jan

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Lora Falekos

LusineMakarosyan

English 114B

4 April 2016

Family Affairs: Marriage in Flux

            Over the years the definition of marriage has changed and this is because the initial definition was that it was a union between two a man and a woman who were in love and have chosen to spend the rest of their lives together. Today people have changed the way marriage was before and they have referred to the old marriage styles and traditional marriages and the new trends in marriage as modern. Nowadays people may decide to cohabitate and when they do that for over six months the law recognizes that they are a married couple. Marriage is no longer a union between man and woman as before. The most popular nontraditional families in the current world are polygamy, cohabitation, and single parenthood and GLBT relationships. A man and a fellow man can decide to engage in a wed lock on the basis that they love each other and so can two women. Non-traditional family dynamics are represented in the media positively and negatively.

Single parenthood has been very common in the current world with most cases being as a result of divorce, death of one spouse or choice. There have also been cases of artificial insemination, which has greatly been featured by Media especially through recent movies. The Media has portrayed single parents as poverty victims, crime victims, they have also portrayed them as people that raise the American criminals, and worse single families are portrayed by Medias as entities of pity that should be given charities to survive. The Media have also

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portrayed children of the single parents to be most prone to abuse and drugs. This has been a very negative way of displaying the single parenthood families.

Cohabitation is another family setup where the unmarried couple shares a household. This family setup is currently very popular in America. This family setup makes about 15 million of homes the US. Though this form of a family does not have legal recognition, it is very similar to normal marriages.  The Media has played a great part of making people adapt this method. The media have been active in portraying the disadvantages of marriages like divorces hence making people shun marriages. People seeing celebrities break up on every single day have ended up having a negative view of the traditional marriage. The media has not featured greatly on disadvantages or advantages of cohabitation.

GLBT means Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender. The forms of families brought about by the romantic relationships above are considered as nontraditional. The first same-sex marriage was legalized in Denmark. In the US, a number of States have legalized the marriage. The media have greatly been featuring this topic. Though the greater portion of people regard GLBT families are wrong, there have been a shift of opinion that has led to the acceptance of the marriage. Through the pop culture, the Media have campaigned greatly for this family type. Through television shows, music, and movies, the media have been seen giving popularity to these families(McDougall 213).

In the United States, monogamy marriage, which only consists of two partners, is what is considered to be legal. Polygamy is considered to be illegal with only the first wife being considered as the legitimate wife. The Media have greatly seemed to rule in favor of the wife with great negativity being portrayed on polygamist. The greatest negativity though has been on

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women that marry two or more men. In many societies, men are allowed to marry more than one wife, but women are greatly prohibited with the media portraying them as prostitutes.

The media has portrayed the traditional form of marriage as something outdated and this can be observed in the comedies or movies recently released. For example, the Emmy winning comedy series Modern Family portrays divorce as something not very sad and promotes the gay marriage family. Others like How I Met Your Mother portray how marriage is difficult and does not work in some instances. This can be proved by the marriage of the characters Burney Stinson and Robin Shebasky. The comedy Modern Family has been a trendsetter on how Hollywood is presenting on widespread basis these days.

Most shows and movies still feature the traditional families but most of the time they are featured as something outdated. In many movies people who desire normal or the traditional family set ups are viewed as unfashion and outdated individuals and this is because today people do not want lots of commitments and very few people desire kids. Women have dreams that they want to accomplish and they feel like marriage is a stumbling block and therefore, issues such as distances are enough to break up individuals who initially planned they will someday marry each other. Most people feel like the best way to live is to be free, yet satisfy bodily desires without any commitment and this is mostly shown on the comedy series How I Met Your Mother. In the same comedy series, Burney Stinson who hates marriages, and opts to sleep with many women for one night stand, is always considered as the awesome one and yet nothing much is said about the successful marriage between Marshal and Lilly. Furthermore, the attitude of Ted Mosby and dreams to someday have a beautiful woman (the one) and two kids is normally made fun of even though he achieves this dream.

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The traditional families are getting less positive coverage and even though no much negative thoughts or sayings about it, the alternative families are getting more positive coverage more than ever. This is because the media is trying to fashion the idea that there is nothing wrong with alternative families such as the gay marriages, transgender and lesbians. The main negative way that the media has portrayed the traditional marriage is that it is something that shutters dreams and once people get into it they can never be the same again. Most movies show marriage as something disastrous in that getting married in a heterosexual relationship, most family lives are shown to be miserable or in a state of mockery.

