The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony [Hardcover]

Pamela Paul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2002

The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony is a pioneering study of first marriages lasting five years or less and ending without children, and of the changing face of matrimony in America.

According to the brilliant trend analyst and journalist Pamela Paul, It s easy to conclude that the starter marriage trend bodes ill for the state of marriage. After all, we re getting married, screwing it up, and divorcing a practice that certainly isn t strengthening our sense of trust, family, or commitment. But though starter marriages seem like a grim prospect, there is also an upside. For one thing, if people are going to divorce, better to do so after a brief marriage in which no children suffer the consequences. But are there other consequences of starter marriages? And what causes these marriages to fail in the first place?

In today s matrimania culture, weddings, marriage, and family are clearly goals to which most young Americans aspire. Why are today s twenty- and thirtysomethings the first children-of-divorce generation so eager to get married, and so prone to failure? Are Americans today destined to jump in and out of marriage? At a time when marriage at age twenty-five can mean a sixty-year active commitment, could serial marriages be the wave of the future?

Drawing on more than sixty interviews with starter marriage veterans and on exhaustive re-search, Pamela Paul explores these questions, putting the issues into social and cultural perspective. She looks at the hopes and motivations of couples marrying today, and examines the conflict between our cultural conception of marriage and the society surrounding it. Most important, this lively and engaging narrative examines what the starter marriage trend means for the future of matrimony in this country how and why we ll continue to marry in the twenty-first century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Gen X journalist Paul found her marriage ending one year after the lavish nuptials, she was depressed and bewildered. Soon, all around her, she was seeing other 20-somethings with failed "starter marriages" (which she defines as lasting five years or less and ending without children). To understand what was happening, Paul interviewed some 60 couples, mostly white, college-educated friends of friends, all between the ages of 24 and 36. While many of her generation had divorced parents, she found, they still hold marriage in high regard; family togetherness and children are what add up to the "good life." But idealizing the institution of marriage and understanding what married life is actually like are distinctly different. There's much clarity about the wedding it's a major social event, costing an average of $75,000 in New York. But the morning after, couples are often clueless. Examining the process of dissolution, divorce and remarriage, Paul draws on social pundits and demographers in addition to the accounts of her interviewees, mostly sidestepping the details of her own sorry experience. Paul's Rx for the future? Not religious or political panaceas like courtship classes, "covenant marriage" or tax preferences. Rather, young people should be taught "what marriage can and cannot offer" and to have "realistic expectations" long before the engagement party. As a society, he says, we could celebrate delayed marriage, rather than encouraging it early, and more people could accept cohabitation as a method of confirming couple compatibility. Assigning this book in every college sociology class would also be a good start. Agent, Andrew Blauner. (On-sale Jan. 8)Forecast: Paul is good at the "we" voice she's been there, done that. Her book is perfect for a heterosexual college student or a parent of one.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Paul, who has published work in American Demographics, the Economist, Elle, and other magazines, interviewed 60 mostly white, middle-class, college-educated individuals about their "starter marriages," which began and ended while the interviewees were still in their twenties. Here, she highlights common themes and uses excerpts from the interviews to illustrate her points about marriage and divorce among Generation Xers. Paul sees society's emphasis on the individual as making it more difficult for people of this generation to make the sacrifices and compromises necessary to sustain a lasting relationship. Though she recapitulates the views of the "marriage movement," she considers most of its strategies reactionary and antifeminist. She does, however, ultimately call for some sort of moral renewal in which people are less selfish and realize the importance of staying connected to the communities that support marriage. Though Paul provides interesting observations about the little-studied phenomenon of starter marriages, this is not a rigorous study that quantifies the factors leading to short-lived unions. Recommended for public libraries. Debra Moore, Cerritos Coll., Norwalk, CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1st edition (January 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375505407
• ISBN-13: 978-0375505409
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pamela Paul is the author of Parenting, Inc., an investigation of the "parenting" business, published in April 2008 by Times Books. A New York- based journalist, Paul writes about social and cultural issues, demographic trends, consumer culture, psychology and health, and family. Her first book, The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony, was named one of the best books of 2002 by The Washington Post ; her second book, Pornified, was named one of the best books of 2005 by The San Francisco Chronicle.

