Kalish (1984), the timing of a first marriage is related to the attractiveness of the alternatives to marrying. When women value roles that provide viable alternatives to the role of wife, they delay marriage. The role of women has undergone significant transformation brought about by changes in society. Todays families are smaller and live longer, thereby allowing women to devote a smaller part of their lives to raising children than was the case in earlier times (Allen & Kalish). Thus, more time is left for other pursuits. A woman who enters her first marriage at an older age is less likely to exchange dependence on her parents for dependence on a husband (Unger & Crawford, 1992). Elder (1974) found that women who married later were more likely to have careers, financial stability and be middle class as opposed to lower class background. What has transformed societal attitudes toward marriage so that young women delay it, older women get out of it, and some women skip it altogether? Economic factors, a rise in feminism, parental influences, attitudes about sex, educational pursuits, and the divorce rate have all undergone significant cultural changes and are among some of the reasons being credited for influencing the ideas women have about marriage. Lets examine these influences and the attitudes of women which determine their decision to marry or delay marriage. We will also examine the expectations of marriage that todays educated women may have and how these expectations differ from other womens expectations. Economic factors have resulted in women working outside the home, and have had a strong influence over a womans decision to marry. The ever increasing opportunities for women to work outside the home make her less and less dependent, economically, upon a husband (Casler, 1974, p. 30). Late marrying women indicated that careers took relative precedence over marriage during the period of their lives when their less ach...
