Marital Discourse Among Middle-Class Young Adults: Typologies of Marriage Postponement and Marriage Pursuit.

Changing marital practices over the past several decades have prompted scholars to examine how marriage beliefs have also shifted during this time, particularly among the middle class. Most recent studies of middle-class marital discourse focus on the rise of individualist orientations towards marriage. This paper advances the existing literature by identifying marriage discourses beyond those that draw upon the language of expressive individualism. Specifically, this paper examines discourses of marriage postponement and marriage pursuit, as they emerged in interviews with forty middle-class young adults. The analysis identifies four ideal types of marriage postponers?preservers, protectors, protestors and polyamorous--and five ideal types of marriage pursuers?promise seekers, partnerers, procreators, publicists, and progressors. One of the most important contributions of this study is that it challenges and complicates current reductionist analyses of middle-class marital discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]