The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America, 2004
David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

Challenging the popular stereotype of the marriagephobic male, findings from a new national survey of young heterosexual men, ages 25-34, indicate that while men are delaying marriage until older ages, most men are "the marrying kind." Among all men surveyed, those from traditional, religiously observant family backgrounds are more likely to be married, to seek marriage and to have positive views of marriage, women, and children than young males from nontraditional and nonreligously observant family backgrounds. Among the unmarried men surveyed, however, there is a small but significant subset of men who are personally averse to marriage. Slightly more than two out of ten expressed strongly negative views about their own personal desire to marry as well as more negative attitudes toward marriage, women, and children. Compared to other unmarried men in the survey sample, they are significantly more likely to come from nontraditional and nonreligiously observant families.


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