Marriage Media
Week of September 5, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin
1. Beyond Programs: State Strategies to Strengthen Families, National Healthy Marriage Resource Center
Options:
- Support existing programs
- Incorporate marriage and relationship education into public systems
- Reduce marriage license fee
- Target youth – education curriculum
- Engage state policymakers in stakeholder groups
2. Falling Marriage Rates Hurting Children: Report, The Sydney Morning Herald
Spiralling rates of child abuse and neglect, of children being placed in foster care and of teenage mental health problems – including a dramatic rise in hospitalisation for self-harm – are rooted in the rise of one-parent families and de facto couples, violent or unstable relationships and divorce, the report says. . .
”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,” the report says.
For more, see
- Families in Crisis as the Rate of Children in Care Doubles, The Australian
- The “Bushfire” Threatening Australia: Fragile Families, MercatorNet
3. Seeking a Marital Blessing, Queens, N.Y., The New York Times
My friends set me up with Rochel. It’s called a shidduch. I’m excited to get married more than ever. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see myself getting married this young, but when you find the right one, if you wait too long, she might run away. I don’t want to be that guy who looks back at his life and says, ‘‘You know, there was that one girl. . . .’’
4. When Marriage is for the Well-off, What Does that Mean for Our Nation?, Battle Creek Enquirer
The advantages of growing up in a two-parent household have been documented in numerous studies. Stability is likely to be enhanced, while emotional and financial challenges can be shared. The fact that a growing segment of society cannot provide those advantages while another group thrives threatens to undermine Americans’ belief in providing all children with equal opportunities to succeed. It also could lead to the erosion of a middle class that until now has been the backbone of the United States.
5. Couples Who Live Together Before They Marry Are Much More Likely to Divorce, Says Christian Think-Tank, The Mail Online
It said that couples who cohabited before marriage were 45 per cent more likely to split than those who waited until after the wedding. . . ‘Where there has been a previous cohabitation with a separate person by one of both partners, the likelihood of divorce soars.’ . . . Couples who never marry are six times more likely to split by the time their first child is five, it added. . . The data was based on 14,103 households and 22,265 adults. . . The research follows on from the think-tank’s 2010 publication Cohabitation in the 21st Century, which showed the cost of family breakdown is £41.7billion. This is equivalent to £1,350 for every taxpayer each year.
A study of over 15,000 children by the think tank Demos shows parenting style is one of the most important and statistically reliable influences on whether a child will drink responsibly in adolescence and adulthood.
Demos found that ‘tough love’ parenting, combining consistent warmth and discipline, was the most effective parenting style to prevent unhealthy relationships with alcohol right into the mid-thirties age range.
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Categories: Marriage
Can you say more about the correlation tweeen cohabitation and divorce? When I mention it to people they dismiss the possibility that there might be anything causative there. E.g. “Yeah, liberals are more permissive towards cohabitation and to divorce. Convince them to not cohabit, they’ll still divorce.”
Which is possible. Where’s a good overview of this topic?
The problem with what your friends tell you is that the divorce rate among “liberals,” or at least in liberal states, is much lower than the divorce rate in conservative states, especially the bible belt. So much for ideologically-driven folk wisdom.