But whos allowed to get married . Marriage is between a man and a woman. Thats changing. Finally, whats the point of marriage . Why is marriage good . I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad. Thats our show tonight. Dearly beloved, most weddings begin with that phrase. Its an old greek phrase to welcome people to big events. Few events are as big as a wedding. Next month, june is thought of as the wedding month. Why june . Maybe because of that woman, june, the roman goddess of marriage. The month of june was named after her. Another explanation is that in the 1500s, many people took their yearly bath in may so people smelled better in june. Newlyweds were trying to time child birth. She wouldnt be so pregnant in summer so she could help grow and harvest the food. Whatever the reason is for june, im grossed out by how much money people spend on weddings these days, even people who arent rich. Whats wrong with people . Well, i dont see dignity in spending all these gross sums. Well, yes. People have gotten out of control. We are living in a celebrity culture where we want to emulate the big celebrities, but they can afford it and we cant. You were the daughter of the original miss manners, judith martin. You have written the sequel to her book. You say people think of weddings in reverse and thats the reason they spend exactly. They want this huge wedding with this kind of food and this kind of champagne. Theyre thinking about that and how many people can we afford to invite that. As opposed to, here are all my friends and family who will enjoy being at my wedding. What can we afford to get them . Sometimes that could be punch and cookies. If your loved ones want to be with you for this occasion, that would be okay. Its gotten way out of control. Did you have a big wedding . I had a medium sized wedding. We had a tea. It was very modest and we thought it was charming. We liked it. When you say people want this, i would argue people dont want this. Women want it. Guys have very little interest. Although theyre getting sucked up into it too. But theyre sucked up by this female fantasy that starts at birth. The wedding industry is conditioning us to do this. Theyre trying to sell us these products. They have an economic interest in thinking you need all this stuff. Theyre asking people to contribute to the wedding itself. Theyre in multiple registries to pay for it. Theyre asking the guests to pay for the wedding . Yep. Weve heard about it. There are things called myfund. Com. Honeyfund where you help pay for the honeymoon. Ive heard of people asking for help with their mortgages to get gifts. Some people will imitate what they see and they Pay Attention to celebrities, and we have a great grievous excess in some celebrity marriages. Kim kardashian marrying chris humphries. Justin timberlake and jessica biel, 6. 5 million. Chelsea clinton and her new husband, almost 5 million. Arent they embarrassed . They have the money to spend. If youve got the money and youre not asking other people to spend it on you, go ahead. You wrote, your guide to a dignified wedding. Were telling people you dont have to get yourselves into debt to do this. But if they can afford it, who are we to judge . I am judging. There are shows about reality weddings like bridezilla. I swear to god i will kill you. Other women spend a fortune on dresses and flowers and stuff. Its so pretty in pink. Okay, here she comes. This isnt mainstream. Tell me it isnt. It doesnt have to be that way. Lets move on to Something Else i consider a scam. Most american men when they propose give their future bride a diamond ring. Why not a cow, a tv, something useful . How did the diamonds get to be the symbol of marriage . A Diamond Cartel paid an ad agency to make it a tradition. Similar ads still run. The diamond engagement ring, how else will twomonths salary last forever . A diamond is forever. Debeers. Two months salary . Theres nothing intrinsically romantic about a diamond. For thousands of years, it was crushed by intense pressure and heat. If you want colorless, you can buy cheaper substitutes like cubic zirconia. Nobody can tell a difference. I disguised myself with this silly beard and the couples had no idea which was the real diamond. Even jewelers couldnt tell the difference. Why do you women want diamonds . Why do you want nice cars . Why do you want anything . Diamond is just a trend. It doesnt have to be a diamond. Its up to the couple. Were not here to tell you it has to be a diamond or its real. Its tradition. Its what people want to do. I did this story and then i gave my wife earrings. She assumed they were diamonds. They were zirconians. Two years later she asked if they were real, and i told her the truth. She was mad. If she cant tell the difference, why should she be mad at me . The assumption of truth was more important than whether they were really or not. Thank you. I would never mock the importance of marriage. It may help hold civilization together. The government gives money to groups who claim they can preserve marriages and keep families together. Millions of your tax dollars go to this group. This is our family expectations christmas party. This is our eighth annual. This group is called family expectations. They have events. We learn to have small conversations about big moments in our lives. Great. But does it work . Does it help to preserve marriages . No. The government found that couples that attend these are no more likely to Stay Together than couples who dont. They gave that Group Another 100 million of your tax dollars this year. What a waste. It would be good if there were a way to teach us how to make our marriages better and good for the kids. A lot of data shows that kids grow up better in a twoparent household. Those are reasons why this guest says government should do more to keep families together. But this guest says thats not a good idea. Why not if they could find a program that worked . The programs that we have seen in the past