How Marriage Proposals Became Negotiations

From Karmen:
I remember in high school the excitement of prom! Boys would craft up elaborate ways to ask a girl to be his date. Weeks leading up to the dance, there were BOLD signs of initiation across campus. It was during that week that I was reminded that chivalry was not dead.


Example: I still clearly remember walking to my friends locker after school to find a note along with a fish bowl complete with a fish saying: "I'm fishing for a date for prom and I want to hook you." Corny, yes, but we relished in these few accounts with the opposite sex where we were being wooed.

I always wondered what it was about prom that brought about mass participation in chivalry: the formal nature of prom, peer pressure from other guys...? Whatever it was, it always gave me hope, that when we all grew up and it was time to get married, men would again live up to the standards of chivalry and make elaborate plans to again woo a woman.

This morning an article was written about "the proposal." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303828304575180190077376292.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion This article, focuses on the loss of masculine initiation in proposals. The problems seems to be rooted in gender identity crisis. "The norm that the man has to take control of the proposal has been greatly undermined and eroded," says Kathleen Gerson, a professor of sociology at New York University. "Women want to feel they have more control of where a relationship is going instead of waiting to react."

Ladies and gentlemen, Let's hear it: What is going on and how can we reclaim a lost art: Chivalry!
from Karmen.
Thanks to http://www.ruthyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/with-this-ring-i-thee-wed.jpg for the graphic.

House Means Children

From Eric:
I enjoyed this article because it brought to light the assumptions that are made about marriage, age, and home ownership. The home is the ideal symbol for children. When we think of someone owning a home, we think of a white picket fence,marriage, children, and pets. Audrey Irvine, the home owner is in her 40's and has no children, her friends and family become more blunt about questions and pressure to have children. "Society does seem to put an enormous amount of pressure on women once they hit the later years of childbearing age. Assumptions are made that every personal decision is a reflection of your desire to have, or not have, children." Irvine says. When a woman or even a man buys a home people assume that they must have bought it because they are ready to have children, because why else would they buy a house? There is a lot of symbolic interaction in this article, the way our props set us up for certain roles and expectations we are supposed to play. It appears that we do not use our props but they use us. We feel like we have to live up to the meaning and symbols these objects apply. If we do not then we are under pressure from others.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/06/24/rr.get.house.get.kids/index.html
--eric
thanks to http://otal.umd.edu/~vg/mssp96/ms06/rowe1.jpg for the image

The Importance of Fleeting Relationships

From Mindy:
In "Together Alone: Personal Relationships in Public Places," the sociologists Calvin Morrill and David Snow of the University of California, Irvine, along with Cindy White, a professor of communication at the University of Colorado study the concept of fleeting relationships. The book argues that individuals should make efforts to connect with others in public places, like sports games, grocery stores, and so forth. This book argues that these “fleeting relationships” do hold an emotional connection to the other individual. This argument was based on evidence from strip clubs and the male costumers. Those with anchored relationships, which are relationships linked to a specific location that give more value to individuals, like mutual fans at a baseball game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas1-20.html?ref=sociology

by Mindy.
Thanks to http://www.treehugger.com/two-people-shopping-in-grocery-store.jpg for the graphic.

The World of Online Dating

From Mindy:
This article discusses online dating, and how it has become the new norm. Sociologists for the eHarmoney site have design “algorithms” to determine personality types in order to match an individual with another. Many other sites use anthropologists and psychologists to help determine the best match for individuals. These websites help professors and specialists to use their theories out in the field. The website eHarmony is focused on research of heterosexual partners, so the basis of the algorithm is also based on that fact as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html?_r=1&ref=sociology

--from Mindy.
thanks to http://www.onlinedatinganxiety.com/eharmony-online-dating-service/ for the graphic

Why did i get married???

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0906108/

Sometimes this question comes to people's mind when the relationship gets rocky.. as to why did they get married. This brought me to the movie why did i get married because one of the ladies shelia had a husband who treated her bad and he didn't like the way she was...but later on in the movie she find out her husband is cheating on her with a good friend and she starts hanging out with this other man. In the movie she had a hard time understanding what love really was. Symbolic interactionism would say that Shelia had a hard time knowing love because she had been socialized that love can be something bad but you just flow with it instead of being happy. When this other man had come along he had shown Shelia that love is about performances and good social interactions.

"We're All Teen Moms" says Bristol

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/24/bristol-palin-on-secret-life-were-all-teen-moms/

If back in the day..if someone's daughter had got pregnant at a young age people would try to ignore it and act like it didn't happen or try and push marriage quickly so people wouldn't find out it was out of wedlock but now a days teen pregnancy is more common. An article i read about Bristol Palin on Secret Life and she had talked about how we're all teen moms caught my eye especially since a lot of people i know aren't teen moms. The structural functionlism would describe bristol palin's idea that were all teen moms as a dysfunctional thing to soceity because it doesn't seek it's order. Societies order consist of marriage and then kids. When you get married to someone it shows your stability to one another. I think by her statement that we're all teen mother's it shows that it is okay for teen pregnacy and that all single teen mother's should stay together.

Saudi Gay Scene: "Forbidden, but I Can't Help It"

This article, which discussed the private gay lives of Saudi men and the violence and hate that they face, seemed to represent Structural Functionalist. It spoke of how being gay as a muslim was 'forbidden' and how one man, "prays to God to help me be straight..." He discusses how is only real 'freedom' comes from long vacations to places that have more accepting cultures of gay men and women, and how if anyone at home were ever to find out everything would fall apart and "his mom would kill herself if she found out..." This idea is very structural functionalist because by being gay he is violating his proper role as a man and society as he knows it will fall apart around him if he doesn't pretend to be straight. In Saudi the even go so far as to get married to a lesbian woman, because in this way they can fulfull their social role as a man, but there is an internal understanding between husband and wife that this is just a show. It is a very serious deal to be found gay, and there is even a religious police who can persecute and punish those who are suspected of being gay; one man was punished on the assumption that he was gay based on his tight jeans and shirt, no furthur proof was required.
Thanks to http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7479150&page=1 for the graphic.