To show how media has portrayed the alternative families positively, I will look at the movies, The Kids Are All Right and Blue Valentine. These two movies have characters who have been nominated for the Oscars Award. The characters are AnneteBening and Julianne Moore who will most probably be nominated for the best Actress and the reason for this is because of their portrayals of a longtime lesbian couples who have had teenage kids fathered by the same sperm donor. It is important to note that individuals copy what they see in the media as they believe that those are cool things. As the media keeps portraying and awarding such characters most people tend to shift to that kind of behavior and sooner or later you will hear most ladies desiring not to be in a heterosexual relationship and yet they want kids and a female partner. This is because the media has power to influence and that is why the traditional sense of marriage is slowly fading away.

It is also important to note that most movies depict happy couples are those with money and riches and the poor heterosexual couples are not happy and this is because of the constant

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fight they keep having because of money. Such portrayals have discouraged people from getting married in that they are first looking for money then get married when they are rich and get the wedding of their lives and possibly have a honey moon in an island and have a big mansion somewhere is Hawaii. This has completely changed the purpose of marriage because it is not for money though money is a very important item in marriage.  There are poor couple and they are very happy than those rich ones who are portrayed in the media. “Marriage is for love, and it should not be done because the time is right and there is money” (Jones, 2005).

Traditional marriage is also facing another disturbance due to the campaign by different groups fighting for the rights of gays, lesbians and transgender. These demonstrations have received wide coverage of the media and claiming that the high rate of divorce in the heterosexual marriages is a good indication of how the marriage institution should be changed. These demonstrations have receive wide coverage and support from powerful individuals and this therefore, crushes the traditional marriage setting. More states more than ever now, desire to legalize gay marriages and let them adopt children unlike in the recent past. This can be attributed to movies that show men can take care of children and provide the care they need till the child is of age. “The same media most of the time portrays the traditional marriage ending up in divorce and children suffering as a result of the same” (Scheinkman, 2005).

The media alsoportrays male dominance in the traditional marriage, which most women do not desire. Furthermore, it also portrays the masculine resistance to femininity in that a man wants to hang out with his friends and he is supposed to be at home with his wife and therefore, there is a dilemma. Most of the time in the movies the man chooses to spend time with the

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friends and if he happens to go home to his wife, he will be a laughing stalk amongst his friends the next day as portrayed in the movie, Think Like A Man, Act Like A Lady. “When people watch such movies, they don’t see the point of marriage as it destroys their current relationships and denies them freedom and therefore, they opt for options such as cohabitation” (Atwood, & Schwartz, 2002).

In conclusion, for many years, traditional families dominated in the world. This has currently changed as more diverse family types have come to picture. Among the most popular nontraditional families in the current world are polygamy, cohabitation, and single parenthood and GLBT relationships. The media has actively represented the non-traditional families even though in many cases they have been seen portraying them in a negative manner.Non-traditional family dynamics are represented in the media positively and negatively.

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Works Cited

Cherlin, A. J. (2010). The marriage-go-round: The state of marriage and the family in America today. Vintage.

Diamant, N. J. (2000). Revolutionizing the family: Politics, love, and divorce in urban and rural China, 1949–1968. Univ of California Press.

Duben, A., & Behar, C. (2002). Istanbul Households: Marriage, family and fertility, 1880-1940 (Vol. 15). Cambridge University Press.

Scheinkman, M. (2005). Beyond the trauma of betrayal: Reconsidering affairs in couples therapy. Family Process, 44(2), 227-244.

Atwood, J. D., & Schwartz, L. (2002). Cyber-sex: The new affair treatment considerations. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 1(3), 37-56.

Jones, G. W. (2005). The" flight from marriage" in south-east and east Asia.Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 93-119.

McDougall, Sara. "The Making of Marriage in Medieval France." Journal of Family History.2013. 201 -214. printed

Panasenko, William. "Czech and Slovak Family Patterns and Family Values in Historical, Social and Cultural Context." Journal of Comparative Family Studies. 2013. 80–98.Printed.