Journal #3 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Journal #3 - Assignment Example Besides, the slow erosion of families in our society, the acceptance of divorce has rapidly increased, as well as non-marital birth and child bearing. The complexities and dynamics of the society are the driving factors that are accelerating these trends. Furthermore, the society has grown less critical of these issues hence they are steadily creeping in and infiltrating our thoughts in such a way that individuals are beginning to perceived these unfortunate circumstances acceptable. There are numerous factors that result into issues such as divorce, cohabitation, non-marital child birth, and single parenthood. The paper therefore seeks to examine these factors and the perception of the society against them by reviewing historical arguments by Cherlin on greater tolerance for alternative family and parental structure and Wilson’s sociological argument in the contemporary US state. Wilson (2002) book title â€Å"Cohabitation instead of marriage† focuses on the challenges or problems and consequences of cohabitation and functions of marriage in the society and family. Finding solutions to the problems of cohabitation is often a hard nut to crack. The partners usually do not have strong incentive drive to heavily invest the union unlike in marriage which binds couple together since the process of divorce usually lead to some consequences. Wilson (2002) argues that marriage provides restriction to freedom so that the financial and emotional investments in the union of couples make sense. In marriage, the couple makes a commitment to love one another and despite the knowledge of existence of divorce, they tend to stick to the promise. However, cohabiting couples have no commitment to fulfill hence when one is out of love with the other, he or she can opt to walk out of the union. There is less incentive for love in such situations. Most cohabiting couples tend to have separate bank accounts hence the expenses of their lives are