marriage is being led by those with the least resources."  Given the importance of wedlock in safeguarding social and cultural well-being, readers of this new study have good reason to worry that the social gaps dividing the haves from the have-nots are growing wider and wider in 21st-century America.