[2 separate webpages are being combined here for simplicity's sake...]

Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

NEW! Study: Cohabiting People “Eventually” Marry

NEW! Cohabiting Women Abort Children More

NEW! When Baby Makes Three: How Parenthood Makes Life Meaningful and How Marriage Makes Parenthood Bearable

Healthy Families Equal a Healthy Economy

Society Needs Marriage -- Without Marriage, 'Everything Else is Weakened'

The High Costs of Marriage Absence

The Costs of Missing Fathers

Marriage and Materialism

The Importance of a Marriage Commitment

Study: Australian Children’s Mental Health Deteriorating Due to Marriage Breakdown

Fighting Divorce Could Save Government Billions: Divorce-Reform Advocates Research

Commentary: Oh! How America Has Changed!

Breaking the Cycle of Divorce

Hope Among Statistics

Italians Not Having Kids, and Now, Not Getting Married Either: New Stats

Minnesota Marriage

Contraception Underlying Cause of Breakdown of Family, Sexual Morality, Says Expert

Study: 95% of Americans Under 30 Plan to Marry

Study: Children of Divorce/Separation Die 5 Years Earlier

The Annual Report on Family Trends: 2011...The Behaviors of the American Family in the Five Major Institutions of Society

National Marriage Week USA -- February 7-14, Every Year

Study: Marriage Significantly Helps Longevity, Mental Health

Marriage Is Good for Physical and Mental Health

Cohabiting Couples Far More Likely to Suffer from Partner Abuse, Statistics Show

MARRIAGE TRENDS

Unmarried With Kids: A Shift In The Working Class

Fragile Families: Not Easy, But Essential

Marriage: Marginalized in the Middle

'Lightning Divorces' Strike China's 'Me Generation'

Cohabitation Nation: Growing Trend Results in Declining Household Stability

Cohabitation and Children Outside Marriage Linked to Higher Probability of Breakups: Aussie Study (2010)

Cohabitation: A Trial Divorce

Federal Court Tosses Lawsuit that Challenged Federal Defense of Marriage Act

Study Confirms Cohabitation Leads To Higher Chance Of Divorce and Lower Relationship Quality

Living Together: Not Good Preparation for Marriage

Characteristics of Cohabiting Adults

Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know About Cohabitation Before Marriage

Unmarried Pregnancy: The Real Crisis

Family Breakdown in Canada Costs $7 Billion Annually: New Research

Same-Sex "Marriage" Suffers Plunge in Popularity: Poll

Why the State Must Oppose Same-Sex “Marriage”: Professor

Cohabitation, Second Marriages, and Children Outside Marriage Linked to Higher Probability of Breakups: Australian Study

Study: Marriage Reduces Stress-related Hormone Production...

INSTITUTE FOR MARRIAGE AND PUBLIC POLICY
An online source for marriage statistics, marriage law updates, and policy briefs, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to high quality research and public education on ways that law and public policy can strengthen marriage as a social institution.

Working with top scholars, public officials, and community leaders, iMAPP brings the latest research to bear on important policy questions, seeking to promote thoughtful, informed discussion of marriage and family policy at all levels of American government, academia, and civil society.

A sample item, a study on trends on cohabiting and marriage in the Netherlands, can be found here: http://www.marriagedebate.com/up.php. Cultural trends in the United States parallel those in Dutch society of a generation ago.
(Source: http://www.marriagedebate.com/about.php)
[Abstinence Clearinghouse, posted 25Aug09]

Study: Cohabiting People “Eventually” Marry

In analyzing data from a national study, researchers at Bowling Green State University found that about 61 percent of people who get married by the age of 25 are now choosing to cohabit first.

According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, about 25 percent of people get married before turning 25. But of those 63 percent of women and 57 percent of men — mostly Caucasians — report living together before tying the knot.

The Bowling Green authors characterized that statistic by saying “living together is a strong pathway to marriage.” But that doesn’t mean it’s a pathway to a strong marriage, said Glenn T. Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family And author of The Ring Makes All the Difference.

“The top family sociologists have found time and again over the past two decades that few things contribute to elevated risk of divorce like cohabitation,” Stanton said. “Couples who live together before marriage face a 65 percent greater risk of divorce compared to couples who do not cohabit prior to marriage. And serial cohabitors see that risk double compared with those who cohabit only once.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read “On the Road to Adulthood: Sequencing of Family Experiences” -- http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://ncfmr.bgsu.edu/pdf/family_profiles/file102409.pdf

Read Bowling Green State University’s information about the study -- http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/news/2011/news104718.html

Read “The State of Our Unions: Marriage in America 2010: When Marriage Disappears" (pdf) --  http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/Union_11_12_10.pdf

Learn more about the National Marriage Project -- http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/

Related:

    Cohabiting Women Abort Children More -- http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/09/12/cohabiting-women-abort-children-more/
    When Baby Makes Three -- http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/Union_2011.pdf
    Census Bureau Reveals Detailed Look At Marriage -- http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/08/25/census-bureau-reveals-detailed-look-at-marriage/
[December 12, 2011, Karla Dial, http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/12/12/study-cohabiting-people-%E2%80%9Ceventually%E2%80%9D-marry/?tr=y&auid=10000412]

Cohabiting Women Abort Children More

A study published this summer in the scientific journal Contraception reveals that cohabiting women who accidentally get pregnant are more than eight times more likely to abort their children than married women in the same circumstances.

According to the study, published online in late August, 59.3 cohabiting women in every 1,000 between the ages of 15 and 44 will abort their children, compared to 31.8 divorced women, 28.1 of those who’ve never been married, and just 7.7 married women.

A wealth of studies documented by W. Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, detail all the ways in which cohabiting relationships are less stable than marriages — and why children raised within cohabiting households fare more poorly than those whose parents are married.

In a Sept. 9 Q-and-A session with readers of The Washington Post, Wilcox noted cohabitation rose 13 percent in 2010 — making it even more prevalent than divorce, for the first time in history.

“Cohabiting relationships tend to be characterized by less commitment, less sexual fidelity, more domestic violence, more instability, and more insecurity, compared to married relationships,” Wilcox said. “Needless to say, these kinds of relationship factors don’t foster an ideal home environment for children.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read “Unintended pregnancy in the United States: incidence and disparities, 2006” -- http://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824%2811%2900472-0/abstract

[September 12, 2011, Karla Dial,  http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/09/12/cohabiting-women-abort-children-more/]

When Baby Makes Three: How Parenthood Makes Life Meaningful and How Marriage Makes Parenthood Bearable

 When Baby Makes Three, the 2011 State of Our Unions report from the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values, relies on data from three nationally representative surveys--including the new Survey of Marital Generosity--to answer four important questions about contemporary family life:

1) Is it emotionally easier to parent alone in a world in which a good marriage seems increasingly out of reach?
2) Do married parents report more meaningful lives than their childless peers?
3) Is parenthood itself an obstacle to a good marriage?
4) What are the social, cultural, and relational sources of marital success among today's parents?

Report pdf -- http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/Union_2011.pdf

Healthy Families Equal a Healthy Economy
According to Jim Daly with Focus on the Family, more effort should be spent on marriage preparation and strengthening the institution of marriage. He cites research from the National Marriage Project saying a healthy economy and healthy families go hand in hand. Research has proven many times there are many benefits to a happy marriage including less depression, longer life expectancy, and fewer illnesses.

[ed. The Family is the basic unit of any civilization...]

Are Married Men Better Workers Than Single Ones?

Dr. Brad Wilcox is a friend and the highly respected Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He's also an Associate Professor of Sociology.menworking1.jpg

For years, Brad and his colleagues have been studying the positive impact of marriage on the culture. His work is not manipulated to prove a point. He's a scientist who studies and analyzes data and draws conclusions based upon facts. In one of his most revealing articles, he makes an interesting statement, but one that also confirms what Christians believe about God's institution of marriage:

The long-term fortunes of the modern economy rise and fall with the family.

Interestingly, the origin of the word "economy" is the Greek word "oikonomos," which means "one who manages a household."

In other words, the stronger the household, the more robust the economy.

Given the current fragile state of overall family health, is it any wonder that our economy is struggling?

Brad's research is voluminous, but I'd like to share just two of his more countercultural (and perhaps counterintuitive) conclusions. I'm curious about your reaction. And if you're looking for a conversation-starter at your family's Thanksgiving table later this month, you might consider serving these up for discussion:weddingrings4.jpg

On average, men who get and stay married work harder, work smarter, and earn more money than their unmarried peers.
Key sectors of the modern economy - from household products to insurance to groceries - are more likely to profit when men and women marry and have children.

These findings are obviously not offered with the intent to hurt those who wish to be married but are not...  Instead, these findings speak to a broader issue which is this:

If healthy marriages lead to strong economies, wouldn't even the most hardcore secular economist agree that it makes good sense to redouble our efforts as a nation to encourage and strengthen the multi-millennial institution of matrimony?    
[Posted by Jim_Daly on Nov 14, 2011, http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2011/11/14/are-married-men-better-workers-than-single-ones]

Society Needs Marriage
According to Pat Fagan of the Family Research Institute, "The parental relationship, when it's in marriage, becomes the foundational social relationship in all of society. From that, all the rest breaks; without that, everything else is weakened -- everything." He goes on to report a cultural crisis when it comes to marriage as everything is affected: children, crime rates, poverty rates, longevity, and educational performance. Mr. Fagan sends a message encouraging churches to do more to strengthen marriage and family.

Without Marriage, 'Everything Else is Weakened'

A spokesman for the Family Research Council (FRC) says his organization's new study on the family should shock the nation.

The Marriage and Religion Research Institute's annual "Index of Family Belonging and Rejection" shows that only 45 percent of American children reach their 17th year with both their biological parents married (since before or around the time of their birth), while 55 percent do not. FRC spokesman Pat Fagan says broken families lead to lower educational performance, higher poverty, higher out-of-wedlock birth, higher crime, and shortened longevity -- and the list goes on, he says.

"The parental relationship, when it's in marriage, becomes the foundational social relationship in all of society," he explains. "From that, all the rest breaks; without that, everything else is weakened -- everything."

Pat Fagan (FRC)Geographically, the Northeast has the strongest index of family belonging, while the South has the weakest. It differs across ethnic groups, as the African-American family is the weakest and the Asian-American is the strongest. Fagan stresses that families with the best church attendance are the strongest overall.

"There is a reason why all nations and all cultures over time protected marriage, and we're beginning to see the reasons by neglect," he concludes. "It's a crisis for our culture. We have to figure out how to reverse it."

If churches do not actively work to reverse the trend, he warns that the downward slide will continue. Meanwhile, the government has provided more than $1 trillion to address the problems that result from the broken family.
[Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 11/21/2011, http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1480844; 29 Nov 11, www.abstinence.net]

The High Costs of Marriage Absence

Most Americans are unaware that about $700 Billion a year of federal taxpayers' money is handed out to non-taxpayers allegedly below a poverty line (in addition to $250 Billion a year given out by the states). After Barack Obama became President, he increased federal welfare spending by a third because, as he promised during his campaign, he wants to "spread the wealth," knowing that promotes dependence on government and votes for the Democrats.

This federal welfare apparatus consists of 69 means-tested programs: 12 programs providing food, 10 for housing assistance, 10 for social services, 9 for educational assistance, 8 programs giving cash, 8 for vocational training, 7 for medical assistance, 3 for energy and utility assistance, and 2 for child care and child development.

What is now called the hidden welfare state (because so few Americans know about its enormity) is the fastest growing component of government spending, and this does not include Social Security or Medicare payments. The total of these means-tested handouts is greater than what we are paying for our entire public school system and greater than what we are spending on national defense.

The temptation to cheat is ever present. The Census Bureau just reported that one quarter of the single moms receiving generous taxpayer cash and benefits actually have a partner living in the house whom she doesn't marry because marriage would cut off her government handouts.

We have also just learned that 2.3 million illegal aliens, who worked U.S. jobs in 2010, paid no federal income taxes but collected $4 Billion from the U.S. Treasury in tax credit money.

The number-one reason people are below the poverty line is what a group in St. Louis labels "marriage absence," and so has created a new organization called the Center for Marriage Policy to make Missouri a model to deal with this problem. At a conference this October to launch its proposals, its founder David Usher said, "Marriage absence is driving America's greatest problems, including out-of-control spending, much of the home-loan foreclosure crisis, poverty, children who fail in school, lack of health care coverage, and personal bankruptcy."

The institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has been fundamental to America ever since the founding of our nation. The famous French commentator Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the mid-19th century: "There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America."

Not only have our laws specifically recognized marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but many laws legislate special benefits. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified more than 1,000 federal laws that are based on the traditional definition of marriage, including the tax laws that permit married couples to file joint income tax returns and Social Security benefits awarded to fulltime homemakers (identified as dependent spouses).

The feminist movement started its attack on traditional marriage with Betty Friedan's 1963 book, which urged wives to leave their homes (called a "comfortable concentration camp"), join the workforce, and become independent of men. "Ozzie and Harriet," a traditional-couple sitcom of the 1950s, became an epithet, and it became de rigueur to speak of different kinds of "families" instead of "family." Wikipedia now considers the traditional family a relic of the 1950s and defines it as "usually considered conservative or reactionary by its critics who argue that it is limited, outmoded and unproductive in modern Western society."

The first goal of the "women's liberation" movement was unilateral divorce, allowing one spouse (now usually the wife) to terminate a marriage without the consent of the other spouse. This drastic change in our social mores was marketed under the deceitful title "no fault."

