UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, November 4, 1993
7
now old... Divorce rates have been higher among younger age groups since 1976. This trend continued in 1986
Duke and Jennifer Naipohn share a kiss in Danfort Chapel northeast of Fraser Hall, while Barry Frank, their wedding photographer, straightens the train. The couple was married Oct. 23 after dating for seven months.
Source: Statistical Abstract of the US, 1992
Dave Cambel / KANAN
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AHAPPYHOME
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She had received her law degree in 1991 and wanted to keep the name that was associated with her previous accomplishments, she said.
Gregoire said he did not mind.
"I was somewhat concerned because the Midwest has traditional values when it comes to marriage," she said.
"I feel at our age, I've got my life established and she's got her life established, and it's just easier for her," he said. Both are 30.
Sandra Albrecht, director of women's studies and associate professor of sociology, said women had returned to the tradition of taking their husbands' names after using hyphenated names more in the 1970s.
She said she thought that women hesitated to hyphenate their names because it was seen as feministic, and that feminism often had a negative connotation.
But a name is part of a person's identity, she said, and want to keep it is understandable. It is hard enough to form an adult relationship, she said. It is even harder to kiss your name goodbye at the altar.
Inflation has forced many women to go to work, and that has translated into greater economic independence, Albrecht said.
But the notion that women are in charge of keeping house still persists.
"There are better ways to deal with this than a reactive "Throw the women back in the home," Albrecht said. "Men who share in the child rearing will never regret it."
Two different careers can often create conflicting lives. Jobs cannot always be found in the same area. Women are less likely to follow a man wherever his job takes him and give up their own opportunities.
Until death (or divorce) do us part
"I don't think the answer is that the career always comes first," Albrecht said. "In the resolution, both people ought to be valued."
The vows, the rings and the celebration are still a part of the marriage ritual. But the fact that about 50 percent of all marriages today end in divorce has many wedding guests knocking on the wooden pews while the couple says "Do."
Leslie Jones, Miami graduate student,
was divorced the one week ago.
Jennifer Naiphol sign the marriage license during the reception, making the marriage official as her uncle, Les Suderman, left, and husband Duke watch.
Jones, 32, said he believed his marriage was forever when he said his vows in 1991.
"I was planning on not getting divorced," he said. "That was the whole idea."
Compromise and commitment did not guarantee a happy home life, he said. Marriage was a gamble.
Jones said he bet that he and his wife could have worked through the problems that arose in the marriage. He lost.
Jones said he lived happily with his girlfriend for three years before they were married. But the rings spoiled it for them.
Marriage changed the way they viewed themselves and the way others viewed them.
"If you're living together, you are just a couple of young kids shacking up together," he said. "As soon as you go through the ceremony, you're a young couple beginning life together."
Jones said his behavior began to remind him of his father.
He did not like his new role as a husband. It was more serious than he had expected.
"It's very difficult not to fall into household roles because all you have for that is your parents," he said.
"I found myself composting and being concerned with my lawn mower," he said. "I really hit me harder than I thought it would."
Philip Khoury, Leawood senior, grew up with only one parent, so he thought he lacked a role model for his own relationship.
Maintaining his relationship with Julie Munjak, Lenexa senior, has been a learning process. They have been dating for about four years and are not ready for marriage.
His parents were divorced when he was young. He grew up with his mother, who was a physician.
Geoffrey Steere, associate professor of American studies, said economic independence, increasing religious tolerance, easier divorce laws and the fact that people were living longer had contributed to the increased number of divorces.
"As far as marriage goes, I don't really have any experience with it," he said. "Everything is kind of a new experience when Julie and I have disagreements and stuff."
"If you say 'until death do us part,' death may not pat you," he said.
More women have jobs and can afford to live on their own, he said. The stigma that used to accompany divorced women in the 1950s is gone.
That makes divorce easier, but no less emotionally draining, Steere said.
But few seem to be discouraged. Steere said 83 percent of divorced women remarry while 80 percent of divorced men remarry.
"While adults have a good likelihood of being divorced, they won't necessarily forgo marriage." Steere said.
Are the Cleavers dead?
The "Leave it to Beaver" image of the family, complete with two children, a mother who dedicates her life to her family and a husband who spends his days earning their keep, is still part of the American dream.
Steere said that image did not represent today's reality.
"It's simply a creature of nostalgia," he said. "It was the middle-class ideal after World War II."
In a country that prides itself on change and progress, the United States has worried that the family has been in decline since the country's beginnings.
"You can trac it all the way back to the Puritans," Steere said. "It's a paradox because Americans always tend to think things are getting better. But there's always this haunting statement that the family isn't getting better."
The family as an institution is alive and well and doing what it does best. Changing.
