Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 25, 1990                   TAG: 9007250029
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAMON G. McLEOD SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MEN MARRYING AT OLDEST AGE IN 100 YEARS

Women, too, are waiting longer than ever to marry and now reach 23.8 years before they tie the knot, according to a federal report based on a March 1989 survey.

That broke a record set the previous year, in 1988.

The U.S. Census Bureau report also showed that a record number of people were living together.

There are plenty of fancy explanations for these findings, but part of it may simply be a question of "Who cleans the toilets?" said Brown University sociologist Calvin Goldscheider.

Goldscheider said two major social revolutions - one outside the home and the other inside - have affected the decision to marry in the past 20 years. Women with careers are spending time looking for a spouse who will share the house chores and grant them the freedoms that were rare for wives two decades ago, he said.

Meanwhile, young men are having more trouble getting established, he said.

Federal studies have shown men who were between 25 and 34 years old in 1973 had a median income of $26,879 (in 1988 dollars) but in 1988, men in this same age group had a median income of just $20,782.

"So now you need two people working to have the same lifestyle of 20 years ago, but for a women to work and then be expected to do all the housework, marriage looks like a major negative. . . . It becomes a question of who's going to clean the toilets," he said.