have not worked at doing this. Having kids raised by stable two parent families is a good thing. Im not convinced the government has the magic bullet to make that happen. I dont think government has the magic bullet, but government plays a really important role. This one isnt doing a great job in particular. Do you know of any that do . Government launched an Advertising Campaign to get everybody to hate smoking. Look at the change in attitudes towards smoking and resulting change in behavior. If we did Something Like that able marriage like people staying marriage . You can have ads that show parenting staying together for the kids to work things through. If we abolish marriage and reaffix the label to Something Else, a Domestic Partnership for the private fulfillment of adults i wouldnt call that abolishing marriage. Just redefining it. You have abolished it. What makes marriage different from any other kind of friendship if it is just about the emotional satisfaction about people who want to be together . What about two widows sisters that live together . Maybe they even raise a child together. Lets back up a second. Marriage isnt a static institution. Marriage had evolved and changed over thousands of years of human history. Marriage once meant that men owned their wives. More recently, we have allowed interracial marriage. All these notions of marriage have changed. The fact that marriage is now about love, you cant put that tooth paste back in the tube. That came about when couples no longer had to be a production unit. Marriage became something starting 100, 150 years ago. The fact same sex couple want into it shouldnt surprise us at all. None of those changes change the essence of marriage. Throughout history, its a sexually complementary relationship, the kind of union that can produce children. A lot of heterosexuals cant produce children. Is that not a real marriage . Its still a real marriage. Its uniquely the kind of relationship we get children from. Why does the kind of relationship matter . We dont test couples for fertilely. What people have understood marriage to be has changed and evolved. It does appear you are losing this war. In oklahoma, a judge ruled they must allow samesex marriage. Some republican politicians are now talking about get government out of marriage. Whats wrong with that . Why cant it be a private contract . Why must the state sanction . Our marriage culture is in the icu. All the statistics you talked about show that. Do we take that ailing marriage culture and just kill it, or do we do our best to try to bring it back to a healthy state for the sake of our children and our future . I why not let same sex couples into that . Its not just about stable two parent households. Its not a matter of two biological parents. We want parents who have made a decision to raise, create a child of their own they care about. Those people are going to be the people that are the best parents. Thank you. To keep the conversation going, you can use the hash tag marriage. Coming up, melissas nightmare. Plural marriage. You think thats creepy . The sister wives say it works for them and they say its great for the kids too. Eople take care of the things that matter most. Join today at angieslist. Com if youre looking to buy a car,t this . . Now is the time and truecar is the way. Just go to truecar. Com to lock in guaranteed savings. Without negotiation. Thank you happy memorial day weekend nobody ever stomped their foot and asked for less. Because what we all really want. Is more. Theres a reason its called an all you can eat buffet. And not a have just a little buffet. Thats the idea behind the more everything plan. Its more of everything you want. For less. And now get 100 dollars off any smartphone. Like the htc one m8. Get more with our best plans on the best network. For best results, use verizon. John the data is pretty clear, kids raised by the data is pretty clear. Kids raised by two parents married to each other usually do better in life kids whose parents are not married. Its not good news that the number of single parent households is up. Whites have been studied the longest. When i was a kid, most every parent got married. Only 2 of kids were born to unwed mothers. Today it is 29 . Here to help us understand what this means is my guest who studies marriage and families. So what does it mean . Well, a lot of people like to say, marriage is obsolete. Its a new world. People are going to have new arrangements. Why cant we just let that be . You have to tell the kids before you decide that the world has really changed, because what we find from the research is that on average kids do better growing up with their two married parents, two stably married parents. Why should it make that much difference if they live together, but they havent gotten the certificate . Who cares . It seems that way. Cohabiting relationships tend to end very early. Kids who are born to cohabiting parents are three times as likely to see those parents break up before their 5 years old. Just by getting married, means yourele less likely to break up . With cohabiting, it tends to be an arrangement that people slide into where they havent decided together to make this commitment. The Pew Research Company found that half of people ages 18 to 29 have a step sibling. So what . They get parented by more people. More love, whatever. More than a third of these marriages that break up. Its usually the father that tends to disappear or tends to fade out because theres a new man in the house. That often creates tensions between the father and the mother and the new man. He maybe has found a new love and has a child with that person, and its very, very hard to maintain any kind of stability. It complicates childrens lives enormously. What does it do to the kids . One thing we see, we see it particularly with boys, children are more likely to have trouble in school, more likely to have behavioral problems, boys who are in such environments act out, they externalize