This article is called "Briefing Paper: Marriage Reduces Social Ties" by Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian. They address that married couples tend to isolate themselves from other people in ways that pose long-term problems both for the couple and for society as a whole. Gerstel and Sarkisian explain why marriage isolates people, why it matters, if there are alternatives, and how we can help.


This article explains how relationships can be healthy or unhealthy. Including health behaviors, mental health, physical health, and mortality risk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150158/


This site clearly explains why it is good to be single for life. It states that you don't have to be married to be happy because marriages reduce social ties, single people are just as happy, etc.

http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/love/package.jsp?name=fte/staysingle/staysingle


The Huffington Post suggests that getting married may result in the loss of friends. Sandy Malone explains the difficulty with maintaining friendships after you get married.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-malone/why-getting-married-means_b_1576082.html


This magazine article is about a woman who claims getting married killed her friendships. She experiences condescending comments from her friends as well as less friends who reach out to her and her husband.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/nightlife/sex/columns/mating/11646/

This article is called ‘Betwixt and Be Tween: Gender Contradictions among Middle Schoolers’ by Barbara J. Risman and Elizabeth Seale. The topic discussed in this chapter is about middle school boys and girls “doing gender” amongst their friends and peers. Girls have a lot less pressure to engage in male activities than guys participating in feminine activities. It comes across as “gay” for guys but is constituted as normal for girls without being teased. For boys, homophobia is alive and well in middle school. This chapter touches on research on gender and youth, contradictions and equality rhetoric, the difference between tomboy and girly-girl, and homophobic taunts and enforcement of masculinity.

This blog is about a woman who explains how people learn to do gender. She explains who influences our opinions and why it is such a popular topic today.

 http://janice-mylifeorsomethinglikeit.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-do-people-learn-to-do-gender.html

This article is about the aggression toward gay men as gender role enforcement: the effects of male role norms, sexual prejudice, and masculine gender role stress. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754233/

This newspaper article stresses the issue of homophobia and why it is a problem. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-rose-horzepa/the-problem-with-homophobia_b_1173586.html

This article discusses the conversation between girls and boys have about girls' physical activity behaviors. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430756/

Briefing Paper: Unmarried Couples with Children

This article is about Unmarried Couples with Children; why don't they marry, and how can policy makers promote more stable relationships by Paula England and Kathryn Edin. Some studies have shown that when unmarried couples there is a high chance that they will marry sometime in the future and an even higher percentage of fathers expected to marry the mother of the child. But, in reality, most of these couples did not marry. The rest of this article answers why couples do not marry, why couples do not use contraception, why couples break up, as well as policy implications.


This article is about how being an unmarried couple and living together is better tax-wise than being married and living together.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/living-together-book/chapter4-6.html


This newspaper article is about how more and more unmarried couples are having babies. They are unmarried but both parents are present. There has been a substantial increase over a short period of time of unmarried couples having children together, but no reasons can be provided.

http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/13/more-unwed-couples-are-having-babies/


This article is about how Christians view cohabitation between unmarried couples and the resulting in childbearing. It is assumed that with the constant growth of unmarried cohabitation over the year, that in the near future it will be more common than marriage.  "The change in social attitudes about unmarried cohabitation may be due in large part to a change in perception of what it takes to have a successful marriage."

http://christianfamilylawassociation.org/unmarried_cohabitation 


This article is about initiatives in reducing unwed childbearing. Several factors are listed as to why this is important.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2006/04/childrenfamilies-kane