The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society

THE MARRIAGE & FAMILY EXPERIENCE offers a realistic look at relationships today, helping you see and understand the underlying issues at work in marriages, families, and all kinds of relationships. Real-life cross-cultural examples and features that encourage you to reflect on your own life and behavior make the thirteenth edition accessible and compelling. You'll find up-to-date information on adoptive parenting, childbearing patterns, gay and lesbian families, the transgender experience, the meaning of virginity, gender roles, communication and conflict resolution, the influence of popular culture, and working families. With thorough coverage that reflects the diversity of families and relationships, the book illustrates how racial, cultural, economic and sexual differences shape relationships and families, and offers a straightforward overview of the topics you must understand to succeed in your course. This is a book you can relate to -- and one you will want to read.

Theodore Cohen is professor emeritus at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he was the Ella Fulton Dunham Professor of Sociology in the department of Sociology and Anthropology until 2019. He also has taught at a variety of public and private universities, including Boston University, Northeastern University, Clark University, Rowan University and most recently, The College of New Jersey. Throughout these different educational contexts, he has found that enthusiasm, humor and determination to engage students to apply sociological concepts to their own lives has worked with equal effectiveness in classes of nine or 90. He brings those same objectives to his writing. In 1990, Dr. Cohen received Ohio Wesleyan’s Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for the Encouragement of Teachers, one of two awards Ohio Wesleyan gives for teaching excellence. In addition to being the co-author of THE MARRIAGE AND FAMILY EXPERIENCE since its eighth edition, he is the editor of MEN & MASCULINITY: A TEXT READER (Wadsworth 2001). He has published articles and book chapters on aspects of men's lives, especially their transitions to marriage and fatherhood, and on the family and work lives of a sample of nontraditional couples. Dr. Cohen's own family experiences include many of the issues covered and addressed in this text. He has been married, widowed, in a long distance relationship, remarried, separated, and divorced. He and his second wife are now once again happily married and living in New Jersey. He also is a father and stepfather. He earned his B.A. in sociology from Brooklyn College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University.