Due: March 8 at classtime Length: About 4 to 5 pages Subject: More on marriage rates (fwd) Here's an assignment worth up to 25 points if you wish to pursue it Here's a super article that Jennifer sent over on marriage rates that gives ages and explains things. http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~jthomas/class/589/Readings/marriagerates.pdf Although beyond the topic of a CJ class (so it might seem), part of this kind of exploration is to get us looking up little data points and expanding issues our broader knowledge. Now, this comes in the context of changing views of childhood, not so much marriage. It gets a bit stickier than I imagined. The data show that women were roughly 21 at age of marriage and men 25 in 1900. I'm trying to dig out my source that indicated they were a bit younger, but it looks like there were substantial class/regional/racial differences. It gets even stickier. It looks like about half of the males and females (a bit under 50 pct) were unmarried in 1900, making the marriage age a less-than-perfect indicator of "changing conceptions of childhood." (ie, that a "woman" was a "woman" at 15). Here, I'm thinking of my grandmother, who conceived at 14, as many of her friends did like-wise. It was accepted (rural southern Illinois). So, in keeping this on a social constuctionist level and posing it as a conceptual question: 1) What factors (variables) might be used to test the hypothesis that the conception of "childhood" was different in 1900 than in 2006? 2) How would we account for race, gender, class, ethnicity, and geography? 3) Doing a brief google or library search, what evidence do you find that the conception of childhood was the same as or different in 1900 than in 2006? 4) Was there a difference in laws in 1900 that would guide ut? They key point in this was in statutory laws that make sexual activity illegal, and why 18 has become the "magic age" in a time when sexuality is highly visible and sexual activity romanticized.
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