The purest bliss was surely then thy dower
In 1978, the divorce rate was much higher than it is today. (…)
Americans still venerate marriage enough to want to try it. About 70% of us have been married at least once, according to the 2010 Census. (…)
41% of babies were born to unmarried moms in 2008, an eightfold increase from 50 years ago, and 25% of kids lived in a single-parent home, almost triple the number from 1960. Contrary to the stereotype, it turns out that most of the infants born to unmarried mothers are not the product of casual sexual encounters. (…)
Most of those unwed mothers said their chances of marrying the baby’s father were 50% or greater, but after five years, only 16% of them had done so and only about 20% of the couples were still cohabiting. This didn’t mean that the children didn’t live with a man, however, since about a quarter of their moms were now living with or married to a new partner.
screenshot { Michelangelo Antonioni, The Eclipse, 1962 }
