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.
- Learn more here!
Well, I wouldn’t have any problem with this except that all the pictures on their campaign materials appear to be of man-woman couples, and the references in their literature imply man-woman marriages as well. I can’t in good conscience support a campaign that leaves out so many people. If I have interpreted this campaign incorrectly, of course I’d be glad to be corrected.
Ledasmom,
As I read it, the web page for “National Marriage Week” makes some very compelling arguments in support of both mixed-sex and same-sex marriage:
Marriage works. It makes people happier, live longer, and build more economic security.
- compared to married people, the nonmarried…have higher rates of mortality than the married: about 50 percent higher among women and 250 percent higher among men.”
- The risk of beind[sic] discharged to a nursing home was 2.5 times greater for unmarried than for married patients, even after taking into account the severity of illness, age, gender, race and diagnosis.
* There is even intriguing evidence that social support of the kind marriage provides can actually boost the immune system, making the married less likely to catch even the common cold.
It evens makes some strong arguments for why marriage is preferable to civil unions or domestic partnerships:
* On the other end of the scale, maried people were also about half as likely as singles or cohabitators to say that they are unhappy with their lives.
- In the short term, cohabitors may gain some (though not nearly all) of the emotional benefits of marriage. But over the long haul, it appears that cohabitors may be no better off than singles.
It is honestly refreshing to read something that is in support of marriage in the United States that doesn’t make the specious claim that the only purpose of marriage is the raising of children.