NewsFebruary 9, 2014
Decline in matrimony: Rate of marriages falls in region
The Jenkins home Friday afternoon was animated with children shouting, running and playing hide-and-seek and showing off toys. Coughs and sneezes -- along with reminders to "cover your mouth" -- could be heard as Heather Jenkins kept up the house and worked on dishes and laundry while her husband, John-Erik Jenkins, kept an eye on the children...
The Jenkins home Friday afternoon was animated with children shouting, running and playing hide-and-seek and showing off toys. Coughs and sneezes -- along with reminders to "cover your mouth" -- could be heard as Heather Jenkins kept up the house and worked on dishes and laundry while her husband, John-Erik Jenkins, kept an eye on the children.
Valentine's Day decor adorned small spaces throughout the home -- a side kitchen table, a closet door.
The couple hadn't yet made plans for Friday's romantic holiday, but they usually celebrate the occasion with a special dinner at home as a family.
Heather and John-Erik Jenkins married after the birth of their firstborn son, Jackson, when Heather Jenkins was 18 and her on-again-off-again boyfriend of three years and neighbor, John-Erik, was 20.
Heather Jenkins said the marriage of her and her husband was "kind of inevitable" because the two complement each other so well.
"We just fit together," she said.
Nearly six years later, the couple has added two children to the family, and they own a home in Benton, Mo.
Heather Jenkins is a stay-at-home mom, something she was adamant about being from the start, and John-Erik is a receptionist at Skyview Animal Clinic in Cape Girardeau.
"It's corny, but it's kind of like we were made for each other," Heather Jenkins said.
When the Jenkinses married, the two agreed divorce would never be an option. John-Erik, unlike many today, chose marriage. They did not live together before they tied the knot.
Numbers paint a declining demographic of married people. Fewer are choosing a life of matrimony. More are living together before making vows. And divorce rates, though declining in recent years, are higher than they were a half-century ago.
A Southeast Missourian analysis of census data and information obtained through open-records requests shows fewer adults are married in Southeast Missouri today than they have been over the last 30 years. Despite tax incentives that make matrimony financially beneficial, more couples are deciding not to wed but still live under the same roof.
The trend is not isolated to the Cape Girardeau region.
Data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau show the percentage of married adults 18 years old or older has steadily decreased from 1980 to 2010.
USA Today reported last year the marriage rate was at its lowest point in more than a century, and the number of marriages in the U.S. fell more than 5 percent during the recession, which began in 2008.
Also, the percentage of adults who decide to never marry is on the rise. According to the census, 20 percent of women age 40 to 49 have not been married, compared to just 4.9 percent of the same age group in 1970. By comparison, men never married in that age group have gone up from 6.3 percent to 13.8 percent.
In 2008, a total of 622 marriage licenses were filed with the Cape Girardeau County recorder's office, the highest since 2000, when the same number of licenses were filed. The number supports other data showing a trending decline in marriages.
The number of marriage licenses filed decreased to 577 the next year in 2009, then increased to 653 in 2011. Last year, 581 marriage licenses were filed, making 2013 the bottom year for number of licenses issued in the county over the last four years.
The highest number of marriage licenses filed over the last 30 years was 825 in 1988.
The number of marriage licenses issued per year are approximate totals calculated by the Cape Girardeau County recorder's office based on archived data. Marriage licenses issued by the county do not necessarily mean a couple lives in Cape Girardeau County or that the ceremony was performed in the county, explained recorder Scott Clark.
Gail Overbey, a professor of psychology at Southeast Missouri State University, said she and her classes discuss several factors for the increase in cohabitation over the years, including economics, tolerance of cohabitation, education and divorce.
Economic factors
A more recent factor attributed to the rise in cohabiting couples is the state of the economy.
Because of the poor economy and lack of jobs, cohabitation can be seen as an easier way to survive and share bills. Couples paying one rent is cheaper than two.
"It's very clearly a financial decision" for some cohabitating couples, Overbey said.
Poor economics, in addition to contributing to more unmarried people living together, also could be keeping people from getting married. Couples are less likely to get married without stable employment and income.
Brittany Reutzel and Tyler Lartonoix's story began in a bar. The two Southeast students were celebrating separate events at the same St. Louis establishment about two years ago when they first met. Lartonoix got Reutzel's number and took her on a date that Sunday in Cape Girardeau.
"It's kind of amazing when someone knows exactly what to do or say to either, you know, aggravate you, push your buttons or to make you laugh," Reutzel said.
Reutzel tends bar at a local restaurant while attending school, and Lartonoix works at Southeast while studying for a master's degree in criminal justice. The couple is on the marriage track and recently moved into an upstairs apartment in downtown Cape Girardeau together.
Lartonoix blamed fear of a failed marriage and the current economic structure as reasons fewer people are getting married.
"It's hard to get married if you don't have a job," he said.
Some also postpone marriage until they are finished with college, Overbey said. U.S. data shows the median age for men and women in the United States getting married for the first time has increased every year since 1980, when the median age for men was 24.7 and for women 22.0. When census numbers were calculated in 2010, the median age for first-time married men was 28.2 and the median age for women was 26.1.
"We both kind of have the understanding that once we're established, we both have our big-kid jobs and are financially stable enough to have wedding and buy a house, then that's definitely next on the list," Reutzel said. "We just want to be stable before than happens."
The widespread availability of birth control also plays a role in the increase of cohabitation, Overbey said.
Because couples who do not want to have children can have a sexual relationship without the concern of pregnancy, they become more willing to live together without making a legal, lifetime commitment. The birth control pill was introduced in 1960s.
Because of the changes in society and culture over last few decades, more tolerance exists toward unmarried couples living together.