Ronald Reagan called his signing of California's "no-fault" divorce the worst mistake he ever made, yet it was imitated by all other states.

The anti-marriage network fanned out in state after state to repeal the laws designed to honor morality and preserve marriage, such as the laws against adultery, fornication, sodomy, alienation of affection, and even the laws that made it the duty of the husband to support his wife and children.

Government's definition of marriage is society's way of establishing the clear responsibility of the father as well as the mother for caring for those little bundles of helpless infants who appear when men and women do what comes naturally. That purpose was ignored by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Beginning with LBJ's War on Poverty and its vast expansion of welfare, the system channeled all welfare money through mothers, making the husband and father irrelevant to the family's economic well-being.

It should come as no surprise that this encouraged marriage absence and illegitimacy because, as Ronald Reagan said, if you subsidize something you get more of it.
[Nov 2011, vol.45, no.4, Phyllis Schlafly Report]

The Costs of Missing Fathers

In 1993, pondering the sad plight of the 20 million American children growing up without their fathers in the home, Charles Murray identified "illegitimacy as the single most important social problem of our time . . . because it drives everything else." Last year, the U.S. illegitimacy rate had grown to 41%, and among whites it was 29%.

Prior to Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, husbands and fathers provided for their families. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock babies born last year and their unmarried moms now look to Big Brother as their financial provider. The Left is content to let this problem persist because 70% of unmarried women voted for Barack Obama for president. They vote for the party that offers the richer subsidies.

Means-tested welfare handouts cost federal taxpayers $700 Billion last year (not counting programs into which people pay, such as Social Security and Medicare). Spending by the states raises the annual total to $950 Billion, more than we are spending on national defense, and most of these programs subsidize non-marriage.

The 69 means-tested programs include Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid, daycare, WIC, EITC (which can be as much as $5,657 a year to low-income families), School Lunch, School Breakfast, Summer Food, SSI, Headstart, and S-CHIP. The Heritage Foundation estimates that these benefits amount to $16,800 per person in poverty.

The financial subsidies that encourage non-marriage are the biggest reason why federal spending is out of control. There is no way to make significant cuts in the federal deficit unless we address the marriage-absence problem. Poverty is massively greater for children living with a single, divorced, or cohabiting parent than with parents who are married to each other. The poverty rate for single parents with children is 37%, but only 6% for married couples with children. Marriage breakdown is a double-edged sword. At the same time that it forces government to become the financial provider for millions of children and their caregivers, it reduces the government's tax receipts to pay for the handouts.

Income tax day now divides us into two almost equal classes: those who work for their income and those who just vote for their income. In 2009, 47% paid no federal income taxes, and the bottom 40% receive cash or benefits financed by the 53% who do pay income taxes.

Among other unfortunate effects, the trends toward non-marriage and toward same-sex marriage are a direct attack on fathers. The bond between a child and his mother is an obvious fact of nature, but marriage is the relationship that establishes the link between a child and his father.

There are many causes for the dramatic reduction in marriage, starting with unilateral divorce, which spread across the United States in the 1960s and '70s, putting government on the side of marriage breakup. Then came the legalizing of abortion, diminishing the custom of shotgun marriages, which in earlier years was often the response to surprise pregnancies.

The feminist notion that women should be independent of men, followed by affirmative-action/female quotas in employment, tended to carry out the goal stated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the concept of husband-breadwinner and wife-homemaker "must be eliminated." These feminist ideas and practices demean marriage by discriminating against men and also against fulltime homemakers.

Since the federal government created the child-support bureaucracy, the majority of divorces have been initiated by women. They confidently expect that pro-feminist family courts will award them a steady income for which they will never be held accountable.

The more child support that divorced fathers are ordered to pay, the more federal funds flow through the hands of the states, which compete for federal bonuses given to states that collect the most child support. It is profitable to state bureaucrats to make sure that fathers are permitted to see their own children only a few days per month so support payments can be set at the highest possible level.

Women have discovered they can use a request for an Order of Protection against their husband as "the gamesmanship of divorce" (in the words of the Illinois Bar Journal) in order to get sole child custody plus generous so-called child support. It's easy to get such Orders without any evidence of abuse or even a threat, without notice to the husband, and with no danger of prosecution for perjury.

Federal and state laws and subsidies that undermine marriage are the biggest fiscal as well as cultural issue of our times.
[Nov 2011, vol.45, no.4, Phyllis Schlafly Report]

Marriage and Materialism
 
Today's search for the American dream often turns out to be nothing more than the desire to acquire more and more "stuff".

When studying how this trend has affected marriages, researchers found couples who labeled themselves as "materialistic" have lower levels of marital quality and satisfaction.

In contrast, findings show greater levels of marital quality and satisfaction when materialism levels are low.

It seems one key to happiness is putting the proper value on "stuff" and having the right perspective - good advice for married and single people alike.

The study, published 12 Oct 11, in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, shows a distinct relationship between materialism and marital health.

Having and Holding Better than Getting and Spending -- http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/10/13/having-and-holding-better-than-getting-and-spending/
[18 Oct 2011, www.abstinence.net]

THE IMPORTANCE OF A MARRIAGE COMMITMENT

The following story is a great testament to the importance of a marriage commitment.

A woman reflects on her failed cohabiting relationship and thinks it may not have ended so poorly if they had married.

Breaking up a cohabiting relationship is easy (comparatively) and there is a mindset that if it doesn’t work out, there’s an easy out, even with children involved. The statistics back up her case.

Reading her story is heartbreaking and very revealing about the realities of the marriage commitment. This is worth the read. Visit link below.
[posted 20 Sept 11, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2037552/Like-habitees-Louise-dismissed-marriage-just-piece-paper-Now-admits-wouldve-kept-family-falling-apart.html?printingPage=true]

Study: Australian Children’s Mental Health Deteriorating Due to Marriage Breakdown

"In Australia, the number of children who do no reach the age of 15 in an intact family with both of their biological parents has almost doubled within a generation," the author of the report points out.

The psychological well-being of children and young people, especially young girls, in Australia has deteriorated significantly in the past 10 years, according to a report released today by Professor Patrick Parkinson of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney.

The “For Kids’ Sake” report, commissioned by the ACL, found that rising divorce rates, the breakdown of cohabiting relationships, and the increase in children born to single mothers is largely responsible for that deterioration.

The report emphasizes the negative impact of family breakdown “in particular to a rapidly worsening situation for vulnerable teenage girls.”

“In Australia, the number of children who do no reach the age of 15 in an intact family with both of their biological parents has almost doubled within a generation,” Prof. Parkinson states.

“While not all problems faced by Australia’s children today can, by any means, be attributed to the consequences of unstable and conflictual family relationships, the fragility of Australian families over recent generations has been a major contributing factor.”

The research highlighted the 250 percent rise in reports of child abuse and neglect, a doubling in the number of children in out-of-home care, a 66 percent increase in 12 to 14-year-olds being hospitalized as a result of self-inflicted harm, a 90 percent rise in the hospitalization of 15 to 17-year-old girls for self-harm, and a 52 percent increase in hospitalization of 15-24 year old females for acute alcohol intoxication.

The report concluded with a list of 14 recommendations focused on marriage preparation and family support.

‘‘Governments in Australia cannot continue to ignore the reality that two parents tend to provide better outcomes for children than one, and that the most stable, safe and nurturing environment for children is when their parents are, and remain, married to one another,’’ Prof. Parkinson said.
  [September 06, 2011, Thaddeus Baklinski, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/study-australian-childrens-mental-health-deteriorating-due-to-marriage-brea?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e96526a7b8-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_06_2011&utm_medium=email ]

Fighting Divorce Could Save Government Billions: Divorce-Reform Advocates Research

The government could save literally billions simply by taking modest steps to fight rampant divorce, according to prominent divorce-reform advocates. W. Bradford Wilcox says divorce “places real burdens on children, adults, and the state.”

Divorce “places real burdens on children, adults, and the state,” points out W. Bradford Wilcox, the University of Virginia National Marriage Project director.

“On the latter point, libertarians and conservatives need to realize that when marriage breaks down, court costs go up, children are more likely to fail in school and later in the marketplace, more police are needed to handle delinquent boys and young men, etc. So the breakdown of marriage causes the size and scope of state authority to expand.”

The costs of divorce, and efforts to reform divorce law, were the subject of a recent Washington Times article, where it was reported that on average a divorce costs a couple $2,500, up front. But that doesn’t take into account the costs of government support for single-parent families, which the Times reports can cost anywhere from $20-30,000/year. Multiply that figure by the number of divorced and single-parent families, and you’re looking at figures well into the many billions of dollars.

Michael McManus, the Co-Chair of Marriage Savers, agrees with Wilcox on the costs of divorce, both financial and social, pointing to a quote from the 2008 Father’s Day speech of then-candidate Obama, that children “who grow up without a father are 5 times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, 9 times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”

“If we could cut America’s divorce rate in half, it would spare 500,000 children a year from experiencing a parental divorce,” says McManus.

McManus quotes Michael Reagan, whose parents Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman divorced, who wrote: “Divorce is where two adults take everything that matters to a child – the child’s home, family, security and sense of being loved and protected – and they smash it all up, leave it in ruins on the floor, then walk out and leave the child to clean up the mess.”

“America has had one divorce for every two marriages for 36 years,” McManus observes. “Our divorce rate is triple that of Britain or France.  After 5 years, 23% of Americans have divorced versus only 8% in Britain or France, and 10% in Canada.”

Wilcox points out that while not all kids whose parents divorce will suffer, “their odds of suffering increase markedly.”

“Children long to know and be known by their two parents, to love and be loved by their two parents, and to see their two parents love one another,” he says. “Divorce leaves many if not all of these longings unrealized.”

Divorce reform has been tried in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona, which have a “covenant-marriage” law. “Covenant couples” participate in premarital education and marriage counseling, according to the Times.

New Mexico State Senator Mark Boitano has also introduced a Parental Divorce Reduction Act in this year’s session, an initiative that divorce-reform advocates are enthusiastic about, and that they hope is only the beginning of a larger movement. The law would enforce a “reflection” period for couples wishing to divorce, as well as education for the couples aimed at reducing divorce. Senator Boitano did not respond to an interview request by LifeSiteNews by press time.
[Jeremy Kryn, Aug 22, 2011 http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fighting-divorce-could-save-government-billions-divorce-reform-advocates?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e55c969c5b-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines08_22_2011&utm_medium=email

Commentary: Oh, How America Has Changed

USA TODAY published one of its colorful front pages last week detailing how America has not only grown dramatically in population over the last two decades, but has radically changed ethnically, geographically, and culturally. The most costly of the many changes is the fact that having children has become increasingly detached from marriage.

Illegitimate births for all Americans have risen from 26 percent in 1990 to 41 percent today "and could be headed higher." Among Hispanics, illegitimacy is 53 percent, among blacks it's 73 percent, and among whites it has risen to a shocking 29 percent.

This extraordinary change is the primary reason that government budgets, both federal and state, are so bloated. Without fathers to provide for these millions of children, their mothers turn to Big Brother Government.

The economist Robert J. Samuelson recently concluded that "the welfare state is winning the budget war." The bipartisan budget deal, which slashed our military budget but kept welfare-state handouts mostly off limits, turned out to be "a triumph of the welfare state over the Pentagon."

The Heritage Foundation reports that 77 types of federal means-tested handouts already cost $522 billion per year before Obama took office. He increased this giant amount to $697 billion per year in the first half of his term, and now half of Americans depend for their living expenses in whole or in part on government handouts paid by the other half who pay income taxes.

That was exactly what Obama planned to do when he told Joe the Plumber he wanted to redistribute the wealth and told Chicago's WBEZ-FM that his favorite Supreme Court Chief Justice, Earl Warren, wasn't radical enough because the Warren Court "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth."

Estimates are that, over the next decade, the federal government will spend $7.5 trillion on means-tested welfare. That's in addition to the nearly $200 billion a year doled out by the states.

In Ronald Reagan's famous caveat, when you subsidize something you get more of it. So the subsidies to women who have no husbands in the house have promoted more and more children growing up without fathers.

The American public has been alerted to the effects of family breakup ever since Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report called "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." We can now see clearly that giving cash and benefits to single moms, beginning with Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, destroyed families by making fathers unnecessary and even a barrier to the women receiving free money.

This common-sense analysis was confirmed by British commentator Melanie Phillips, who described the current London riots as the result of "the promotion of lone parenthood" and "the willed removal" of fathers from the family unit by the Welfare State and the "ultra-feminist wreckers" of the traditional family with its male breadwinner. She calls for removing "the incentives to girls and women to have babies outside marriage" and for dismantling "the concept of entitlement" from the Welfare State.

The religious Left has injected itself into the U.S. budget debate by corralling a list of leftwingers to sign a statement called "Circle of Protection" opposing any cuts to welfare-state spending. This group made a political splash running newspaper ads featuring the provocative question, "What would Jesus cut?"

I wouldn't presume to try to read Jesus's mind or announce His political opinions, but I think it's hard to make the case that He would approve subsidizing, and thereby encouraging, illegitimate births. That's exactly what the means-tested welfare handouts have been doing ever since Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

Michael Gerson defended the religious Left's Circle of Protection in the Washington Post. He calls the billions of dollars of government spending on poverty "essentially irrelevant to America's long-term debt." I guess we now know why George W. Bush wasn't more conservative: Michael Gerson was his speech writer.

Gerson is wrong. Welfare-state spending is a major cause of our debt, and it is also morally costly because it chases fathers out of the homes. The Heritage Foundation figures don't even count the social and fiscal costs of the drugs, sex, suicide, school dropouts, runaways, and crime that come mostly from female-headed households.

