The End of Premarital Sex

28JAN

by Eve Tushnet

Does anybody still have premarital sex?

It sounds like a crazy question, in a country where 40 percent of births in 2010 were out of wedlock. But 2011′s Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, And Think About Marrying, by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, begins by noting that the common meaning of their title has shifted since the early twentieth century. Back then premarital sex was often expected to be pre-marital: You’d met your future spouse, but were feeling a little more hasty than wise. Nowadays when unmarried people have sex it seems like their coupling is simply non-marital, unrelated to the prospect of future marriage.

I’ve written about Regnerus and Uecker’s illuminating book twice before: hereand here. They do an excellent job of laying out the “scripts” which now govern sexual decision-making for most young adults. In this post I’ll focus on just two aspects of their message.

First, they show that marriage still has a strong hold on the minds of unmarried young adults—but it influences their behavior in unexpected ways.

One of the less-recognized core purposes of marriage is to structure the sexual behavior of the unmarried. In the past it may have been easier to see this structuring, since the basic message was, “Don’t do it until you’re married.”

But even today the prospect of marriage shapes young adults’ sexual behavior—it’s just that the shape has been turned inside-out. Instead of waiting until marriage, you’re supposed to try a few different sexual partners. You prepare for marriage not through chastity but through sexual variety.

Read more at Acculturated.