We’ve gotten so muddled about marriage that people no longer seem to notice this unique, lifelong bond that underpins the success of society. I enjoyed looking into this study from Center for Christian Virtue. Researchers, led by Brad Wilcox, the Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation University Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, rated all 50 states based on marriage and family statistics. They found the percentage of children born out of wedlock and other metrics was correlated with marked differences in poverty and violence. Where parents are not married or do not stay married, children are poorer and more susceptible to violence. This is a well-established fact, but it’s worth revisiting.
From my piece at the Federalist:
Looking closer at the data in Ohio, researchers found disparities within the state that reflect the strength and sustainability of family life. Study authors note that in Youngstown, Ohio, where 68 percent of children are born out of wedlock, 50 percent of children live in poverty. However, in New Albany, Ohio, where only “8 percent of children are born into marriage-less households,” just 4 percent of children were living in poverty. Researchers noted, “This trend tracks across Ohio: the more marriage decreases in parenthood, the more child poverty increases.”
I was struck by the analogy to Casey Means’ “Good Energy” argument. As the dysfunction of individual cells leads to dysfunction throughout various organs and systems in the body, so the dysfunction in individual families leads to social ills. That is perhaps crudely and simplistically stated, but there are legitimate researchers demonstrating this link.
These observations might prompt us to view with more reverence the mysterious bond of married couples. So often, a spouse in pain takes the nuclear option and walks away with the false sense that the divorce is for everyone’s good. This is especially rich when the spouse demanding divorce grew up with married parents and knows not the pain she is inflicting on her children (and it is almost always “she” these days). Marriage is one of those arrangements in which the sum is something greater than the component parts.
There is no other relationship in which through the ordinary course of daily living, assuming no one alters or meddles with things, a new person springs into being every couple of years. Far out.
If you just want someone with whom to lounge comfortably in stretch pants and not be challenged to do more for others, marriage is not for you. The fact that too many people have tried to change marriage into an extended vacation for overgrown children is much to the detriment of us all. The fabric of our society is weakened because marriage as an institution is undermined.