Also, welfare spending is a failure; it doesn't advance us toward any constructive goal, such as helping recipients to get on their feet economically. It merely increases dependence on government handouts and votes for leftwing politicians.

The Obama strategists know their political bread is buttered on the side of creating more and more women dependent on government. Republicans will lose the budget battle unless they face up to the fact that traditional husband-provider marriage is the mainspring of economic solvency, and Republicans will lose elections unless they stop the redistribution of money from taxpayers to dependents on government.
[Phyllis Schlafly, August 19, 2011, http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2011/aug11/11-08-19.html ]

Breaking the Cycle of Divorce

How do we break the cycle of divorce? The Heritage Foundation answers this question by advocating for the promotion of strong marriages through policy reforms and public education. Marriage preparation and saving sex until marriage are ways to save oneself from the pain of divorce. The following article takes an in depth look at the pain often felt by the children and parents of divorce.

A Generation of Divorce Testifies to the Importance of Marriage

Collette Caprara

July 13, 2011 at 11:15 am

In a snapshot summary of her memoir released on Tuesday, In Spite of Everything, Susan Gregory Thomas gives a firsthand account of what remains of children and parents after the devastation of divorce. Thomas presents a vivid portrait of the children of divorce in her neighborhood who, with her, wandered as “sad-eyed, bruised nomads.”

Decades of research underscore the truth of Thomas’ anecdotal account and the plight and trajectories of those lonely children.

Adolescents who do not live in intact families are more likely to engage in substance abuse, exhibit behavioral problems, have poor academic performance, and engage in risky behavior, including becoming sexually active at an early age.

In addition, children who do not live with both parents are more likely to experience psychological and emotional problems, ranging from low levels of social competence and self-esteem to anxiety and depression.

Like others who grew up at the peak of the divorce culture, Thomas vowed she would never inflict the same pain on her own children.

Yet, regardless of intentions and resolutions, statistics show that children tend to follow the marital trajectory of their parents. Children who have experienced parental divorce tend to experience more problematic and less rewarding marriages and are more likely to divorce. In fact, even the divorce of grandparents has been linked to a greater likelihood of third-generation divorce.

As Thomas notes, adult children who have experienced the “torture of a split family” often attempt to ensure the stability of their future marriages by testing the waters with a period of cohabitation.

She cites that nearly 60 percent of couples who entered a first marriage in the early 2000s had previously cohabited, as she had done.

However, statistics reveal that this intended failsafe is in fact a failure: Couples who cohabit before marriage are more likely to separate and less likely to reconcile after a separation, more likely to experience infidelity, and more likely to subsequently divorce, as Thomas did.

As a last ray of hope, Thomas clings to the notion of post-divorce mediation and joint custody to buffer children from a contentious litigation process. Yet more effective and long-range options are possible. For example, a combination of policy reforms and public education to promote strong marriages may help to save a next generation from the minefields of marital dissolution.

[http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/13/a-generation-of-divorce-testifies-to-the-importance-of-marriage/ ; Posted in Family and Religion; www.abstinence.net, 19 July 2011]
 

Hope Among Statistics  

The following article examines recent studies on the demographics of marriage, finding more affluent, college-educated Americans are getting married and staying married, whereas in poorer and working class communities cohabitation, infidelity, and divorce are more common. The author doesn't offer an optimistic future, but the National Abstinence Clearinghouse knows there is hope in this generation and those to come who want more for their futures! We raise the bar high and expect the best out of our relationships and our children's relationships.

Marriage Haves and Have-Nots

Updated July 3, 2011, 07:00 PM

W. Bradford Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the author of "When Marriage Disappears: The Retreat From Marriage in Middle America."

Do not be deceived by the recent marital misadventures of politicians, actors and athletes. In the nation’s affluent and educated precincts — from the Upper East Side to Bethesda, Md., to Southlake, Texas — the future of marriage is bright.

After succumbing temporarily to the marital tumult of the 1970s, college-educated Americans have been getting their marital act together in recent years. For this demographic, divorce is down, infidelity is down, nonmarital childbearing still remains an exotic activity (only 2 percent of children born to white, college-educated women today are born outside of marriage) and the vast majority of children are fortunate to grow up with both their mother and their father.

    The privileged reap the benefits of stable marriages, whereas poor and ordinary families are burdened by growing instability and conflict in their lives.

But in poor and working-class communities — from the South Bronx to Blytheville, Ark., to Youngstown, Ohio — the future of marriage is bleak. If anything, the aftershocks of the 1970s are growing, with all too many Middle American communities coming to resemble the inner city when it comes to family life.

For the majority of Americans who do not hold college degrees, divorce rates remain high, infidelity is up, nonmarital childbearing is way up (more than one-third of births to white, high-school-educated women are now outside of marriage) and about half of their children will see their parents split before they reach adulthood.

The roots of this growing marriage divide are economic (the postindustrial economy favors the college-educated), cultural (less-educated Americans are abandoning a marriage mindset even as college-educated Americans take up this mindset) and legal (less-educated Americans seem particularly gun shy about marrying in a world where no-fault divorce is the law of the land). Alas, the same-sex marriage debate has crowded out any serious effort to remedy this marriage inequality.

Consequently, the United States is a nation where the privileged and powerful reap the financial, emotional and social benefits of stable marriages, whereas poor and ordinary American adults and especially their children are burdened by family lives characterized by growing instability, complexity and conflict (think “baby mama drama”).

What looks to be an increasingly “separate and unequal” future for marriage in America cannot be good for the future of the nation.
[3 July 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/03/marriage-the-next-chapter/marriage-haves-and-have-nots ; www.abstinence.net, 19 July 2011]

Italians Not Having Kids, and Now, Not Getting Married Either: New Stats

The archetypal Italian family, with mamma and papa presiding over a noisy dinner table, surrounded by rambunctious children and grandchildren, has become a cultural artifact of the past. Not only are Italians not having children, they are increasingly not even bothering to get married, according to recently released government statistics.

The decline in marriages is unusually uniform in a country that sees large regional cultural differences between north and south. While Italy still has a relatively low rate of divorce, with only about 10 percent of marriages failing, young people especially are increasingly either delaying marriage for decades, or opting out altogether.

The decrease can mainly be seen in a decline in first marriages, particularly among people under 35. In just two years, the number of first marriages across the country has dropped by 30,000. At the same time, while abortion rates remain relatively low compared to other countries, Italy continues its birth-rate spiral, with only 1.39 children born per woman.

The crude marriage rates in Italy (the number of marriages per 1,000 individuals in the population), fell between 1970 and 2007 from 7.35 to 4.21.

The government Istat report found that while increasing numbers of “de facto unions” and cohabitation before marriage influenced the numbers, the main reason for the drop in marriage is the “prolonged stay of young people in the family of origin.” Italy’s “precarious” work and housing situation, with house and rent prices increasing despite the global economic crisis, has contributed to young people staying in their parents’ home.

The continuing global fallout of the 1960s and ‘70s Sexual Revolution has hit the Mediterranean countries hard. A report by the US-based National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, found that southern European countries had the lowest divorce rates in 1970, but experienced the largest combined increases in the crude divorce rate over the following thirty years. “A likely factor driving this increase is that divorce in these three countries was legalized in the past three decades,” the report found.

Italy may be showing the tiny island nation of Malta what their future will hold after their vote this week to legalize divorce.

Marriages are already decreasing in Malta, with the overall crude rate dropping progressively from 8.5 per 1000 population in 1980 to 5.9 per 1000 in 2005. With the introduction of civil marriage in 1975, the islands have seen an increase in the civil marriages from 0.3 per 1000 in 1980 to 4.0 in 2005. Proportionately to Christian marriages, civil marriages since 1980 have seen a steady increase, about 30 percent, with a sharp rise after 1991. Canonical marriages have halved in the same period, from 8.2 per 1000 to 4.0.

Marriage breakdown in Malta has seen a shocking increase over the last 30 years, with the 1985 census showing 1.1 percent of marriages suffered separation, annulment or divorce. By 1995, that number had increased 78.4 percent to 1.7 per cent. By 2005, the number had jumped to 4 percent of the population, an increase since 1985 of 161.9 percent.

In contrast the number of married individuals has only risen by 7.5 percent, a figure approximately half that of the observed rise in the total population, or 13.9 percent.
[6 June 2011, Hilary White, Rome,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/italians-not-having-kids-and-now-not-getting-married-either-new-stats?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3a49b844b2-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines06_06_2011&utm_medium=email

Minnesota Marriage

On 21 May 2011, the Minnesota House of Representatives voted 70-62 in a bipartisan majority to let the people of Minnesota vote on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage. Following passage in the Senate earlier this month, the amendment now heads to the 2012 statewide ballot to be voted on by Minnesota voters.

Contraception Underlying Cause of Breakdown of Family, Sexual Morality, Says Expert: Contraception is the underlying factor responsible for today’s scourge of unwed pregnancies, single-parent families, sexually transmitted diseases, deficient fatherhood, and high abortion rate, says a prominent family expert.

“Since the introduction of contraception, everything else has fallen,” said Patrick Fagan, director of the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute, reported CNS.

Addressing the annual conference of the Frederick Douglass Foundation in Washington, D.C. last week, Fagan cited “alienation of men from women, the breakdown of marriage,” and “sex outside of marriage” as a few of the tragic results of contraception use. The foundation is a black, faith-based organization.

“Universally, in all the history of Christianity, contraception was always seen as a grave sin against God,” he said, “a sin by which one lost divine life and the soul.”

Planned Parenthood’s birth-control campaign, said Fagan, was the beginning of the societal scourge.

“The first family targeted by Planned Parenthood in the late 30s, early 40s was the black family,” said Fagan.

The abortion giant campaigned in low-income, black neighborhoods.  That campaign, said Fagan, is partly responsible for the breakdown of the black family as well as a host of other consequences affecting society at large.

Black families had remained intact until the 1930s when the American Birth Control League, later renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America, implemented their pro-abortion agenda on the minority group, he said..

“By the late 1960’s, after ‘family planning’ clinics were widespread, there was a clear pattern of a preponderance of them being in black neighborhoods.”

“[Y]ou had this mass commodification of sex outside of marriage, mainly through contraception,” continued Fagan. “Who pushed the whole thing? Planned Parenthood. They first got to the black family. Why? Because they wanted to reduce black kids. They didn’t want black kids.”

In an e-mail to CNSNews.com, Fagan wrote, “Margaret Sanger spearheaded the effort of population control of blacks through the Black church, exemplified in her Harlem Clinic, which started in the 1930’s.  Adam Clayton Powell Sr. had her address the Abyssian Baptist Church, Harlem’s largest Black church.”

Another conference speaker, Patricia Funderburk Ware, president and CEO of PFW Consultants Inc., agreed with Fagan’s analysis of the destruction contraception has caused.

Funderburk Ware was the director of the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush administration.

“We didn’t have legalized abortions before,” Funderburk Ware said. “We didn’t have birth control.”

Yet with the rise of birth control has come a sex-without-consequences mentality.  With birth control availability and legalized abortion, said Funderburk Ware, “If we got pregnant, we could get an abortion.”
[25 Mar 2011, Rebecca Millette, WASHINGTON, D.C., LifeSiteNews.com; http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/contraception-underlying-cause-of-breakdown-of-family-sexual-morality-says?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7e344119aa-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_25_2011&utm_medium=email]
   





New Study: 95% of Americans Under 30 Plan to Marry

Despite the rising figures for cohabitation, divorce, and single parent child rearing, a new study by the Pew Research Center on how Americans view marriage and family shows only five percent of those under 30 don't plan on getting married.

With the marginally misleading title of "The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families" the study, based on census data and a new telephone poll of 2,691 adults conducted between October 1 and 21, found that traditional marriage as the most viable basis of society is in no danger of disappearing.

"Marriage, while declining among all groups, remains the norm for adults with a college education and good income but is now markedly less prevalent among those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder," the Pew report states.

The survey found that those in this less-advantaged group are as likely as others to want to marry, but they place a higher premium on economic security as a condition for marriage.

However, the survey also found striking differences by generation. "In 1960, two-thirds (68%) of all twenty-somethings were married. In 2008, just 26% were," the report revealed.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, charged that mainstream media interpretations of these statistics have been bent on distorting of the value of true marriage and natural family.

“The media is putting an anti-marriage, anti-traditional family spin on a new study from the Pew Research Center,” he said. “A decline in the percentage of adults (twenty-somethings) who are married is largely because people delay marriage, not because they forego it altogether . . . Only 5% of Americans under 30 don’t plan on tying the knot. This doesn't sound like 'the end of marriage,' as some are claiming the survey indicates."

A strong majority (58%) of those polled disagreed with the question "Is marriage becoming obsolete?" although a growing number (39 percent, up from 28% in 1978) agreed.

Furthermore, over two-thirds (67%) of Americans said they were "optimistic" about the future of marriage and family.

More that three-quarters of those polled (76%) said their family is the most important element of their life, 75% said they are "very satisfied" with their family life, and more than eight-in-ten said the family they live in now is as close as (45%) or closer than (40%) the family in which they grew up.

The report notes that the public's response to changing marital norms and family forms reflects a mix of acceptance and unease.

"On the troubled side of the ledger: Seven-in-ten (69%) say the trend toward more single women having children is bad for society, and 61% say that a child needs both a mother and father to grow up happily."

Forty-three percent of those polled said that increases in cohabitation without marriage, unmarried couples raising children, and homosexuals raising children, were bad for society.

