Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States

Book excerpt: Learn the changing role of sexuality in American life! This helpful book offers a solid background in the sociology of family life and personal sexuality. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Relationships in Social Context is designed to give readers a broad view of the diversity of contemporary U. S. attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. It also covers basic sociological concepts and research methods. Most human sexuality texts focus on the individual, whereas texts designed for sociology courses on the family downplay individual sexual expression. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United Statesintegrates the two approaches. The choices of the individual take on additional meaning when seen within a unified historical, statistical, and conceptual framework. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives readers the tools to consider such pressing issues as: Does the divorce rate mean that the institution of marriage is in trouble? Are children's futures impaired if they come from single-parent households? Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? How does marriage differ from cohabitation? What are the real sexual differences between the genders? What is sexual morality? How much confidence can we place in studies of human sexuality by such social scientists as Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson? These questions and others like them are placed in the context of U. S. social trends, beginning with the 1950s and moving toward today. Plentifully illustrated with tables, charts, and figures that show where we are going as well as where we have been, Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives a clear perspective on relationships in social context.