"Families have always been in the midst of change," Steere said. "The tradition of the American family is responsiveness, adaptation, flexibility and diversity in response to historical change. This is seen as declining rather than adapting."
Changes in the economy and standard of living during the past two decades forced many families to have two full-time incomes and fewer children, he said.
But just as Cold War-era problems did not stop the Cleavers from marching down the aisle, present-day couples are not tripping on the possibility of divorce or changing roles.
"Despite what young people know about the challenges and complexities of family life, they still want to be a part of their family and establish their own family," he said.
The institution through the ages Marriage and divorce rates have increased since 1960 but leveled off in the 1980s. In 1946, marriages and divorces also rose dramatically with the end of World War II.
Source: Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 1992
Julie Munjak has been dating Philip Khoury for more than four years. In May they will both graduate and possibly go their separate ways, depending on where she attends graduate school and where he attends medical school.
Her parents have been married 23 years. She appreciates the level of her parents' companionship, but she wants something different.
She wants to share her career and family responsibilities equally with her husband.
Dave Campbell / KANSAN
"Sometimes I feel like my father takes advantage of the work my mother does, but it seems like they are genuinely happy with it," she said.
When she gets married, Julie said, she wants it to last as long as her parents' marriage.
"I've always felt like my house was kind of secure," she said.
She plans on becoming a professor of English, she said, so she does not agree with her mother's philosophy that only women are meant to mother.
"She really believes in instinct and I'm not sure how much I believe in instinct," she said.
Teresa Munjak, Julie Munjak's mother, said she and her husband decided she would make raising the two children her full-time job.
"So many kids are left by themselves," she said. "And their parents try to compensate by buying them things. It's more important to be able to be there and make sure they are doing good in school."
Women who want to stay home
often are pressured to have a career, she said.
"Most women today feel like they have to put themselves first instead of their children," she said.
Teresa Munjak said she thought people did not spend enough time or thought searching for the right mate.
"People don't work hard at it," she said. "They need to make a commitment and stick with it."
Today, she said, there are too many expectations and too many priorities.
"Times are different," she said.
"More people are working and people are more concerned with trying to get ahead."
Her husband, John Munjak, said marriage required a lot of give and take.
"Later on down the line, when Duke is done with school, things will be more like the Cleavers," Jennifer Naipohn said.
"Everybody's busy making a buck and they don't have time for each other." he said.
Duke and Jennifer Naiphon agree that the Cleavers are not all bad.
Although she wants to continue working part-time as a nurse to keep her license, she also wants to stay home with the children they expect to have.
And he wants to play an active role in raising them.
Together, they want to make love a priority.
"It's a secure feeling." he said. "I feel stronger when she's around."
At Parkway 6000, a restaurant on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., Duke Naipohn, Lawrence sophomore, and his groomsmen participate in an old wedding tradition.
Bachelor party sparks inward look at traditions
Naipohn's wedding ends a long-standing bet on who would get married first. All five men agree that they thought Naipohn would be the last to commit.
The bachelor party.
But as he sings savy love songs into his drink and toasts to wild days long past, he does not act like a man who is unhappy to lose his independence.
Nalpohn said that although he supported Jennifer Franz, then his fiancée, and her career, there were some traditions that he wanted to unbold.
Did I tell you that I love Jennifer?" he asks with a wide grin.
ing roles of men and women in marriage.
And, after a few drinks, the revelers begin to speak frankly about their views on the chang-
Before he asked her to marry him, Naipohn approached Jennifer's father and asked his permission.
Naipohn said that he wanted Jennifer to stay home and take care of their children.
His friend and groomsman, Steve Miller, agreed.
"The woman is the center of the family and the man is the center of the household," he said. "The man is the figurehead."
Miller said the fact that more women were entering the work force had given them more
"Men are becoming wimps because they are saying, 'Why should I go to work when she is working?' " he said.
ownership in the marriage, but that he thought men were not living up to their responsibilities.
Miller said he would like to have four or five children. But he knew that he needed to find a secure job first.
"Most women want the financial security of not having to work," he said.
Today's society, with its focus on self-fulfillment and not family values, makes the sacrifice that marriage requires harder, he said.
Miller is Catholic. His girlfriend, who does not come from a strong religious background, is not convinced that marriage is necessary.
"She says if you're committed to a relationship 100 percent, then what difference does marriage make," he said. "But I say, if you're already committed to it, then marriage shouldn't be that big of a hurdle."
But Miller, a 27-year-old African American, is fighting a tradition that he rejects. His girlfriend's parents, who are white, are hesitant to let him marry her.
But Miller thought he could change that.
Miller and his girlfriend have lived together for less than two years, dated a little longer than that and have only discussed marriage. Do Miller touch the world's hearts?
He said he hoped a trip to Napohn's wedding would inspire her to follow in their friend's footsteps.