"Relatively few say any of these trends are good for society, but many say they make little difference," the report stated.

The changing definition of "family" is notable.

Although 99% said that a married couple with children constitutes a family, and 86% say a single parent and child is a family, nearly as many (80%) say an unmarried couple living together with a child is a family, and 63% say a homosexual couple raising a child is a family.

"The presence of children clearly matters in these definitions," the report says. "If a cohabiting couple has no children, a majority of the public says they are not a family. Marriage matters, too. If a childless couple is married, 88% consider them to be a family."

"Even as marriage shrinks, family - in all its emerging varieties - remains resilient. The survey finds that Americans have an expansive definition of what constitutes a family. And the vast majority of adults consider their own family to be the most important, most satisfying element of their lives," the Pew report concludes.

Tony Perkins remarked that, "The research is still clear: married husbands and wives, and their children, are happier, healthier, and more prosperous than people in any other household setting."

The full text of the Pew Research Center report is available here -- http://pewsocialtrends.org/2010/11/18/the-decline-of-marriage-and-rise-of-new-families/2/#ii-overview
[19 Nov 2010, T. Baklinski, DC,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/nov/10111906]

Children of Divorce/Separation Die 5 Years Earlier: Study

While many studies have shown the positive effects of stable natural marriage on the physical and mental health of husbands and wives, an eight-decade-long research effort initiated in 1921 by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman has found significant negative effects on the children of failed marriages.

The study found that such children died almost five years earlier, on average, than children from intact families.

In 1990, psychologists Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin began a follow-up of the work begun by Lewis Terman, whose main interest lay in a study of 10-year-olds in San Francisco, with the goal of forming a test to identify the potential of high intellectual achievement.

One of the results of Terman’s work was the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

Friedman and Martin found that Terman’s original interviews with the children were so detailed and comprehensive that an analysis of follow-up interviews, and a study of the causes of death in the death certificates of participants, could shed some light on the significant factors that affect longevity.

The results of Mr. Friedman and Ms. Martin’s research are published in a book titled “The Longevity Project” and provide some sobering insights.

“Parental divorce during childhood emerged as the single strongest predictor of early death in adulthood,” the authors said.

“The grown children of divorced parents died almost five years earlier, on average, than children from intact families. The causes of death ranged from accidents and violence to cancer, heart attack and stroke. Parental break-ups remain among the most traumatic and harmful events for children.”

The authors noted that the early death of a parent did not have the same effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk as that of parental divorce and family break-up.

A surprising finding was that children that were described in Terman’s original interviews as “cheerful” also turned out to have shorter life spans than their more reserved peers.

The authors found that these “cheerful” children died in later life more often from homicide, suicide or accident, possibly as a result of a greater predisposition to engage in risky behavior.

Friedman and Martin concluded that the best childhood predictor of longevity is a quality they define as “conscientiousness.” This is found in children who are formed in an environment infused with “the often complex pattern of persistence, prudence, hard work, close involvement with friends and communities” that is found in a stable and committed marriage.

Roger Eldridge, chairman of the National Men’s Council of Ireland, remarked on the findings of The Longevity Project in light of the comments made last year by Mr. Justice Walls, head of the Family Division Court in England, where he said, “Separation is, of itself, a serious failure of parenting.”

“The Longevity Project puts facts to that overdue revelation,” Eldridge said.

“The courts are at last recognizing the truth that separation/divorce is an act of selfishness on behalf of parents (actually the deserter) and is an act of child abuse. Reducing a child’s life span by an average of 5 years is a measurable consequence of such selfishness, but the poisonous and devastating effect that it has on a child’s daily existence and their life potential and outcomes can never be measured.”

“The Longevity Project” by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin is published by Hudson Street Press
[23 Mar 2011, T. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com,   http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/children-of-divorce-separation-die-5-years-earlier-study?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=47b37c79f3-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_23_2011&utm_medium=email

FAMILY TRENDS REPORT
POSTED: FEB 08, 2011, www.abstinence.net

Check out the Family Research Council’s latest report on family trends in the United States. “The Annual Report on Family Trends: 2011...The Behaviors of the American Family in the Five Major Institutions of Society” by Patrick Fagan is available online -- http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF11B27.pdf

National Marriage Week USA -- February 7-14, Every Year
National Marriage Week USA-from February 7th to 14th Every Year - is a collaborative effort to encourage many diverse groups to strengthen individual marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and build a stronger marriage culture, which in turn helps curtail poverty and benefits children.

Together we can make more impact than working alone.

Please join with others to host special events, launch a marriage class or home group, or place local advertising or news stories during National Marriage Week USA. [www.abstinence.net, 25 Jan 2011]
http://www.nationalmarriageweekusa.org/

Marriage Significantly Helps Longevity, Mental Health, Study Finds
Two medical students at Cardiff University studying existing data on the relationship of marriage to health have concluded that “stable, long term, exclusive relationships” lead to “more healthy lifestyles and better emotional and physical health,” and have a marked effect on longevity.

Authors David Gallacher and John Gallacher cite a Cambridge study of “one billion person years across seven European countries that found that married persons had age adjusted mortality rates that were 10-15% lower than the population as a whole,” and that this statistic alone makes stable marriage “probably worth the effort.”

The two said that “marriage generally indicates a deeper commitment” which “might explain why marriage is associated with better mental health outcomes than cohabiting.”

They note, however, that while “civil partnerships should theoretically confer the same benefits as heterosexual partnerships ... this needs to be balanced against the shorter duration of many same sex relationships.”

The authors found that “physical and mental health benefits seem to accrue over time,” citing a 30-year longitudinal study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry which found that “the duration of a relationship was associated with better mental health scores, while the difference in mortality rates in favour of marriage, increases with age.”

“In terms of physical health, men benefit more from being in a relationship than women, but in terms of mental health women benefit more than men,” the researchers observe.

They posit that “the physical health premium for men is likely to be caused by their partner’s positive influence on lifestyle. The mental health bonus for women may be due to a greater emphasis on the importance of the relationship in women.”

Looking at the negative consequences of difficult and strained relationships, the authors note that their research found “being single is associated with better mental health than being in a strained relationship” and that “the ending of a strained relationship brings mental health benefits.”

However, they warn that successive short-term relationships are harmful to well-being.

“For women, multiple partnership transitions are associated with poorer mental health, and increased mortality,” they write.

“The take home message is simple,” the authors conclude. “Exclusive and supportive relationships confer substantial mental and physical health benefits that grow over time.”

The study, titled “Are relationships good for your health?” was published in the British Medical Journal on January 28, 2011. An abstract -- http://student.bmj.com/student/view-article.html?id=sbmj.d404

[31 Jan 2011, T. Baklinski, CARDIFF, Wales, LifeSIteNews.com,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/marriage-significantly-helps-longevity-mental-health-study-finds?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8558451663-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines01_31_2011&utm_medium=email]



MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

The British Medical Journal published a report showing that a healthy marriage is good for the mental health of a wife and the physical health of the husband.

Strained, unhealthy relationships, on the contrary, lead to overall dissatisfaction.

This is not news; we have known this for years. Our hook-up, no-commitment culture has many unhappy and unfulfilled singles.

The commitment of marriage with mutual respect and love for each other will lead to greater life satisfaction than being in unhealthy relationships. It’s worth waiting for!

Marriage Is Good for Physical and Mental Health
January 27th, 2011 in Medicine & Health / Health

The 'smug marrieds' may have good reason to feel pleased with themselves as experts today confirm that long-term committed relationships are good for mental and physical health and this benefit increases over time.

In an editorial published by student BMJ, David and John Gallacher from Cardiff University say that on average married people live longer. They say that women in committed relationships have better mental health, while men in committed relationships have better physical health, and they conclude that "on balance it probably is worth making the effort."

Men's physical health probably improves because of their partner's positive influence on their lifestyle and "the mental bonus for women may be due to a greater emphasis on the importance of the relationship", they write.

But the journey of true love does not always run smoothly, maintain the authors, pointing to evidence that relationships in adolescence are associated with increased adolescent depressive symptoms.

And not all relationships are good for you, they add, referring to evidence that single people have better mental health than those in strained relationships.

They also confirm that breaking up is hard to do, saying "exiting a relationship is distressing" and divorce can have a devastating impact on individuals. Having numerous partners is also linked with a risk of earlier death.

They conclude that while relationship failures can harm health this is not a reason to avoid them. A good relationship will improve both physical and mental health and perhaps the thing to do is to try to avoid a bad relationship rather than not getting into a relationship at all.

["Marriage is good for physical and mental health." January 27th, 2011, British Medical Journal, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-marriage-good-physical-mental-health.html ; www.abstinence.net, 1 Feb 2011]

Cohabiting Couples Far More Likely to Suffer from Partner Abuse, Statistics Show

Increasing rates of violence between couples in the United States and Europe have been widely attributed to the global recession, but the problem has another dimension that is often ignored: it is far more likely to occur between unmarried, cohabiting couples than married couples.

Spanish statistics, which have been highlighted in recent years by Europe’s Family Policy Institute (FPI), and recently reported by the Spanish Newspaper ABC, indicate that while only 11% of Spanish couples cohabit without marriage, such unions account for 58% of the most violent crimes between couples. For every one protection order issued for a married couple, ten are issued for cohabiting couples.

FPI also reports that, according to Spanish government statistics, “for every homicide that is brought about in a marriage, 12 are produced” in non-married couples. Moreover, the increase in such homicides in recent years is largely explained by cohabitation; homicides have jumped 45% among cohabiting couples, while they have actually fallen 15% among married couples.

Similar results have been found in statistical surveys of the United States and Britain, says Ignacio Socías, blogging for Spain’s El Razón newspaper.

“All of the official statistical studies of the Department of Justice of the USA regarding family violence, show that women who are married, including those who have been separated or divorced, have less than half the possibility of suffering [domestic violence],” Socías writes. “In the United Kingdom, the official survey ‘The British Crime Survey’ indicates that married women are the ones who have the least risk of suffering domestic violence.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cohabiting-couples-far-more-likely-to-suffer-from-partner-abuse-statistics

Related Stories
Cohabitation and Children Outside Marriage Linked to Higher Probability of Breakups: Aussie Study
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/jun/10062305
Study: Cohabitation Linked to Exponential Increase in Relationship Failure Risk
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/mar/10030411
Study Confirms Cohabitation Leads To Higher Chance Of Divorce and Lower Relationship Quality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/1990/71/9071502
Cohabitation Ends in Separation 90% of the Time
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/1960/72/6072106
[Jan 10, 2011, M.C.  Hoffman, January 10, 2011, LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cohabiting-couples-far-more-likely-to-suffer-from-partner-abuse-statistics]

MARRIAGE TRENDS (December 2010)

With the recently released PEW Study on America's views toward marriage and family, marriage has made headlines in national news over the past two weeks. One main finding in the study was that Americans still believe in marriage even though they are delaying getting married. The following articles discuss current marriage trends in America.

How Marriage Is Changing

The National Marriage Project's State of Our Unions report compares the health of marriages today with those of the 1970s. It finds a widening marriage gap between the working class and the college educated:

Divorce. Divorce rates are up slightly (from 36 percent to 37 percent) among those with only a high school diploma, but have dropped (from 15 percent to 11 percent) for the college educated.

Marital happiness. College-educated spouses are just as likely to say they are "very happy" in their marriages (69 percent), but the share among the high-school educated has dropped sharply (from 69 percent to 57 percent).

Nonmarital births. The number of nonmarital births is up sharply for both groups. It's only a sliver among the college educated (from 2 percent to 6 percent) but a large share among those with a high school diploma only (from 13 percent to 44 percent). http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131675435/unmarried-with-kids-a-shift-in-the-working-class
 


Delayed Marriage
The following article shows a cultural shift in how more Americans are cohabiting and having children before marriage as numbers show more less-educated Americans choose to cohabitate and have children without tying the knot.

As Brad Wilcox of the National Marriage Project reports, this is a dangerous trend because cohabiting couples with a child are twice as likely to break up by the time their child is five years old, leaving the child without both parents.

There seems to be such a fear of marriage. Couples understandably don’t want to get divorced and that makes them fearful of marriage.

Marriage is a commitment and something to be taken seriously. However, living together and having children without being married is a dangerous road that often leads to heartbreak and unfulfilled relationships without a clear commitment to work through the difficult times.

Unmarried With Kids: A Shift In The Working Class

The path to adulthood used to be clear — love, marriage, baby carriage — and no one embodied that more than America's working class. But today, for those with only a high school education, that order no longer holds; in fact, a new study suggests that marriage is foundering in Middle America.

Andrew Felices, 26, and Mellissa Giles, 27, are this new face of the American family. They've been living together since before their son, A.J., was born. He's 2 1/2 now, and he shrieks gleefully as he sprawls on the basement floor with dad, building a train track. The couple bought a cozy condo in Frederick, Md., last summer. A home, a child — but neither is in any rush to tie the knot.

"We're still young," Mellissa says. We're enjoying the time as it is."

What's important, says Andrew, is "having your life the way you want it, your lifestyle in place. Getting married is really the cherry on top."

Andrew and Mellissa are part of a huge shift. A new study by the National Marriage Project finds 44 percent of those with high school diplomas but no college degrees now have children without being married. That's more than triple what it was in the 1970s. And we're not talking teen mothers; half of those nonmarital births were to couples living together.

Many are in their 20s or 30s and, like Mellissa and Andrew, welcome a child. But marriage?

"A lot of people, I think, see marriage as a piece of paper," says Mellissa. "A piece of paper that costs a lot of money to change." She laughs and explains that she means divorce.

