The Value of Marriage

Jessica Calmettes

Professor Fisher

WR122

May 2, 2017

The Value of Marriage

        This argument analysis will be examining the articles, “The Downside of Living Together” by Meg Jay and “Un-hitching the Middle Class” by Kathleen Parker. While both authors are writing about marriage, the comparative similarities in these articles were few. Both articles focus on marriage, however, while Jay’s article is about habits pre-marriage that may prevent divorce, Parker’s article is about increasing the number of marriages nationwide. This analysis will critically examine each author’s claim and its accompanying evidence to determine why Jay’s article was more persuasive to the reader due to her ability to really demonstrate to the reader her passion for the subject.

        The first article to be analyzed is by Meg Jay. “The Downside of Living Together” focuses on Jay’s claim that living together before marriage does not decrease the chances of divorce. Being a psychologist in this field, it makes sense that the majority of her grounds are based on her personal experiences with her clients. She outlines the case of a woman named Jennifer that after living with her boyfriend for more than four years, spent more time planning the marriage than actually being married (Jay 411). Jay brings up the fact that in most of society today, divorce is no longer the social taboo it once was. She also did a good job of making her point by presenting two researchable pieces of evidence: cohabitation numbers for 1960 and a survey done by the National Marriage Project in 2001 regarding the overall acceptance of cohabitation before marriage. Jay points out that in 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples live together, but now that number is closer to 7.5 million (Jay 411). She also states that more than half of all marriages are proceeded by cohabitation. The author’s opinion is that cohabitation has become more appealing since the 1960’s because of the availability of birth control with the sexual revolution, as well as the shift in the economy that makes sharing bills appealing as well. The author points out that in the 2001 study, about two-thirds of those surveyed felt that living together prior to marriage would help prevent divorce (Jay 411).

        Jay’s main reasoning behind the failure of marriages after cohabitation is based on what she calls a “lock-in” effect (Jay 412). She compared it to a credit card rate, where you get in at a low rate, but once the rate increases, you are unable to bail on it because you are stuck with a high balance. She cited examples of people having purchased not only furniture, but also pets that would give that “lock-in” effect and cause a relationship to last longer not because of love but to avoid the hassle of a difficult break up. Unfortunately relationships that stay together for convenience have poor groundwork and divorce in those cases would be inevitable.