Marriage

Western Individualism May Have Roots In The Medieval Church's Obsession With Incest

6:15pm November 07, 2019

by Rhitu Chatterjee

Researchers combed Vatican archives to find records of how ancient church policies restricting whom one could marry shaped Western values and family structures today.

Kevin Biely, 37 and Kat McClain, 28, on their wedding day in Las Vegas. In 2017, NPR documented their first date, which was set up by a matchmaker.

National

A Love Story That Began With A Matchmaker And A First Date On NPR

1:15pm April 24, 2019

by Laura Roman

In 2017, NPR documented the first date of a couple paired by a professional matchmaker, for a story about modern dating. A year after their first date, the couple got engaged, and they recently wed.

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Hard to Love: Essays and Confessions by Briallen Hopper

Books
Arts

'Hard To Love' Offers Tribute To Life's Many, Varied Relationships

11:48am February 06, 2019

by Rhaina Cohen

Author Briallen Hopper takes us into her unusually expansive love life, complete with knotty familial relationships, deep friendships, and emotional investment in the fictional and material worlds.

Newlyweds Saumil and Zarina Shah stayed at a safe house in New Delhi run by the Love Commandos, a group that rescues interfaith and inter-caste couples from potential violence and helps them hide from their families.

When India's Interfaith Couples Encounter Threats, 'Love Commandos' Come To Their Aid

7:24am November 22, 2018

by Lauren Frayer

Couples who marry against their parents' wishes sometimes risk their lives in doing so. That's where the Love Commandos come in. They run 500 safe houses and help couples elope or hide from relatives.

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Yuan Ruiyu, 26, says he and his friends are under pressure from both the government and their parents to hurry up and marry, and it's having the opposite effect on them.

World News

China's Marriage Rate Plummets As Women Choose To Stay Single Longer

3:59pm July 31, 2018

by Rob Schmitz

"Before, in China, you married to survive," says a Shanghai magazine editor. "Now I'm living well by myself, so I have higher expectations in marriage."

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Anti-divorce protesters marched in Manila in February. The Philippine House of Representatives passed a bill in March that would legalize divorce.

World News

Divorce Is Prohibited In The Philippines, But Moves Are Underway To Legalize It

1:49pm May 23, 2018

by Michael Sullivan

The Philippines is one of only two countries where divorce remains illegal. But a new bill permitting it has passed the House. A recent survey found 53 percent of Filipinos favor allowing divorce.

The Delaware Capitol building, Dover, De.

National

Delaware Expected To Be The First State To Ban Child Marriage Outright

8:35pm May 03, 2018

by Sarah Mueller

Gov. John Carney is expected to sign the bill lawmakers passed that would make Delaware the first state in the nation to ban anyone under the age of 18 from getting married, no exceptions.

Arts

When Did Marriage Become So Hard?

9:00pm February 12, 2018

Marriage is hard — and there are signs it's become even harder in recent decades. We examine how long-term relationships have changed, and whether we might improve marriage by asking less of it.

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A couple walks in the rain in Mumbai in 2007.

Books
Arts

Indian Couples Navigate A 'Shifting Sea' Of Love And Marriage

2:57pm February 08, 2018

by Nishant Dahiya

PBS Newshour reporter Elizabeth Flock spent nearly a decade following the lives of three couples in Mumbai. She chronicles their stories in The Heart Is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai.

Life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen for the second straight year, in part because of the surge of overdoses on opioids, such as oxycodone.

Health & Safety

Life Expectancy Drops Again As Opioid Deaths Surge In U.S.

2:44pm December 21, 2017

by Rob Stein

The opioid epidemic caused U.S. life expectancy to fall for the second year in a row, marking the first time that has happened since the early 1960s. Death rates also continued to rise.

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