Gavin Jones: The Flight from Marriage

1. Gavin Jones: The Flight from Marriage • Describe recent trends in marital postponement in Asia. Does marital postponement at age 30-34 predict not married at 40-44? • How do trends in marital postponement differ between women and men? Do patterns of non-marriage vary by religion: Buddhists, Catholics, and Muslims? • What is the relationship between education and marital postponement? How do these patterns vary between men and women? Explain.

2. Why and how did societies with universal and early marriage become late marriage societies? Do the patterns between rural and urban areas help to explain the reasons for the trend? Do you think the trend primarily reflects voluntary or involuntary factors? • What are the implications of changing marriage patterns for traditional family life, for fertility, and the role of women? • What does Jones mean with the statement that part of the increase in non-marriage is purely compositional? • The longstanding patterns of marital postponement and non marriage in Europe and the United States were eased with the age of affluence after WW II, however the “flight from marriage” in Asia occurred during the era of rapid development after 1970. How might these differences be explained?

3. Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan • What are traditional high divorce societies? How has the incidence of divorce changed with modernization? Give some examples of high and low tolerant divorce societies in SEA? • Describe the social and economic conditions in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand during the 1950s and 1960s before the Asian economic miracle.

4. What were the major correlates of marital disruption in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? Why was the rate of divorce so low among Chinese in Malaysia and Thailand? • Explain the variations in divorce by residence (rural and urban), education, and, age at marriage. How do these patterns change from the bivariate to the multivariate analysis? Why? • How do Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan explain the high rates among certain cultural groups in SEA? What are the consequences of divorce in traditional high divorce societies and modern high divorce societies?

5. Peracca, Knodel, & Saengtienchai • What are the types of commercial and noncommercial sex relations in Thailand? How common are these patterns? • What is focus group research? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of focus group research relative to other research methods. What efforts did the authors make to insure the reliability of their research findings? How might language and translation affect the interpretation of the results? • What are the marriage prospects of Thai FSW? How do the authors explain their findings? What advantages might FSW have in the marriage market?

6. Is there a stigma attached to commercial sex in Thailand? How do men’s families respond to the prospect of a marriage to a FSW? • Explain how Thai views of personal responsibility and Buddhism affect attitudes toward FSW? • What are the backgrounds of most Thai FSW? How do they enter the commercial sex industry? • What implications does this study have for our understanding of comparative studies of sexuality and marriage?