as experts call it, they get into fights, theyre more likely to drop out of school, theyre more likely to not go to college. Ive read this too. With much more of this going on, you would think the kids would be in trouble. Graduate rates are up. Teen pregnancy fell by 43 . Teen violence arrests are way down. When youre looking at these big numbers, youre not breaking it down by education. The break down of marriage is almost entirely effecting lower income, less educated people. College educated women tend to almost always marry before they have their children and their less likely to divorce. Teen pregnancy rates are way down, but whats happened instead is rates of young 20 somethings having children outside of marriage has gone way up. Yes, women are waiting. Better 20somethings than 15yearolds. No yes. When it comes to child outcomes, this much better. Not worlds better. Celebrities get this press coverage saying, i havent found a good man, so ill find a kid on my own. Charlize theron, Angelina Jolie adopted a child when she was a single mother. I assume their kids do okay. Do the children of celebrities do okay . That depends what your baseline is here. Weve been watching this breakdown of marriage over the last 30, 40 years ago. Weve been watching these kids go through life and we see it happen over and over again, even when you control for race, mother, education, all that. Twoparent household tends to work better for a child. Thank you. Coming up, the controversy over living together before your married. Plus, plural marriage. One man, three women. Theyre why we make life less complicated. Its about people. We are volvo of sweden. Was killed june 28,2005 in afghanistan. My husbands death was the hardest thing ive ever faced. The special Operations Warrior Foundation stepped in to help. Now you can help, too. Purchase new cherry 5hour energy now through july thirtyfirst and a portion of each sale benefits special Operations Warrior Foundation to help families of fallen heroes. I will always miss my dad, but thanks to special Operations Warrior Foundation i will never feel alone. When you didnt dread when youbedtime becausenner with anticipaof heartburn. Itation. 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John americans used to get married before they moved in americans used to get in married before they moved in together. When i was in college, most people did not live together before they married. Now most do. 65 . You probably know the famous examples. Curt russell and goldie hawn. Scott disick says he wants to get married. Being married is a beautiful thing in life. I dont know. You dont want a wedding at all . Why mess it up . A reason peo married, because they love each other and they want to have their child in a real family with married parents. Married parents, what a concept. University of michigan sociology professor studies trends in family formation. Cohabitation is just the norm now. Yep, everybody is cohabiting essentially. Everybody . Not everybody. Theres a select few who dont. Those with strong religious c convictio convictions. It is astonishing how quickly its changed in a big way. Yes. So we had 400,000 couples in 1960 cohabiting. In 2013, about 8 million couples. Ive talked to a number of young people who say they would never get married unless they live with the person first. That it would be stupid to do so. I must say that makes sense to me. The celebrities we showed, some of them never got married, but many live together for, what, a year and then get married . Right. Overall, about 50 of cohabiting couples end up getting married. About 40 break up and 10 remain cohabiting for a long time. Does it make a difference what socioeconomic group you come from . Yes. For example, we think of out of wedlock births. We know it is very high in the u. S. Right now. 60 of those are taking place to cohabiting couples and not to single women. Its not what we think of as out of wedlock. Correct. A previous guest says everyone if it is cohabitation, even if it is the biological parents, theres a significant difference. Do you buy that . I heard the commentators before. Yes, in the main i buy that. But in the cohabiting couple is a stable relationship, the kids can be just as well off. Is it less likely to be stable . Thats correct. Weirdly with all this cohabitation going on, it is still banned in florida, michigan, and mississippi. Although thats only on the books. Nobody pays attention to it. Nobody enforces that. No, no. Thank you, pamela. Coming up, youve heard a lot about the debate about gay marriage. When we come back, the debate over families like this one. Im joes wife. Im joes wife. Im joes wife. Hi, im joe. Joe and his wives make their case for what they call big love, next. And know that i got a good deal. Save time, save money, and never overpay. Visit truecar. Com dso i got dr. Scholls massaging gel work insoles. Ired. They absorb the shock of working on my feet all day. I feel energized get dr. Scholls massaging gel work insoles at walmart. Im a believer ive got a todo list and five acres of fresh air. Top three tools hammer, screwdriver, front loader. Happiness is a driveover mower deck. A john deere dealer can teach tractors to anybody. [ don ] in the right hands, an imatch quickhitch could probably cure most of the worlds problems. [ male announcer ] thats how we run, and nothing runs like a deere. Visit your dealer or johndeere. Com 1family. I just fell in love, and then i fell in i just fell in love and then i fell in love again and then i fell in love again. Shes a sister from the same mister and hes a brother from another mother. Some people think, how do you feel if hes off with another woman and shes having sex . Well, he better. Before sister wives, there was a successful fiction tv show about plural marriage. Its something not natural. Polygamist on our street. Its not for every man. I dont suppose it is. The creators of big love said they created their tv series after they saw the cover of t