Casual Argument essay based on an article by charles Murray

Casual Argument based on an article by charles Murray - Essay Example would like us to believe that the following data he claims to have collated over time proves that the decline of marriage has a direct effect on the economic status of the middle class (Murray, Charles "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010"): In 1960, extremely high proportions of whites in both Belmont and Fishtown were married—94% in Belmont and 84% in Fishtown. In the 1970s, those percentages declined about equally in both places. Then came the great divergence. In Belmont, marriage stabilized during the mid-1980s, standing at 83% in 2010. In Fishtown, however, marriage continued to slide; as of 2010, a minority (just 48%) were married. The gap in marriage between Belmont and Fishtown grew to 35 percentage points, from just 10. Basing his explanation on those statistics, he argued that the lack of marriage resulted in a lower economic growth for the middle class. After all, the double income family no longer existed in his opinion. Murray basically wanted his readers to equate marriage and economics as a partnership that grows the social class. Regretfully, his claims lacked any solid basis as his essay failed to present supporting data and information to back up his claim. Aside from a changing moral outlook within the middle class society, there truly does not seem to be any solid proof that his claim pertaining to the decline of the middle class economy in relation to the decline in marriage has a direct relation. In a modern society, women are expected to be financially independent. Thus, they are no longer beholden to men for their financial survival. Working class women have increased their participation in the modern work place and as such have managed to prove that they are quite able to take care of themselves, without a man. Although there are some who are in agreement with Murray about the decline of marriage existing in the lower income levels of our society, that does not mean that there has been a change in the moral