A graduate of Brown University, Paul began her writing career as a London- and New York-based correspondent for The Economist, where for four years she wrote a monthly column on world arts trends, and contributed film, theatre, and book reviews between 1997 and 2003. She was previously a senior editor for American Demographics magazine, where she wrote about political opinion, and social, media and demographic trends. She currently writes for Time magazine and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The National Post, Psychology Today, Self, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, More, The Brown Alumni Monthly, 02138, The New York Sun, and Marie Claire. Online, she has written for Slate, Salon, and Inside.com, and she blogs at The Huffington Post. A frequent public speaker, Paul has also been a guest on Oprah, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Early Show, and Politically Incorrect, and has made regular appearances on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, and on National Public Radio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seems to reflect a lot of what I see and experience, July 15, 2005

By 

Elizabeth (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony (Paperback)

I found this to be a great book. I don't think the book is perfect, and, as some other reviewers have pointed out, Paul can make some big jumps in her conclusions. So don't read this as a super-controlled scientific assessment (which it isn't supposed to be anyway). I found that the book wasn't anti-marriage or pro-marriage, but rather just touched up on a lot of the realities, myths, struggles, and ideas that Gen X (and a little older and younger) face when it comes marriage -- like how so many go into marriage with the subconscious expectation that it will make life complete or fix things that marriages just can't "fix." I was especially thankful on her section about the "wedding industry" that markets absurdly expensive weddings (the perfect dress, the biggest ring, the best food... the most important day of your life!) to individuals and couples and that often contributes to a loss of perspective about what the actual marriage after the wedding might involve. One of the most helpful things I got from this book was the articulation of a feeling that I and many of my friends have -- that you are not complete until you are married and that being married will "make things okay," which until this book I hadn't recognized as so widespread/generational/cultural. Secondly, I appreciated the feeling from the book that divorce can be okay, is sometimes better, but that sometimes a marriage just takes a little more work. I was glad she made it clear that marriage has had too high of expectations hoisted upon it, that it is hard work, can be great, can be hard, and can be rewarding. She is legitimately hard on the "pro-marriage" camp that promotes marriage as the savoir of civilization and that advocates staying married at all costs. If you want an anti-divorce book, this is not it. But if you want a fair treatment of many of the struggles that the twenty and thirty somethings face in trying to make a life with a partner, in the face of work, high expectations for marriage, our parents' marriages and divorces and a culture that sends amazingly mixed and strong messages about marriage, sex, and "success" this is a great place to start. Particularly for those thinking of getting married or struggling in the early years of a marriage, this might be particularly helpful to pique your thinking.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is right on the money., February 7, 2002

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Sarah Ellen Owsowitz (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony (Hardcover)

I had no words to explain the failure of my own Gen X 2 and 1/2 year marriage this last fall. I was chilled to read this book which literally seemed to be parroting my own rationalizations and fears prior to my marriage back to me. On almost every page was an observation about Gen X marriages that mirrored my own experience - right down to the same phrases uttered by the couples interviewed. I know the author has taken some flack for this book, but it strikes me that nothing validates a book of social commentary like being able to see your own life in its pages.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Analysis of Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings, January 29, 2002

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Rebecca Schotland Wolsk (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony (Hardcover)

This absorbing portrait of starter marriage and divorce is instructive and solution-oriented. Despite its focus on divorce, I'll be recommending it to my single, engaged and married friends.

Paul's discussion of matrimony works well as a jumping-off point for a larger project: a nuanced analysis of twenty- and thirty-somethings. She zeroes in on character traits that many emergent adults downplay, like loneliness and competitiveness.

Paul's description of our generation's sky-high expectations and pitfalls reminds me of a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "This Side of Paradise": "You're a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination."