Not so long ago, two people had very little say in choosing their partner. This major decision was left to the parents, especially those of the woman. Oh, how times have changed. Today, sometimes a couple does not even seek parental approval and their personal preferences take precedence. However, the early stages of family formation can be affected by many social factors. The first three stages, consisting of dating, including the emergence of hookup culture, cohabitation, and marriage, are often strongly affected by race, class or socioeconomic status, and gender. In this article, I will analyze how each of these social aspects affects each of the early stages of family formation in the order in which they typically occur, starting with dating and ending with marriage. When discussing dating in today's society, one must first consider the new approach many young adults have toward dating. This new approach, known as hookup culture, is quickly becoming the most common first step toward a relationship. Today, almost fifty percent of college relationships begin with a romantic relationship. According to Blow (2008), the start of a typical relationship in today's world begins with a few meetings and then moves to a more typical first date if there is mutual liking between the two people involved. This means that more and more people are starting to see the idea of ​​hooking up as a good way to test the waters and see if you like someone before investing too much time in a relationship. Hooking up has received the stigma of being a phenomenon on college campuses, however, that may have been where the idea was first formulated, but it now extends further into adulthood . This expansion ...... middle of paper ...... "The disappearance of dating." The New York Times. December 13.3. Brown, Suzanne. 2005. “How Cohabitation is Reshaping American Families.” » Contexts 4, 3: 33-37.4. Cherlin, André. 2010. “Race, Ethnicity, and Families.” Pp. 143-169 in Public and Private Families, 6th ed. NY: McGraw-Hill.5. Smock, Pamela and Wendy Manning. 2010. “New Couples, New Families: The Cohabitation Revolution in the United States.” Pp. 131-139 in Families as they really are, ed. Barbara Risman. NY: WW Norton and Company.6. Sprecher, Susan, Quintin Sullivan and Elaine Hatfield. 1994. “Mate Selection Preferences: Sex Differences Examined in a National Sample.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66, 6: 1074-1080.7. Stevenson, Betsey, Stephanie Coontz, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Helen Fisher. 2010. “For Women, Redefining Marriage Hardware.” » The New York Times. FEBRUARY 21