[chart]
Unmarried Women Having Children On The Rise
Percentage of births to never-married women 15-44 years old, by education and year
Source: National Surveys of Family Growth / National Marriage Project
Credit: Nelson Hsu/NPR

Like many children of the 1980s, Mellissa's parents split when she was young. She's wary, and she knows that a big factor in divorce can be money problems. She and Andrew have decent, full-time jobs. She manages a big-box store, and he processes auto insurance claims. But financially speaking, there's not much wiggle room.

"For me," says Andrew, "it feels unsafe heading into a marriage, where two people rely on each other, to go into it unprepared. In my family, my mother never worked, and my dad's income was always very sufficient to support our family. I'd like to model that in my life."

The trouble is, that's become a lot harder to do without a college degree. Time was, a man could go from high school to a well-paying, secure factory job. No more.

And Brad Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project, says that for three decades, men especially have seen their wages stagnate.

"And that makes them less attractive both in their eyes and in the eyes of their partners, as husbands," says Wilcox. "Both in terms of thinking about getting married, but also in terms of staying married."

Wilcox's study finds divorce up among the working class, even as it's fallen for the college educated. The recession, he says, has only exacerbated the problem, hitting lower-wage jobs hardest.

Culturally, it's certainly much more acceptable to have children without being wed. But there's still an argument for marriage: Wilcox says unmarried parents are more than twice as likely to break up by the time their child is 5.

Since the 1960s, Wilcox notes, there's been concern about the breakdown of family among the poor and African-Americans. "What's happened now," he says, "is that retreat from marriage has moved up the social ladder into the heart of American life, into Middle America."

Wilcox worries: Could marriage become a privilege only for the educated elite?

But wait a minute. If financial concerns are keeping people from getting married, the logic doesn't hold. Isn't a child more expensive than a spouse?

"A child is more expensive," says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist and author of The Marriage Go-Round. "What I think is happening is that a lot of young adults these days think that having a kid is absolutely necessary and something you don't put off until someday in the future when you might be able to marry."

But, Cherlin says — and polls confirm — young adults do want to marry.

"I want to have that beautiful gown, and all the family, and toasts with champagne," says Melissa Ethridge of Austin, Texas.

She was engaged when she became pregnant. But a wedding fell by the wayside as she and her boyfriend dropped out of college, moved closer to family and were overwhelmed with the costs of raising a child. Their son is now 4, and they're separating. Ethridge says people would ask why they didn't just get a marriage license at the courthouse.

"It may have made a difference as far as us staying together," she muses. "Maybe we would have tried harder, I'm not sure."

As for the couple in Maryland, Andrew and Mellissa, they've decided a college degree is a must to have the family life they desire. They'll have to squeeze in classes around work. Andrew hopes to get a promotion with tuition reimbursement. Perhaps then, they say, with degrees in hand, it will be the right time to marry.
[December 6, 2010, Jennifer Ludden, NPR Morning Edition, http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131675435/unmarried-with-kids-a-shift-in-the-working-class]




Fragile Families

Marybeth Hicks addresses the issue of children born to cohabiting couples, labeled "fragile families."

She says it best when she states, "The decline of traditional marriages and the families on which they are built is taking an economic, social and spiritual toll on our nation. Reigniting our culture's commitment to commitment - even one that is truly daunting - is the key to revitalizing our families and communities."

Not Easy, But Essential

Marriage is hard.

That's what I told the guy sitting next to me on the plane yesterday when he explained that he and his bride of less than a year have split up, despite the birth several weeks ago of their son.

That's what I told a girlfriend in an email, and another over lunch recently when she share her fear that she and her husband might not make it through a rocky patch.

That's what I tell myself on any given day, and what I remind my husband when we try one another's patience or expect special skills that simply don't exist. Like mind reading.

Lifelong marriage - once a goal held in the hearts of every newlywed couple - no longer is an expectation even for those who enter the bonds of matrimony with the best of intentions. That is, if they enter matrimony at all.

Two recent studies reveal some startling realities about the state of marriage in America and the trends that impact families, children and the communities we share.

The journal The Future of Children, a collaboration of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, devotes its most recent issue to the subject of "fragile families," defined as families that are formed when children are born of unmarried couples. In the first comprehensive, longitudinal study of such families, a disconcerting picture emerges. Among the findings contained in the journal's summary:

*At the time of their child's birth, most parents in fragile families are romantically involved and have high hopes that they will get married; most, however, are not able to establish stable unions or long-term co-parenting relationships.

*Both mothers and fathers in fragile families have low earnings capacities stemming from low- quality education and from physical, emotional, and mental health problems.

*The capabilities and contributions of unwed fathers fall short of those of married fathers and differ in important ways by the kind of relationship the fathers have with their child's mother.

*Children who grow up in single-mother and cohabiting families fare worse than those born into married-couple households, although being raised by stable single or cohabiting parents seems to entail less risk than being raised by single or cohabiting parents when these family types are unstable.  http://townhall.com/columnists/MarybethHicks/2010/12/01/not_easy,_but_essential
 

Comment: Here is another great [faith-based] article on the same study relating to the consequences of delayed marriage that include: delayed maturity, reports of being less happy, higher divorce rates when cohabiting couples do marry and increased use of welfare programs.

Marriage: Marginalized in the Middle
The American retreat from marriage is moving into the heart of the social order: the middle class.

Marriage is in trouble in Middle America. High rates of divorce, nonmarital childbearing and single parenthood were once problems primarily concentrated in poor communities. Now, the American retreat from marriage is moving into the heart of the social order: the middle class.

This retreat from marriage imperils the social and emotional welfare of children. It also threatens the American Dream, insofar as adults who do not get and stay married are less likely to strive, to succeed and to save for the future.

This stark assessment emerges from a new report, When Marriage Disappears: The Retreat from Marriage in Middle America, sponsored by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the New York-based Institute for American Values.

The report explores marriage trends among three segments of American society: high school dropouts (12 percent of the adult population), those with high school diplomas who didn't go on to college (58 percent of adults) and college-educated men and women (30 percent).    

These segments of society reveal sharp differences in the marriage experience, and expectations for it. But the most striking finding is this: Marriage has declined most precipitously among the "moderately educated"—that is, those with a high school education, who make up the biggest number of adults.

The breakdown of marriage and family has afflicted the poorest Americans for more than a generation. What is happening today is a widening gulf between the middle class, where a sharp decline in marriage is at work, and the most educated and affluent Americans, where marriage indicators are either stable or improving.

Many of us need to adjust our thinking to recognize that the greatest threat to marriage may be the shrinking commitment of couples in middle class havens such as Wichita, Kansas, or Greenfield, Mass., not in rich enclaves such as Grosse Pointe, Mich., or blighted neighborhoods such as East St. Louis. Not surprisingly, the dangers posed by a class-based disappearance of marriage also have implications for the decline of religious belief and worship, as well as beliefs about the moral or cultural underpinnings of family life.         

Just as getting married changes individuals, failing to marry delays or defers personal maturity. For earlier generations, marriage functioned as a gateway to acceptance of adult responsibilities and habits—including attendance of religious services—that reinforce those responsibilities.  Narrowing or closing that gateway has profound effects.

Take this example: The divorce rate, as measured within 10 years of marriage, fell from 15 percent to 11 percent among college-educated adults between the early 1970s and late 1990s. But the divorce rate rose from 36 percent to 37 percent in the same period among those with a high school education, putting it slightly higher than the 36 percent rate among the least-educated Americans.

Trends in marital happiness are similar. From the 1970s until recent years, the number of spouses between ages 18 and 60 who reported being "very happy" in marriage dropped from 68 percent to 57 percent among moderately educated Americans. Those saying they were "very happy" dipped from 59 percent to 52 percent among the least-educated, while there was no drop in marital happiness among the highly educated.    

More starkly, the proportion of moderately educated adults who are in their first marriages declined from 73 percent in the 1970s to 45 percent in the 2000s. For this education and income range, marriage is now a minority experience.  [W. Bradford Wilcox and Chuck Donovan | posted 12/06/2010,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/decemberweb-only/58-11.0.html ]
http://www.jaxpastorsconference.com/ct

MARRIAGE TRENDS IN CHINA
POSTED: NOV 23, 2010

This is a very interesting article that addresses the one-child policy generation in China. The author, along with a few of the people interviewed, believe the single-child generation makes for a selfish generation that is too independent to have lasting marriages. One in every five Chinese marriages ends in divorce which is double the rate ten years ago with expectations that this number will continue to increase.

There are many factors that go into this high rate of divorce trend in China, but this theory is interesting food for thought when thinking about marriage. Anyone who is married will say it takes compromise, sacrifice and communication to make it work.

'Lightning Divorces' Strike China's 'Me Generation'
 
Chinese newlyweds pose during a collective wedding ceremony in Shanghai
Enlarge Zhang Jinqiao/Imaginechina via AP

Chinese newlyweds pose during a collective wedding ceremony in Shanghai in November 2009. But just as fast as young Chinese couples are meeting and marrying, a mix of social and economic reasons are leading to equally quick divorces.

Chinese newlyweds pose during a collective wedding ceremony in Shanghai in November 2009. But just as fast as young Chinese couples are meeting and marrying, a mix of social and economic reasons are leading to equally quick divorces.

One in every five Chinese marriages now ends in divorce, double the rate a decade ago.

Beijing has the highest divorce rate nationwide, with 39 percent of all marriages ending in a split.

This trend is sparking concern. Experts fear that the divorce rate will continue to soar, particularly among the younger generation of Chinese born under the country's one-child policy and during China's explosive economic growth.

Six years ago, one of China's most popular soap operas was called Chinese-Style Divorce. It was the tale of a struggling couple, wracked by financial stresses and misunderstandings that were never addressed. The cracks in their relationship grew into a gulf, then their marriage fell apart.

Six years on, that is not the story of today's Chinese-style divorces. For China's "me generation," the latest trend is "lightning weddings" — or instantaneous weddings — which often end in correspondingly fast divorces.

The story told by a vivacious 24-year-old reflects the new trend.

'Married In A Hurry, Divorced In A Hurry'

"We'd known each other three weeks when we went to get a wedding certificate," says the woman, who will only give her name as Cheng. "We were married for six months. We got married in a hurry, and we got divorced in a hurry. It was like a war broke out; we argued, divorce was mentioned, so we got divorced."

Sitting at an outdoor coffee shop, Cheng is eye-catching in brown shorts and knee-high black stiletto boots. She says she has thought a lot since her divorce. She partly blames it on belonging to the generation of spoiled singletons, known in China as the post-1980s generation.

"Marriage requires forgiveness, understanding, tolerance and compromise. Yet we post-'80s generation neglect this entirely. No one will compromise. We just argue. Of all my friends who are married, 100 percent are unhappy," she says.
Li Xuefeng, a 31-year-old divorced man, has set up an online club for those whose marriages have failed
Enlarge Louisa Lim/NPR

Li Xuefeng, a 31-year-old divorced man, has set up Happy Divorce Village, an online club for those whose marriages have failed. He says marriages often fall apart over little things, like who should do the cooking or laundry.

Li Xuefeng, a 31-year-old divorced man, has set up Happy Divorce Village, an online club for those whose marriages have failed. He says marriages often fall apart over little things, like who should do the cooking or laundry.

When asked whether the single-child generation is too selfish for marriage, her answer is telling.

"Next time I'll look for a husband with siblings," Cheng says.

The One-Child Policy

The figures seem to suggest that might not be a bad idea.

Divorces last year were up 8.8 percent compared with 2008. Statistics from one Beijing district court last year showed the divorce rate among the under-30s had doubled annually over the past five years, with 97 percent of the couples being only children.

Many working in marital counseling blame the lack of responsibility shown by the spoiled one-child generation.

Shu Xin is the founder of Weiqing Divorce Club in Shanghai, a divorce counseling business. He counseled one couple who fell out over what furniture they should buy for their new apartment. They decided to file for divorce just one week after getting married.

But Shu believes the root causes are deeper, involving emotional and financial calculations.

"This generation is very self-centered, very independent," Shu says. "And they have high expectations as to cost and return. They think, 'I've paid out, so you have to love me.' "

Money Complicates Marriage

Some experts blame financial considerations — and the rising price of housing — as factors behind the surge in lightning marriages, and lightning divorces.

Given these money worries, young people may see economic benefits of moving in together as soon as possible, to get out of the parental home and to save money. Even after marriage, many couples remain financially dependent on their parents, causing more problems.

Cheng admits this was one factor in her divorce.

"After we got married, we just spent his parents' money," she complains. "I wasn't really satisfied, but I was a good wife. So I didn't argue with him because we didn't have money."

In cases where the couple has had children, that sense of cold pragmatism, combined with the one-child policy, results in custody disputes.

But there's a twist: In a surprising number of cases, that precious only child is unwanted, says divorce counselor Ming Li.

"Often neither of them wants the child. They want to remarry and have another child to give stability to the new marriage. It's very selfish. That makes up about a third of all cases we see of the post-'80s generation," Ming says.

An Upside To Divorce?

Li Xuefeng's mission is to make life a little happier for those struggling through a divorce. The 31-year-old is the founder of Happy Divorce Village, an online club that organizes events for those who have been through a divorce.

Li has heard a lot of stories. He thinks the cosseted young find it difficult to cope on their own; and in this materialistic world, few can resist the temptation to trade up.

"They think about coming home, and nobody is making supper for them, and then they throw their clothes on the floor, and nobody washes them, and so they start arguing over little things. Then they look around, and wonder whether if so-and-so might be better than their current spouse," Li says.

