Anyhow, I am on page 129. He just described how in europe governments
and people are skittish about giving gay and lesbian couples
reproductive rights (artificial incemination, surrogacy) while
americans are being rather liberal on that account. In
Britain/France/Norway/Switcerland there are laws against assisting gay
or even umarried women with artificial incemination. This kind of
refreshing with us constantly talking about americans being socially
backward and reactionary.

Then, Churlin talks about British (the closest to the US european
state with respect to family policy) politicians debating measures of
keeping the children's parents together for the children's
wellbeing. Which sounds somewhat constructive compared to, Bush's
Healthy Marriage Initiative.

I picked him up again. On page 157. Chapter 6 is on relation of the
movement of the population and divorce rates. Interesting stats and
explanation. Counties with higher percentage of people that move
in (Florida and Western States sans Mormon-Utah) have higher the
divorce and suicide rates: people have weaker community ties. Emile
Durkheim is invoked.  He then goes for about 10 pages about the "go
west, young man" american migration mentality. The discussion goes
nowhere.

Okay, I could not sleep so I finished Churlin. The penultimate chapter
- class analysis is the most interesting. Churlin apologizes for half
a page that he had to consider class. Most probably because it
undermines his whole thesis. The marriage behavior varies
significantly by income level (he uses college education instead) and
recent changes in marriages and cohabitation are explained well by
people's economic circumstance. Decline in blue-collar work led to the
rise in co-habitation and fragility of marriages while promoting
having a baby as the only reward and fulfillment available to
uneducated women.

Some of the figures he provides. The number of women who become single
mothers during their mid-twenties to mid-thirties did not change for
college educated whites since 1965 and for college educated blacks
since 1980 (where it probably became a guarantee of stable income)
while it more than doubled for women with high-school diploma or
less. The probability that the first marriage ends in divorce for a
woman without high school diploma and with college degree is 34% and
13% respectively.

33% of people without high-school diploma will divorce or separate
within five years. 60% will eventually do so.

Race is a stand-in for economy. Only two out of three black women will
marry and 70% of their marriages will end in divorce or separation
(47% among whites)

divorce rate among the college educated actually declined since
1990ies.

The last chapter is mostly the Venkatesh-like repetition of the rest
of the book. Occasional silliness is mixed in. Churlin demonstrates
the failure of government and societal policies of pressuring people
to marry. He suggestion changing the slogan to "slow down" and take
your time selecting the partner. So, one failed idealistic policy
should be changed to another.