From the archives: Changing views on vows

This story was originally published in Newsday on February 10, 2008.

This Thursday, under an arch of pink, white and red balloons, Ann and Edward Hosek of Levittown expect to renew their vows after nearly 60 years of marriage.

They'll celebrate at a Valentine's event at Hempstead Town Hall, honoring a relationship built on trust, honesty and companionship. They married in 1948, at a time when that was what everyone did, and acknowledge that marriage is very different today.

"Today lives are scheduled much different. They have so many other things to do," said Ann Hosek, 79, a grandmother to 20 and a mother of seven. "They are waiting to have children, and a lot of them just live together today, which years ago, you just didn't do. You lived at home and then got married."

Statistics and work by sociologists confirm Hosek's off-the-cuff portrait of marriage on Long Island. While more than half a million married couples reside here, according to 2006 Census figures, the number of marriage licenses issued in both counties has been steadily dropping. They fell by roughly 30 percent from 1997 to 2005, according to the most recent available figures from the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics. Statistically speaking, Long Island is no different from the nation as a whole: Fewer and fewer people are tying the knot.

Experts caution that romance isn't dead, as people are still looking for partners. Many are waiting longer to marry; however, and some are deciding not to marry at all.

"I don't think it's an indication that romance is on the decline, it's a fact that marriage is on the decline," said Danielle Knafo, associate professor of psychology at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. "One of the main reasons is that women have become more independent, more self-sufficient financially. In the past, women needed to be married. Now they have careers, they can take care of themselves, they can even have babies on their own."

Nationally, the estimated U.S. median ages at first marriage for women and men rose respectively to 25.5 and 27.5, according to the 2006 Census. The age for women has risen 4.2 years in the past three decades. The age for first-marriage men is up 3.7 years.

The Lombardi family, which operates two catering properties on Long Island, has seen the trend firsthand. Filomena Lombardi, one of the owners of Villa Lombardi's in Holbrook and Lombardi's on the Sound in Port Jefferson, said she is seeing more and more brides in their late 20s or early 30s. The duration of engagements are shorter but couples are still spending for big weddings.

"Once they decide they want to get married, they are ready," she said. "The budgets are higher, probably because they are older and they have the money to spend. And with planning something as important as their wedding day, they are not cutting back."

But does that mean they are happy? Studies have shown that there are benefits to couples who marry. The American Medical Association has reported that married men live on average 10 years longer than unmarried men.

Finnegan Alford-Cooper, a sociology professor at Stetson University in Deland, Fla., surveyed 576 couples married longer than 50 years on Long Island in 1993-94. She also surveyed 540 couples in Indiana, Florida and Wyoming in 2002-03.

She found that long-term marriages convey many benefits. Older married people are more likely to have a caregiver if health problems arise, and both partners enjoy a similar frame of reference on life.

"It provided a stability even if they weren't happily married," she said. "And, if they were happy, then even better."

On Long Island, the divorce rate slightly declined from 1997 to 2005, falling nearly 5 percent. In 2005, 7,104 divorces were recorded in Nassau and Suffolk, compared with 15,444 marriage licenses.

"Overall, most couples, they looked at marriage among younger generations and said they didn't see it as a sacred vow, they looked it as a contract that can be broken," Alford-Cooper said.

Marriage licenses issued in 1997 22,113

Marriage licenses issued in 2005 15,444