Experts predict the numbers of divorces in China will soar in the years ahead. But, there is also an upside to the trend.

Until eight years ago, a married couple needed permission from their work unit to divorce, and many stayed in unhappy relationships for decades, scared of social ostracism.

Unlike their parents' generation, young Chinese dare to fall in and out of love; they're reveling in these newfound freedoms, even the freedom to divorce.
[November 17, 2010, Louisa Lim, NPR All Things Considered, http://www.npr.org/2010/11/09/131200166/china-s-me-generation-sends-divorce-rate-soaring]

Cohabitation Nation: Growing Trend Results in Declining Household Stability
Janice Shaw Crouse explores the myths of cohabitation, the “trial marriage” of today’s society. Unfortunately this test drive sort of mentality does not work as studies show a typical cohabiting relationship lasts only about 18 months and there are extremely high divorce rates of those who did cohabitate before marriage. Marriage is more than a piece of paper. Despite the trend to delay marriage, most singles do desire marriage. For the most fulfilling and stable relationship, a couple should wait until marriage to have sex and be faithful within marriage.

Cohabitation Nation: Growing Trend Results in Declining Household Stability
Acccording to the latest census report, the num- ber of cohabiting couples escalated from 6.7 million in 2009 to 7.5 million just one year later.

Living together has become today's "normative experience," with nearly 50 percent of young adults aged 20 to 40 cohabiting. Moreover, the percentage of women in their late 30s who said they had cohabited at least once reached 48 percent in 1995. While increasingly common among college students and young professionals - even Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton, who have just announced their engagement, have been living together in Wales - cohabitation is significantly more prevalent among those who are less well-educated and poor.

For many American young people, cohabitation is considered to be a low-cost, no-hassle alternative to marriage, a "test-drive" in some cases or, more often, merely an exciting fling of no great consequence.

Sadly, they have bought into the seductive cohabitation mythology. It is commonplace to hear them parroting the following specious arguments: (1) Living together is a "trial marriage" to "test the waters" to see if the couple is "compatible." (2) Young couples cannot afford to get married; they need to wait until they are financially secure and their careers are well-established. (3) A girl should be able to have the big, expensive wedding that fulfills her childhood dreams. And on and on the deceptive fable gets spun.

Many blame the current economy for the drastic increase in cohabitation (a 13 percent rate that will double the numbers in just six years) - and it is true that there was a 10 percentage point increase in the number of unemployed men who chose to cohabit instead of get married (14 percent in 2009 versus 24 percent in 2010). However, the problem began long before today's recession.

There has been a dramatic increase (skyrocketing nearly 1,000 percent since 1970) in couples who live together without marriage, and currently, nearly two-thirds of couples who get married have already lived together before their wedding.

The trend toward cohabitation is producing a cultural transformation that has profound ramifications for both individuals and communities. Young people have been told that having sex is "no big deal"; therefore, moving in and living together without a commitment (aka no strings attached) is more prevalent, as is an accompanying casual acceptance of recreational sex.

Of American women born before 1963, fewer than half experienced premarital sex in their teen years, but like so many other measures of sexual activity, the number engaging in premarital sex jumped dramatically among those born in the 1990s.

The truth is that only a fraction - barely 10 percent - of cohabiting couples are able to move on to build strong, happy marriages that last a lifetime.

More typically, cohabitation is preparation for divorce rather than training for marriage.

The two household arrangements (cohabitation and marriage) are decidedly different, and that is why the vast majority of couples who live together before getting married end up divorced; the divorce rates of women who cohabit are nearly 80 percent higher than the rates of those who do not.

Consequently, the majority of cohabiting relationships do not end in marriage, as previously was the case. During the 1970s, about 60 percent of cohabiting couples married each other within three years, but this proportion has since declined to less than 40 percent. The research shows that cohabiting relationships in the United States tend to be fragile and relatively short in duration; fewer than half of cohabiting relationships last five or more years. Typically, living-together relationships last about 18 months.

There are those who see no problem with this change in household arrangement and family structure. They argue that the quality of relationships in a household is more important than the "piece of paper" that constitutes, in their minds, the only difference between marriage and cohabitation. Family structure, in other words, is irrelevant in their view.

But they fail to take into account the interaction that exists between the forms of relationship - particularly the degree of commitment expressed from the beginning - and the quality of the relationship the couple builds based on their commitment to each other.

Our present situation is a product of a tangle of factors that have brought us to the point where more and more young people, because they have seen too much divorce and too many miserable marriages, do not believe in lasting love or in marriage.

Neil Clark Warren, co-founder of the online dating service eHarmony, interviewed 500 persons, asking them to tell him about the marriage they most admired. Nearly half could not recommend even one healthy, exemplary marriage.

Little wonder today's youth are trying to find an alternative to bad marriages, but they need to look at the evidence. University of Michigan researcher Pamela Smock warns: "Premarital cohabitation tends to be associated with lower marital quality and increased risk of divorce."

Marriage Savers, founded by Mike and Harriett McManus, is having incredible success in changing community attitudes and teaching young people the value of embracing marriage rather than settling for living together, with its predictable negative outcomes.

In the first 114 cities where they have worked with local pastors to change attitudes, cohabitation rates have fallen by one-third, compared to the rates in similar cities in the same state. In addition, marriage rates have gone up, and divorce rates have declined.

As the world focuses on the upcoming marriage of Prince William and Miss Middleton, young people would do well to look at the evidence and agree that marriage is the best, time-tested household arrangement for both men and women and especially for children.

Within the committed bonds of marriage, couples have their best hope for the kind of close and fulfilling relationship that most young people say they want...
For remainder of article, visit http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/20/cohabitation-nation/
[Janice Shaw Crouse, The Washington Times, November 20, 2010, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/20/cohabitation-nation/ ; abstinence.net, 23 Nov 2010]

Cohabitation and Children Outside Marriage Linked to Higher Probability of Breakups: Aussie Study

Second marriages are more than 90% more likely to break up than first marriages, according to a new study by Australian researchers. The researchers also found that cohabiting, having children before marrying, and an imbalance between partners in the desire for children are all correlated with marital breakup.

“The overwhelming bulk of research on cohabitation and marital instability finds that cohabitation before marriage is linked to a greater probability that the marriage will fail,” said the researchers.

The study, titled “What’s Love Got to do With It?” by researchers from the Australian National University, found that 20% of couples who had children before marriage, either from a previous relationship or the same relationship, were separated compared to just 9% of couples without children born before marriage.

With data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA), the study tracked the history of 2,482 married or cohabiting couples over a period of six years to determine what factors might have contributed to marital “instability.”

A family history of divorce was also found to be a significant influence in the success of failure of marriage. Sixteen percent of men and women whose parents were separated or divorced suffered marital separation, compared to 10% for those whose parents did not separate.

Despite research in the UK showing marriages with more children being more likely to break up, the number or age of children born within the marriage were found not to be a factor in marital breakups in the Australian study.

Other factors listed as contributing to divorce or breakup were “dissatisfaction with the relationship, low household income, husband is unemployed, wife drinks more than her husband, and one spouse smokes where the other does not.”

[23 June 2010, Hilary White, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062305.html ]

COHABITATION: A TRIAL DIVORCE
[19 Oct 2010, http://www.ethicsandreligion.com/current.htm, OCT 25, 2010, www.abstinence.net]

According to studies on cohabitation, nine out of ten cohabitating relationships fail and 61% of marriages that began with cohabitation end in divorce.

Mike McManus of Marriage Savers suggests that if he were running for governor in his state of Maryland, he could save taxpayers $640 million per year in expenses due to out-of-wedlock births. Another $304 million per year could be saved by discouraging divorce. McManus would create a marriage commission, require welfare offices to provide education on the benefits of marriage, and reduce anti-marriage penalties.
October 19, 2010

Column #1521

Incentives for Cohabiting Couples To Marry

By Mike McManus

            If I were running for governor in my state of Maryland, here’s a speech I would give this weekend, injecting a fresh idea into the campaign.

“I will propose a new law to encourage cohabiting couples to marry.  Most out-of-wedlock births are to couples who are committed enough to each other to live together.  These births are not to couples in one-night stands.  However, most cohabitations end within 18 months.

“Census recently reported that 7.5 million couples are living together in 2010.  This is a 17-fold increase from the 430,000 who were doing so in 1960.  Yet only 1.4 million of those couples will marry.  Four of five cohabiting couples break up before there is a wedding.

“In addition, according to a Penn State study, couples who marry after living together are 61% more likely to divorce than couples who remained apart until the wedding.

“Half of cohabiting couples  said they were `testing’ the relationship or were in a `trial marriage.’”  However, that’s a myth.  Cohabitation is more like a trial divorce, in which nine out of ten relationships fail.  They will either break up in a premarital divorce or in a real one.

“For Maryland this is not an academic question.  Divorce and unwed births are the two engines driving up the costs of government.  It is one of the major reasons for the yawning deficits Maryland and other states face.

On average, each divorce involves one child. The unwed or divorced mother of a child is eligible for welfare, Medicaid, housing and day care subsidies, food stamps, etc.  According to the Heritage Foundation, the 13 million single parents with children cost taxpayers $20,000 each, or $260 billion in 2004. That is probably $300 billion today.

“What does this mean for Maryland?  Of the state’s 78,100 births in 2007, 41% were to unwed mothers, above the national average.  Those 32,000 babies have the worst possible future prospects in life.  If the baby’s father is living with the mother, the odds are 80% that he will leave her and the child.  But what if the couple marries?  More than half will divorce, and that child will be abandoned by one parent.  Maryland had 15,200 divorces last year, which probably involved one child each.

“Therefore taxpayers face a cost of $640 million a year for one year of out-of-wedlock births and $304 million more per year for the state’s divorces, or about $1 billion for each added year!  These huge costs are 61% federal and 39% state.

“The costs go far beyond these numbers, both to the children and to the state. According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, children from fatherless homes are:

·         5 times more likely to commit suicide than those from intact homes with married parents

·         7 times more apt to become teenage mothers or to drop out of school

·         15 times more apt to end up in prison as a teenager

·         33 times more likely to be seriously abused, requiring medical attention

·         73 times more likely to be killed

“If elected Governor, I will make it my priority to reduce this carnage.  How?  Here are some ideas:

1.      I will create a Maryland Marriage Commission.  It will include key church and government officials plus leaders in the marriage movement.

2.      No Cost Government Measures: I will require state welfare offices to provide information on the value of marriage in reducing poverty and increasing wealth, happiness and longer lives. (For example, married men live 10 years longer than single men, and women, 4 years longer.) Publicly funded birth control clinics will provide information on the benefits of marriage. Public schools can make a case for not having children until marriage.

3.      Reduce Anti-Marriage Penalties:  Currently if cohabiting couples marry, they lose welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. I propose to extend state benefits for a year if they marry and agree to take courses to improve their communication and conflict resolution skills.  That will encourage many to marry, which is what is best for them and their children.  After that year, I will taper off subsidies by 25% per year.  Since married men earn more than single men, they won’t need subsidies long term.

“In time, government costs would drop by huge amounts, perhaps half of the current outlays, saving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars...

               Visit http://www.ethicsandreligion.com/current.htm to read remainder of article.

[19 Oct 2010, http://www.ethicsandreligion.com/current.htm, OCT 25, 2010, www.abstinence.net]

MARRIAGE : PROMOTE MARRIAGE TO FIGHT POVERTY

The evidence is clear: having a baby outside of marriage increases the likelihood of living in poverty. The growing trend of sex outside of marriage results in other negative outcomes as well: STD’s, depression, partner violence, substance abuse, lower graduation rates, and child care expenses. The author of this article urges the readers to think twice about supporting the expansion of welfare programs and instead to promote marriage. In fact, the article states that marriage lowers the probability of child poverty by 82%.

We conclude that abstinence until marriage and fidelity within marriage are the behaviors and attitudes that our society should strive for. A welfare program is not going to fix the poverty problem but rather changes in attitudes and behaviors will certainly make a difference.

Marriage: An Important Key to Avoiding Poverty
By Jennifer A. Marshall, The Heritage Foundation

For years, the slogan "Stay in School" has communicated an anti-poverty message to young people. Now it's time for an even more important poverty-fighting theme: "Get Married." Every student knows that dropping out of high school will hurt her chances of succeeding in life. Major media, public education campaigns and government programs have told her so.

But does she know that having a baby outside marriage will put her and her child at serious risk of living in poverty? Last year, poverty in America grew more than ever before in the 51 years that the U.S. government has tracked the poor, the Census Bureau reported Sept. 16. The total climbed by 3 million to 44 million — or one in seven Americans.

The search is on for solutions. Regrettably, too little of the conversation is turning to the principal cause of child poverty: the collapse of marriage.

Waiting until marriage to have children is the second of three "golden rules" for avoiding poverty that researchers identified over the years: (1) graduate from high school; (2) marry before having children; and (3) get a job.

Actually, being married is even more significant than graduating from high school for avoiding poverty. Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, shows this in a new paper, "Marriage: America's No. 1 Weapon Against Child Poverty." By contrast, typical responses to poverty call for more spending on government programs. Far from helping poor Americans escape dependency, however, massive increases in welfare spending over the past four decades have entrenched poverty across generations.

Proponents of a government solution also cite lack of quality education and decent-paying jobs. True, inner-city schools often are appallingly sub-par, but ever-increasing spending hasn't significantly improved educational quality and opportunity for those who need it most.