"There is a lot less stigma that seems to be associated with cohabitation," Overbey said.
Cohabitation research
A bulk of previous research studies suggest couples who live together before they marry are more likely to experience marital instability, Overbey said, though some question whether the outcome was influenced by pre-existing differences between cohabitating individuals, such as those who were less committed who chose to cohabitate and get married.
Patrick Tankersley, a marriage counselor at Faith Focused Counseling, spoke of the same research findings.
"Living together [before marriage] is not a good predictor of success in marriage," he said the research shows.
Because those studies were conducted years ago, researchers had a smaller pool to draw from compared to the much larger pool available, making it possible the findings may not hold true, Overbey suggested.
A more recent study found those who wait to live together until they have solidified plans to get married do not have the association with marriage instability previously found, she said.
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Living together before marriage, a cultural and religious institution, is a personal choice many view as immoral.
"People that are less religious are more likely to see cohabitation as being OK" instead of those who describe themselves as very religious, Overbey said.
Cultural norms
Harry and Marion Lafoe met on a blind date set up by Marion Lafoe's sister. The two managed a long-distance relationship from Louisiana and Texas for a few years before they married in Sept. 6, 1952.
Because Harry Lafoe worked in the motor insurance division of General Motors, the couple and their two sons, Edward and Bill, moved often. Marion Lafoe worked part-time teaching preschool while her sons were "little fellas" and was able to watch them grow up.
When the Lafoes married, the cultural norm was to marry before living together. Marion Lafoe's family had all done so, and she and her husband followed in their footsteps.
"I think the commitment is there if you marry first," Marion Lafoe said. You're more "committed to working at the marriage than when you are if your living together and you're not married. It's the commitment thing."
"We discussed permanent marriage when we were courting, and we both agreed that marriage would be permanent," Harry Lafoe added. "That was just the way it was."
"We just never considered [divorce]," Marion Lafoe said. "When we had a problem, we worked at it together. And there've been plenty of problems."
Fear of divorce
Some couples today cite a fear of divorce as a reason to not get married, at least not right away.
There are many who wish to avoid the pain of a divorce, Overbey said. "For them, they sometimes choose to cohabit because they sort of want to test the waters before they make some kind of a permanent commitment."
Between Jan. 1, 2001, and Jan. 31, 2014, a total of 4,723 divorce cases were filed with the Cape Girardeau County circuit clerk's office, falling between about 300 and 400 a year.
A total of 7,790 marriage licenses were filed with the county recorder's office between the years 2001 and 2013.
A decision
Chrissie Shay prepared dinner in a cramped kitchen while her husband of nearly two years, Justin Shay, distracted their two toddler-age children in an adjoining room of their basement apartment in Jackson.
Taven, 3, and Takoda, 2, took terms shuffling into the kitchen to make their way on chairs surrounding the kitchen table while their mother sliced potatoes and grated cheese for a casserole.
The husband and wife are in their 20s. Chrissie Shay is a hair stylist and makeup artist, and her husband is a field auditor for Charter Communications. Though both grew up in Southeast Missouri, the two met through an online dating website.
The two lived together before they married.
"People 50 years ago didn't get divorced," Chrissie Shay said. "Disposing of your spouse has gotten so much easier to do."
Cyclical theory
Tankersley, a faith-based counselor, said couples these days struggle to perceive commitment and are skeptical of how to live out a commitment forever because there isn't much exposure to couples who have. They are surrounded by many people who are not happy in marriage or who are divorced.
"I think that they don't have a lot of heroes. In other words, they don't have a lot of success stories to look at," Tankersley said of today's couples who have become leery about marriage.
In that case, it's easier for some couples to live together rather than jump into a marriage without seeing much success, he said.
Data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the number of unmarried partners living together increased about 2 percent from 2000 to 2010. The "unmarried partner" option was not printed on the 1980 U.S. Census questionnaire, according to a U.S. Census Bureau representative.
"In 1990, the category 'unmarried partner' was added to the relationship item to measure the growing complexity of American households and the tendency for couples to live together before getting married," according to a 2000 Census special report on married-couple and unmarried-partner households.
The 2000 census calculated 5.5 million couples who lived together but who were not married, up from 3.2 million in 1990, according to the report.
"[Cohabitation is] really becoming much more common today than it was in previous generations," Overbey said.
Making a commitment
The way John-Erik Jenkins sees it, if a couple lives together before they're married, "you're basically married, just without the commitment."
If something happens in a cohabitating relationship, not being married is an "easy way out," as opposed to a couple that is married and learns to cope with and love their partner's faults.
"We wanted to find things out as we went along, which has worked great for us," John-Erik Jenkins said of he and his wife, who chose to move in together after they married. The two were raised in conservative, Christian homes.
If something happens in a cohabitating couple's relationship and they no longer wish to be together, they can leave each other and not have to deal with legal entanglements of a marriage, Overbey said.
Lartonoix and Reutzel did not take lightly the decision to live together before they married.
"It was a difficult decision to make, for sure," Reutzel said, mentioning her parents were not on board with the idea. "It made sense to move in together because we were always with one another."
Lartonoix referred to it as "trial and error" because one gets to learn what it is going to be like being married to someone.
Reutzel agreed.
"You can definitely figure out more about the person by living with them beforehand" because if one learns something despicable about a married partner, "you're kind of up a creek without a paddle at that point," she said.
Chrissie Shay said there are too many unanswered questions if a couple doesn't live together before they marry.
"Living together is a commitment; marriage is an even bigger commitment. If you can't get past the first commitment, maybe you shouldn't get married," she said.
ashedd@semissourian.com
388-3632
Pertinent addresses:
Cape Girardeau County
Perry County
Scott County
Bollinger County
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