To marry or not to marry seems to be the question on the minds of Americans aged 21 to 54 years. According to a recent New York Times article the number of married Americans in this age group, has declined for the first time as measured by the Census Bureau, while the proportion of Americans in every racial and ethnic group who were never married has continued to grow by double digits. More and more couples are choosing not to marry, opting instead for co-habitation.
Recent research confirms that Americans appear to be growing more and more disillusioned with marriage. Indeed, the National Survey of Families & Households conducted by the University of Wisconsin Center for Demography and Ecology, compared responses of 9,637 racially diverse sample household responses to questions about how couples described their relationships, how often they fought and over what, and how they would envision their lives if they separated. Prof. Kelly Musick, who helped analyze the data suggests the initial boost that marriage seems to provide fades over time, and what is keeping people together is their fragile love and commitment for each other. It is possible that what was once the “seven year itch” has become the “three year itch.” However, research showed that the median duration of first marriages that end in divorce remains a little more than seven years. It is any wonder that couples are choosing to delay marriage or simply live together remaining unmarried? Another reaction to the instability of marriage in the U.S. appears to be the growing trend towards arranged marriages, in hopes that it will solve the marriage dilemma.
These trends point to a larger problem, if lasting marriages are determined by love and commitment, why are so many people entering into marriage unable to maintain them? In fact, the U.S. Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States recently began a campaign urging married couples to strengthen their marriages. The national ad campaign features couples from various U.S. cities talking about what they did that day for their marriage and points viewers and listeners to their healthy marriages website. However, a myriad of healthy marriage websites, including one by the U.S. Government seeking to provide marriage education programs don’t seem to be solving the problem. The fact remains that Americans who do choose to marry don’t know how to stay that way, and others simply don’t see marriage as viable long term solution to family life.
Sadie, another great article. (However, there is one link that doesn’t work–”healthy marriages website”.)
To me this is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. I think we almost have no choice but to come to the conclusion that marriage is a dying institution in our western culture. The implications are profound in many economic and political arenas to say nothing of societal and personal ones.
I’m one among millions who have tried to analyze why people don’t get married and why they don’t stay married. The list is long, complicated and varied–there isn’t just one easy-to-fix reason.
And, sad to say, the divorce rate for Christians is equal to the rest of society. Why is that?
Thainamu, two thoughts.
First, while there are many reasons why people don’t get or stay married, most of them can be reduced to a couple basic principles. One, today’s Western free society puts a premium on pleasure over responsibility (hedonism) and two, people have hardened their hearts. I wonder if what we see today bears any similarities to the culture that Noah was rescued from.
Second, regarding surveys that show the divorce rate for Christians is as high as non-Christians: while not an excuse or complete reason, I imagine that those poll the entire spectrum of “Christian,” from very conservative God-fearing folks to the most extremely liberal, pluralistic Christians-in-name-only. Plus, add in the despicable “prosperity gospel” churches (which are very very numerous), then is it any wonder that “Christians” have such a high divorce rate? Take the prosperity gospel, for example. If God wants you to be healthy, wealthy, and successful, how does a mediocre marriage fit into that ideal?
On the anecdotal side, personally I’ve never attended a church with divorce rates anywhere near what the surveys say. So, I believe that if you narrow the survey range down to theologically-sound believers, rather than the 45-50% that you now hear, you would more likely get in the 10-20%. Still too high, but more accurate to where true followers of Christ should be. Many of the “mainstream” churches of today will hear Jesus say “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Very sad.
Darius, I think you might be right as far as the survey of Christians goes. If one uses the term Christian in the common sense (which we would term nominal Christian), then it is quite likely that those numbers would reflect the broader society, because they really are part of the broader society.
Likewise, no church I’ve ever attended had divorce rates anywhere near that high either, and for the Christian organization for which I work, almost (but sadly, not quite) unheard of.
Here are a few of my reasons for the death of marriage:
1. Society says it is OK to have kids without marriage more than before.
2. Women don’t depend on men for their economic wellbeing as much as they used to.
3. The common thought that if something is broken, it is cheaper/easier to get a new one than to fix the old one.
4. And this is one of my favorites: the wrongheaded idea that romance is what keeps a marriage together. I could get on my soapbox here, but I’ll try not to except to say that romance in marriage is the reward for doing all the hard work to get along with someone.
exactly on all four points, especially the last one. The focus is on the feeling and not the effort. So if the feeling dies, oh well, find someone new who gives you that feeling again.
The best surveys on this, Barna’s, ask questions that people have to answer correctly before they are labeled as “Born-Again Believers.” Obviously this isn’t a guaranteed method, but it reduces the number quite a bit from just everyone who select Christian from a list. And these surveys show that Born-Again Christians have the same, or slightly higher, divorce rates than than the country in general.
If the rates of divorce among regular church goers were as low as thainamu’s and Darius’ anecdotal data suggest, it would have an impact on the surveys (even if they are only a quarter of the “born-again” group). Also, mainstream churches typically have a slightly lower divorce rate than conservative ones.
The bottom line is that this is one of the many areas where the American Church has failed miserably.
At the risk of being too personal, I’d like to relate a little story about a conversation I overheard on Saturday that illustrates the state of marriage today. My daughter and I were at a birthday party of a 90-year old. My daughter was holding somebody’s cute baby (with lots of oohs and aahs) and talking to a friend from whom she hadn’t seen in several years. This was the conversation:
Him: When are you going to have a baby?
Her: Well, I’m working on getting married first.
Him: Don’t you know it’s the 21st century? You don’t have to get married. You can have a baby if you want!
I don’t think the reason why people aren’t getting married is “hedonism” — I think people of this generation have a profound fear of failure in a relationship. Half of their peers have experienced the trauma of what it’s like to have a parent go through a divorce. I’m certain many people are afraid that the stress and hardship of divorce would outweigh the happiness of marriage. They don’t want to take the risk.
Quirkyalone, I quite agree. I think it’s a self-perpetuating dilemma, and has become generational. While hedonism certainly can’t be denied (I’m sure it’s true for some), I doubt one can say that declining marriage rates are somehow resultant from a bottom-fell-out-of-morality argument.
quirky, that may be true today, at least as a self-perpetuating part of it, but how did marriage get to this point? I don’t know the exact numbers, but 50 years ago divorce rates were much much lower. So what reason does the generation growing up then have for increasing the divorce rate the way it did? They didn’t have such a fear of divorce like kids do now.
So we have to look outside of your answer for what brought us to this point. What did the 60’s and 70’s bring us? The sexual revolution, radical feminism, and the lot. In a word, hedonism; the like of which had never been seen in this country before. All of this was enabled by a period of prosperity, technological advance (especially with entertainment and media), and relative peace that had also not occurred in this country previously. When a society is as carefree and prosperous as America was in the 60’s, it tends to get into moral mischief. Say what you will about wars and recessions, but they do make us more fully appreciate the important things in life and ignore the peripheral.
American Girls have done this. Men are tired of all thier talk about being equal. Ladies in 1950 the marriage worked becuase a women knew it was a shame to treat her man like dirt. Now they just move from one to another looking look what ever they can get.
Take it from a father of two raising them with no mother, And it works out great.