And although the bad news on poverty in part reflects increased joblessness during the recession, the economy doesn't explain the undercurrents trapping millions in persistent poverty. Three of every four Americans defined as poor — 35 million of the 44 million total — are poor during economic booms, Rector notes.

Government anti-poverty programs fail because such persistent poverty is not primarily material. It's about relationships and behavior. Even in good times, fatherlessness and lack of work trap the underclass.

Unwed childbearing has risen from 6.3 percent of all births in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty, to more than 40 percent today. As Rector shows, these single-parent families with children are six times more likely to be poor than are married couples with kids. Put differently, marriage lowers the probability of child poverty by 82 percent.

So why have we ignored the obvious? After all, marriage has been the standard in every human society.

From the archive

    * Census: 1 in 7 Americans live in poverty – Sept. 16, 2010
    * Record rise in poverty for U.S. – Sept. 11, 2010
    * U.S. poverty on track to post record gain in 2009 – Sept. 11, 2010
    * Robert J. Samuelson: New poverty 'definition' is misleading – May 31, 2010
    * Jennifer A. Marshall: Marriage in America is dying – May 9, 2010

"Marriage is the way societies provide a map of life and norms about behavior," researcher Kay Hymowitz says.

Role models and explicit messages create norms in society. That's why it's troubling to see the emergence of a "pattern of family non-formation," as scholar Heather MacDonald describes it.

Hymowitz and MacDonald, both affiliated with the Manhattan Institute, were among leaders invited by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to participate in a conference recently in Washington, by addressing the topic of "The Role of Family Structure in Perpetuating Racial and Ethnic Disparities." In minority communities, the collapse of marriage has become especially acute. More than half of Hispanic children are born to single mothers, as are seven out of 10 black children.

Among Hispanics, families headed by unmarried parents are three times more likely to be poor.

Federal Court Tosses Lawsuit that Challenged Federal Defense of Marriage Act
A federal court Monday threw out a lawsuit filed against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The decision to dismiss the case comes just over a month since the same court threw out a portion of the lawsuit that challenged California's constitutional amendment protecting marriage. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys represent ProtectMarriage.com in the suit.

In December 2008, two men filed the lawsuit Smelt v. United States of America, claiming that the California marriage amendment, which voters decisively passed as Proposition 8 in last November's election, violates the U.S. Constitution.  They also challenged the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

The two men had obtained a "marriage" license in California during the short window of time in which such licenses were allowed to be issued to members of the same sex.

On July 16, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division, threw out the portion of the lawsuit filed against the California marriage amendment. The court dismissed the rest of the suit Monday, saying that the case had been improperly filed in state court prior to being moved to federal court and that, therefore, the federal court does not have jurisdiction over the case.

"Marriage is not just any two people in a committed relationship. Americans understand and believe that there's more to a marriage than that. Therefore we are pleased that this challenge to the federal law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman has been dismissed," said ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum. "If another lawsuit is filed against the federal DOMA, we are confident that it will be found to be constitutional."

ADF-allied attorneys Andrew Pugno of Folsom and Sam Kim of Buena Park also represent ProtectMarriage.com in the case.  Pugno and ADF attorneys continue to defend marriage in a separate lawsuit, Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
[SANTA ANA, CA, August 25, 2009, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Study Confirms Cohabitation Leads To Higher Chance Of Divorce and Lower Relationship Quality
A new study [see below] published in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that couples who live together before getting engaged and/or married are more likely to get divorced than those who don't move in together until engagement or marriage, and that couples who live together before engagement report lower satisfaction in their marriages.

Using a random telephone survey of 1,050 men and women married within the past 10 years, the current study replicated previous findings regarding the timing of engagement and the "premarital cohabitation effect" which generally indicated a higher subsequent divorce rate. Those who cohabited before engagement (43.1%) reported lower marital satisfaction, dedication, and confidence as well as more negative communication and greater potential for divorce than those who cohabited only after engagement (16.4%) or not at all until marriage (40.5%).

The study was conducted at the University of Denver and led by Galena Rhoades, senior researcher for the Center for Marital and Family Studies in the Psychology Department, Scott M. Stanley, research professor, and Howard Markman, professor of psychology.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," Dr. Rhoades said.

"It seems wise to talk about commitment and what living together might mean for the future of the relationship before moving in together, especially because cohabiting likely makes it harder to break up compared to dating," said researcher Scott Stanley.

To measure the potential of a couple to divorce, study participants were asked, "Have you or your spouse ever seriously suggested the idea of divorce?"

About 19 percent of those who cohabited before getting engaged had suggested divorce compared with 12 percent of those who moved in together after getting engaged. Only 10 percent of participants who did not cohabit prior to marriage said they had ever suggested divorce.

In a related study led by Rhoades and published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Issues, the researchers studied the reasons why couples chose to live together.

Citing statistics that reveal almost 70 percent of US couples are cohabiting before marrying, the research team found that more than 60 percent gave spending more time together as the reason for cohabiting, with 19 percent saying "it made most sense financially," and 14 percent saying they were testing the relationship.

Couples who listed "testing" as the primary cohabitation reason were more likely than others to score high on measures of negative communication, such as, "My partner criticizes or belittles my opinions, feelings, or desires."

"Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships," Rhoades said. "Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time."


Related LSN articles on the problems associated with cohabitation:

Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/oct/07100902.html

Reality Says Cohabitation a Disaster for Marriage but Poll Shows Public Believes Otherwise
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08080106.html

Cohabitation Ends in Separation 90% of the Time
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06072106.html

Living Together Before Marriage Has Disastrous Results Study Finds
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05100305.html

The Pre-Engagement Cohabitation Effect: A Replication and Extension of Previous Findings
Purchase the full-text article

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

Galena K. Rhoadesa, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, Scott M. Stanleya and Howard J. Markmana

aDepartment of Psychology, University of Denver

Received 20 March 2008;
revised 28 August 2008;
accepted 2 September 2008.
Available online 28 February 2009.

Using a random telephone survey of men and women married within the past 10 years (N = 1,050), the current study replicated previous findings regarding the timing of engagement and the premarital cohabitation effect (see Kline et al., 2004). Those who cohabited before engagement (43.1%) reported lower marital satisfaction, dedication, and confidence as well as more negative communication and greater potential for divorce than those who cohabited only after engagement (16.4%) or not at all until marriage (40.5%). These differences were generally small, but could not be accounted for by length of marriage or by variables often associated with selection into cohabitation (i.e., age, income, education, and religiousness). Similar results were found in a subsample of individuals who cohabited only with the current spouse. There were no significant differences between those who cohabited after engagement and not at all before marriage, supporting a pre-engagement, but not a premarital cohabitation effect.

Author Keywords: cohabitation; commitment; couples; engagement; marriage

Support for this research was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, awarded to the second and third authors (R01 HD047564–01A2).
Corresponding Author Contact InformationUniversity of Denver, Department of Psychology, 2155 South Race Street, Denver, CO 80208.  
[http://www.science-direct.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WYG-4VR6NB9-D&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2009&_rdoc=12&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%237186%232009%23999769998%23947088%23FLP%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=7186&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=13&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1dac86f6e3a0bdeec11d0c533ffb8f71 ]

[15July2009, T. M. Baklinski, Washington, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

LIVING TOGETHER NOT GOOD PREP FOR MARRIAGE

A recent study out of the University of Denver confirms prior data showing
cohabitation to be more of a trial divorce than a trial marriage.

Live-ins often find themselves “sliding into” marriage, according to lead researcher Galena Rhoades: "We think there might be a subset of people who live together before they got engaged who might have decided to get married really based on other things in their relationship," Rhoades said, "because they were already living together and less because they really wanted and had decided they wanted a future together."(22 July 2009, abstinence.net,
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090714-cohabit-couples.html)

CHARACTERISTICS OF COHABITING ADULTS

Bookmark this report from the North Carolina Family Policy Council for more on the above study and other ongoing research.

Surveys show that a happy marriage is still most adults’ dream, but they are unaware that living together first is not the best way to reach that goal.

Characteristics of Cohabiting Adults Studied

Cohabitation is becoming more common among young adults in their early twenties, and two recent studies shed light on the attitudes and characteristics of men and women who live together outside of marriage.

The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that between four and five percent of U.S. households are cohabiting households, 60-70 percent of couples live together before marriage, and 39 percent of cohabiting households contain children.

A July 2009 report by researchers at Child Trends notes that despite the increase in cohabitation, young adults continue to express high expectations about marriage.

According to the Child Trends report, 75 percent of young adults say that “love, fidelity and making lifelong commitment” is very important to a successful relationship.

However, over half of young adults (57 percent) said that it is “OK for unmarried couples to live together even if marriage is not being considered.”

While the majority of young unmarried adults said that they do not want to be married right now, 83 percent said they would like to be married someday. The desire for marriage was also strong among the majority of adults who believe that cohabitation is acceptable, with 83 percent saying that it was either important or very important to them personally to be married someday.

“Cohabitation may actually serve as an alternative to marriage, but only temporarily, because most cohabiting young adults felt that it was important or very important to be married someday,” according to the authors of the Child Trends brief.

While many young adults may view cohabitation an acceptable step toward a successful marriage, most research shows that the opposite is true.

According to Professor Scott M. Stanley and Galena Rhoads of the University of Denver’s Center for Marital and Family Studies, “The ‘facts’ about cohabitation just do not line up well with the beliefs most people, especially young people, hold.”

In a recent article for the National Council for Family Relations, they write that “Virtually every published study that has examined premarital cohabitation finds it to be associated with greater, rather than lower, risk for problems in marriage.”

According to Stanley and Rhoads, cohabiting before marriage is associated with something called the “cohabitation effect,” which includes:   

    * More negative commitment in marriage   

    * Lower levels of marital satisfaction   

    * Erosion over time of the value and view of marriage and childrearing   

    * Greater likelihood of divorce.

Stanley and Rhoads, along with Howard Markman, are involved in a new (and ongoing) study of unmarried adults, which is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

...When the researchers compared daters who plan to marry with cohabiting individuals who plan to marry, they found that cohabiting adults tend to be: less educated, older, more likely to already have children, more likely to have divorced parents, and to have experienced conflict in their families as children...

Alysse ElHage, associate director of research for the North Carolina Family Policy Council: “...it is important that they know the truth about cohabitation,
especially that it significantly raises their risk of marital conflict and divorce, once they do get married.”

[22 July 2009, www.abstinence.net: 16July09 Special Report, http://ncfamily.org/stories/090716s1.html)

MARRIAGE : SHOULD WE LIVE TOGETHER?: WHAT YOUNG ADULTS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COHABITATION BEFORE MARRIAGE
http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/swlt2.pdf

This comprehensive review of recent research on marriage and cohabitation by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of the National Marriage Project systemically refutes the myth that living together is a positive, or at least harmless, step preceding actual marriage.

As the authors point out, although it is becoming more and more common, “a careful review of the available social science evidence suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage or to avoid divorce. What’s more, it shows that the rise in cohabitation is not a positive family trend.

Cohabiting unions tend to weaken the institution of marriage and pose special risks for women and children. Specifically, the research indicates that:

o Living together before marriage increases the risk of breaking up after marriage.
o Living together outside of marriage increases the risk of domestic violence for women, and the risk of physical and sexual abuse for children.
o Unmarried couples have lower levels of happiness and wellbeing than married couples.” 
(Source: http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/swlt2.pdf; 3June09, www.abstinence.net

UNMARRIED PREGNANCY: THE REAL PREGNANCY CRISIS
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124294779002345281.html#printMode
W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, maintains that one of the primary reasons for the rising rate of births to unmarried girls and women is the changing attitude toward marriage in the US. If he is right, abstinence programs which emphasize setting and reaching life goals within this contemporary context are on to something.

Wilcox: “As sociologist Andrew Cherlin has noted, marriage used to be the "foundation" for adulthood, sex, intimacy and childbearing. Now, marriage is viewed by many Americans as a "capstone" that signals that a couple has arrived -- financially, professionally and emotionally. This also helps to explain why college-educated mothers are bucking the trend toward having children out of wedlock.”
(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124294779002345281.html#printMode; 3June09, www.abstinence.net]

Family Breakdown in Canada Costs $7 Billion Annually: New Research
 The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada released new research yesterday on the cost of family breakdown in Canada at a briefing on Parliament Hill. “Private choices, public costs: How failing families cost us all” examines the relationship between poverty, families and government.

The authors, Rebecca Walberg and Andrea Mrozek, quantify government spending directed at poverty alleviation for broken families through welfare, child care costs and housing. They find that cost to be close to $7 billion annually. If family breakdown decreased by half, a conservative estimate of savings is close to $2 billion annually.

The report can be read in full: http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/Cost%20of%20Family%20Breakdown%20finalHR.pdf

The in-depth, quantitative assessment examines the links between broken homes and poverty alleviation measures. Consistently, not only in Canada but in all OECD nations — lone parent households are more likely to live in poverty. “Certainly the main concern around family breakdown is the emotional toll,” say the authors. “But the fiscal costs are evident, and those can be more readily measured.”

The report highlights the costs province by province, discussing why and how stable marriages contribute to a stronger economy. “If we are serious about reducing poverty,” say the authors, “especially children and women in poverty, we must address the effects of family breakdown.”

“This calls all of us to reconsider the value currently placed on family today, without pointing fingers. We may believe that family structure doesn’t matter; but the data show the best thing you can do for your kids is raise them in a stable, married-parent home.”

