For more fun, start with the “Test Your Marital IQ” quiz in the June 21, 2015 blog post on this site. Here are the questions (without the multiple choice answers).
1. Which was the LEAST traditional form of marriage in history?
2. What was the most important function of marriage from Paleolithic times to the Early Modern Era?
3. Which of the following changes were NOT the long-term result of the adoption of no-fault divorce?
4. In 19th century America, at which age could an unmarried girl or woman legally consent to sex in the majority of states?
5. What is the single best predictor that a woman will be a stay-at-home mom?
Answers were provided by historian Stephanie Coontz on Family Matters on VoiceAmerica.com – Live Internet Talk Radio on June 23, 2015. To hear the interview, which was pretty darn interesting, use this link: https://bit.ly/love-marriage-history. You can listen online or download the podcast from iTunes or Stitcher.
Thanks go to Stephanie Coontz for providing the questions above and the answers below.
1. Which was the LEAST traditional form of marriage in history?
Answer D. Male breadwinner marriage.
Through most of the past, wives and children also helped provide for the family. The male breadwinner and female homemaker marriage was the dominant form of marriage in the U.S. for only about 15 years. Across the world and down through history, polygyny (one man, more than one wife) was most common.
2. What was the most important function of marriage from Paleolithic times to the Early Modern Era?
Answer E. None of the above.
The most important goal was to get useful in-laws!
3. Which of the following changes were NOT the long-term result of the adoption of no-fault divorce?
Answer A. A rise in women’s poverty rates relative to men’s.
The “feminization” of poverty started in the 1950s, when male wages were rising and women’s were flat. It was exacerbated by the rise in divorce in the 1960s, but those were all fault-based divorces. Since the 1980s we’ve seen a de-feminization of poverty. While women are still more likely to be poor than men, the proportion of men in poverty has been rising as the real wages and employment rates of men without a B.A. have plummeted. Divorced women do take a financial hit, but many eventually end up equally well off or even better off, either through remarriage or through increasing their own earnings. Meanwhile wives murdering husband, wives committing suicide, and domestic violence all decreased when no-fault divorce became available.
4. In 19th century America, at which age could an unmarried girl or woman legally consent to sex in the majority of states?
Answer B. 11 years old
5. What is the single best predictor that a woman will be a stay-at-home mom?
Being married to a man in the bottom 25% of the earnings distribution.
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Stephanie Coontz teaches History and Family Studies at The Evergreen State College in Washington and serves as Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families. She has authored seven books on marriage and family life, including “A Strange Stirring: ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and American Women at the Down of the 1960s,” “Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage,” and “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.” She is a frequent guest columnist for the New York Times. More information is available at www.stephaniecoontz.com.