Some of the data in the report highlight the higher proportion of lone-parent families living below the Low Income Cut-off (LICO) and the higher proportion of lone-parent families with children on welfare. The data is troubling, say the authors, given that Canadian statistics show the percentage of married parents is falling, while the percent of lone parents and those living common law is rising. In 1961, 92 percent of families were married; 2006 census data indicates that has fallen to 69 percent.

International research, particularly from the United Kingdom, points to family breakdown as one of the pathways to poverty.

Walberg and Mrozek say that they undertook the study in the belief that providing Canadians with the facts about single parenthood, divorce, growing up without two parents, and the emotional and financial hardships that accompany family breakdown in general will help them understand the likely consequences of the different choices available to them in their own lives. Long term solutions to limit the consequences of poverty, they suggest, must involve encouraging stable, two-parent homes for children, primarily because this benefits the children but also because marriage acts as a public good.
[4June09, www.lifesitenews.com]

Same-Sex "Marriage" Suffers Plunge in Popularity: Poll. The results of a poll revealed this week show a significant drop in support for same-sex "marriage" since April of this year.

Only 33% of respondents to the CBS News/New York Times poll said same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, down 9% from April's findings, which was an all-time high at 42%. 30% in the June survey said that homosexual couples should be allowed civil unions, while 32% said homosexual couples should be given no legal recognition.

The new data brings the numbers back on a level with March's poll, where one out of three supported same-sex "marriage."

Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family Action, conjectured that the plummeting support may represent a backlash from Americans troubled by a sudden rash of states legalizing same-sex "marriage" through the judiciary or the legislature, rather than a voter referendum.

Since April, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Iowa joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in recognizing same-sex "marriage." The circumstances of Iowa's decision was particularly controversial, as it resulted from an activist court ruling instigated by homosexual activists, who openly admitted that the decision was the fruit of years of researching sympathetic state Supreme Courts. (see coverage)

True marriage supporters also fear that instability in New York's legislature may lead to a hastened vote on that state's proposed same-sex "marriage" legislation.

Scheenburger also suggested that the poll results could indicate Americans are turning to alternative media to learn about same-sex "marriage."

"In reporting the results of its own poll, CBS used the word 'dip' to describe the 9 percent plunge in support for gay marriage," Schneeberger said. "In elections, it's considered a landslide when a candidate wins by 10 points. So to describe this as a 'dip' pretty clearly illustrates where CBS, at least, stands on this issue."
[19June09, Kathleen Gilbert, New York, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Why the State Must Oppose Same-Sex “Marriage”: Professor
“Why is there an institution called ‘marriage’ at all in a secular society?”

That is the question that David Novak, a Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, poses in an article published online through the Witherspoon Institute. Novak states that unless civil society understands why same-sex “marriage” is not true marriage, it risks losing marriage as an institution altogether.

Novak proceeds to explain that unlike public schools, which are “political” institutions created by the state, marriage is actually a “pre-political” institution, which the state has inherited, that has reasons of its own which first need to be explored, rather than redefined.

“The most the state can honestly do to an institution that predates its founding” writes Novak, “is to refine and reformulate the original reasons why this institution has deserved and still deserves social recognition and support.”

Rather than argue from the authority of tradition, Novak proceeds to explain that the tradition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman “has good reasons for being limited to heterosexual couples” to the exclusion of other sexual arrangements.

Novak proceeds to point out that traditional marriage can be seen through two key aspects: the “expressive aspect” and the “procreative aspect.” The first aspect involves what philosopher Martha Nussbaum says includes “sexual relations,” “friendship and companionship,” “love,” “conversation,” and “mutual responsibility.” The second aspect includes “procreation and child-rearing.”

The procreative aspect of marriage—starting and maintaining a family—is something publicly significant and certifiable. As such, it is and should be governed by the laws of the state,” writes Novak.

“But the expressive aspects are the private reasons for marriage, which should not be governed by the laws of the state, however necessary they might be for the private happiness that makes getting married and staying married personally desirable,” Novak continues.

Novak says that the state has a legitimate concern “with marriage’s public effects, not its private affects,” because without children and their proper raising by their parents, the state cannot survive or retain its national character. , not its private ” because without children and their proper raising by their parents, the state cannot survive or retain its national character.

However Novak then proceeds to raise and address one of the common objections to limiting marriage to heterosexuals: would not procreation as marriage’s “sole public reason” then exclude infertile heterosexual couples too? Novak responds with the old legal adage, “de minimis non curat lex” which he says loosely translates, “The law is only made for what usually obtains.”

“The fact is, the overwhelming number of people who marry are fertile and are of an age to be fertile. And how could we reasonably establish a criterion to determine who is fertile and who isn’t?” said Novak, pointing out again that the law must strive for the common good, but its validity does not depend on every individual achieving his or her private good.

Other objections he raises: what about homosexual couples fulfilling the public reason of procreation through surrogacy, artificial insemination, and homosexual adoption?

Novak points out that these desires by homosexual couples cannot trump the natural rights and “socially justified desires” of children to their own “mother and father, parenting in tandem as a married couple.” The first two, Novak says, effect from the beginning a “conspiracy” to violate “a child’s natural right to have both natural parents raise him or her.” The third, however, does not suffice, because a heterosexual union “better simulates the duty of the natural parents to this child, a duty they would not or could not exercise.”

“This, by the way, is not arguing empirically that opposite sex couples are necessarily better at raising children than same-sex couples,” Novak adds. “My arguments are based on the concepts of rights, not on the concept of utility.”

The rest of the article can be read here in its entirety at the Witherspoon Insitute’s online publication: Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good.
[19June09, Peter J. Smith, Princeton, New Jersey, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Polish Zoophilia Cartoon Spoofing Homosexual “Marriage” as First Step to Extraspecies “Marriage” Lambasted by Pro-Homosexual Groups
Satirists wade into the fray with tongue-in-cheek letters to the editor

The Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita", a major conservative Polish daily, has caused a commotion among homosexualist groups in the country by running a cartoon on its online version, Fronda.pl. The cartoon shows two men getting “married” in the background, while in the foreground a man tells a goat, “We'll just wait until these two gentlemen get married and then it's our turn.” (see the cartoon here)

“We were used to the homophobia of your paper, but this time the border of rudeness has been crossed,” said Homiki.pl, a homosexualist website in a letter to the editor of Fronda.pl. “We demand an apology on the pages of your paper. We have our dignity and we also deserve respect.”

The letter also threatens Fronda.pl with lawsuits, saying, “Let us remind you that in 2006, at a court in Poznañ, four lesbians forced city council members to apologize for comparing homosexuality to zoophilia.”

The cartoon was drawn by Andrzej Krauze, a Polish cartoonist living in the UK. Upon learning of the threats from the pro-homosexual groups, he laughed, saying, “This only proves that the cartoon message was correct and that I was able to represent the whole absurdity of so-called civil unions.”

He also pointed out that many countries have registered associations of zoophiles and pedophiles that wish to have their perversions legalized. “I am sure that in coming years, some of these groups, especially animal lovers will achieve their goals,” Krauze said.

The reference may be to a registered Dutch political party called PNVD, a Dutch acronym that translates into "brotherly love, freedom and diversity,” whose party planks consist of working towards the legalization and acceptance of pedophilia, pornography, bestiality and easy availability of soft/hard drugs.

The party also lobbies for private possession of child pornography, the right of children to smoke, drink and vote at the age of 12, to use "soft" drugs like marijuana at 12 and "hard drugs" like cocaine and heroin at 16. (see: A Look Into the Future?: Dutch Party Pushes Pedophilia, Pornography, Bestiality, Soft/Hard Drugs)

LifeSiteNews.com has also reported in the past on the encroachment of the approval of bestiality into the mainstream, and the rise of bestiality in jurisdictions that have embraced homosexual "marriage." Bestiality has in recent years been explicitly endorsed by well-known Princeton "bioethicist" Peter Singer and by PETA. (See below for links to coverage)

Krauze says he does not fear any legal repercussions because of his cartoon: “I live and work in the UK. Here, satirical cartoons, with the exception of those pertaining to Muslims, are treated like satire, not a battlefield,” said the artist.

Other Polish journalists have reacted to the tizzy created by the cartoon, writing satirical essays and poking fun at the homosexualists who are threatening legal action against the newspaper.

Well-known opinion journalist Maciej Ryñski published a mock letter to the editor in today's Rzeczpospolita, impersonating a female goat who is offended by the cartoon, because it suggests that human-goat sexual relationships are homosexual in nature.

Ryñski writes:

"Dear Editor in Chief

"It was with outrage that I myself and our whole community saw the cartoon by Andrzej Krauze published in RZECZPOSPOLITA. To suggest that shegoats in stable relations with men should have any homosexual tendencies is a scandal, an offence and slander. Putting an equation sign between gays and goats is a testimony to the author's ignorance and bad will.

"Leading sexologists have long ago established that relations between female goats and men -inter-species sexual relations - are heterosexual in nature. Such relations have a long historical tradition and are mentioned in the oldest written sources, including the Bible. To ridicule them is barbaric obscuration and backwardness.

"Also in our community, sex between male goats and men is treated as an abuse of the norm, at least a promiscuous perversion. That's why we think that mixed human-goat marriages, as opposite-sex institutions, are in accordance with nature. To consider them equal or even worse to homosexual marriages is irresponsible and reprehensible.

"Your paper has discredited itself by publishing this image hostile to goats. I regret to inform you that the Association of Liberated Goats has made a decision to eat up the whole circulation of the incriminated issue of RZECZPOSPOLITA, at the same time reserving the right to pursue legal action. We also have the support of sheep on this issue.

"Regretfully and without respect to you, shegoat Meæka from Po³onina"

Related:
First Comes Gay Marriage then Comes Bestiality in Massachusetts
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05111703.html

Bestiality on the Rise in Sexually Libertine Sweden
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05050406.html

RENOWNED ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP BACKS BESTIALITY PROPOSAL
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/mar/01032904.html

CHRISTIANITY DISCRIMINATES AGAINST ANIMALS: PETER SINGER
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jul/02070212.html
[19June09, Alex Bush and Thaddeus M. Baklinski, Poland, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

   

Cohabitation and Children Outside Marriage Linked to Higher Probability of Breakups: Australian Study

Second marriages are more than 90% more likely to break up than first marriages, according to a new study by Australian researchers. The researchers also found that cohabiting, having children before marrying, and an imbalance between partners in the desire for children are all correlated with marital breakup.

“The overwhelming bulk of research on cohabitation and marital instability finds that cohabitation before marriage is linked to a greater probability that the marriage will fail,” said the researchers.

The study, titled “What’s Love Got to do With It?” by researchers from the Australian National University, found that 20% of couples who had children before marriage, either from a previous relationship or the same relationship, were separated compared to just 9% of couples without children born before marriage.

With data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA), the study tracked the history of 2,482 married or cohabiting couples over a period of six years to determine what factors might have contributed to marital “instability.”

A family history of divorce was also found to be a significant influence in the success of failure of marriage. Sixteen percent of men and women whose parents were separated or divorced suffered marital separation, compared to 10% for those whose parents did not separate.

Despite research in the UK showing marriages with more children being more likely to break up, the number or age of children born within the marriage were found not to be a factor in marital breakups in the Australian study.

Other factors listed as contributing to divorce or breakup were “dissatisfaction with the relationship, low household income, husband is unemployed, wife drinks more than her husband, and one spouse smokes where the other does not.”

New Study: Marriage Reduces Stress-related Hormone Production
The evidence for the health benefits of marriage has received a new boost by a study which showed that levels of the stress hormone cortisol were lower in married individuals than in single and unpaired individuals.

"These results suggest that single and unpaired individuals are more responsive to psychological stress than married individuals, a finding consistent with a growing body of evidence showing that marriage and social support can buffer against stress," said Dario Maestripieri, Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago and lead author of the study, published in the current issue of the journal Stress.

The team of researchers studied 500 masters' degree students, with an average age of 27, at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. About 40 percent of the 348 men and 53 percent of the 153 women were married or in long-term relationships.

The students were asked to take a set of computerized economic decision-making tests, and were told that the tests were a course requirement and would impact their future career placement, in order to increase the potential for stress response.

The researchers found cortisol concentrations increased in all participants, but females experienced a higher average increase than males.

However, the married students experienced a smaller increase in the stress hormone that single students.

"We found that unpaired individuals of both sexes had higher cortisol levels than married individuals," Maestripieri said.

The researchers also noted that "single males without a stable romantic partner had higher testosterone levels than males with stable partners, and both males and females without a partner showed a greater cortisol response to the test than married individuals with or without children."

"Although marriage can be pretty stressful, it should make it easier for people to handle other stressors in their lives," Maestripieri wrote in the study report, titled "Between- and Within-sex Variations in Hormonal Responses to Psychological Stress in a Large Sample of College Students."

"What we found is that marriage has a dampening effect on cortisol responses to psychological stress, and that is very new," Maestripieri concluded.

 A summary of this study with links to the full text -- http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10253891003681137

Related articles:  Marriage Benefits Health: For Men Staying Single 'Worse Than Smoking'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/aug/02081507.html

Happily Married Men and Women Have Lower Blood Pressure, Other Health Benefits
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032504.html

Study Finds Normal Sexual Relations Have Health Benefit but Not Gay or Other Sex
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06012607.html

New Study Finds Thinking about God Reduces Anxiety For Believers
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10080904.html

[Between- and within-sex variation in hormonal responses to psychological stress in a large sample of college students, Stress: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress, September 2010, Vol. 13, No. 5 , Pages 413-424 (doi:10.3109/10253891003681137) ; 23 August 2010,  T.M. Baklinski, Chicago, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10082301.html ]