Archives: Marriage

Marriage Media
Week of January 23, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin

1. The Secrets to a Happy Marriage, The Telegraph

Research among 2,000 happily married couples has identified the main ingredients for a successful union.

It shows that couples benefit from taking a short break away together twice a year and eating out in restaurants at least three times a month. And it pays to be affectionate, as wedded folk tend to share a lingering kiss six times a week, have sex twice a week and say “I love you” up to nine times a fortnight. But it doesn’t need to be sweetness and light the whole time – as the average happy couple has at least one healthy argument a week.

2. 78% Rate Marriage As Important to U.S. Society, Rasmussen Reports

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of American Adults rate the institution of marriage as at least somewhat important to U.S. society, and that includes 60% who consider it Very Important. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 17% don’t believe marriage is a very important institution, with three percent (3%) who say it’s Not At All Important.

3. The New American Divide, The Wall Street Journal

When Americans used to brag about “the American way of life”—a phrase still in common use in 1960—they were talking about a civic culture that swept an extremely large proportion of Americans of all classes into its embrace. It was a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work and religiosity.

Over the past 50 years, that common civic culture has unraveled. We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America’s core cultural institutions.

4. The College Premium vs. the Marriage Premium: A Case of Double Standards, Library of Economics and Liberty

For males, the college premium and the marriage premium are roughly equal.  In the NLSY, for example, you earn 34% more if you’re a college grad, and 44% more if you’re a married male.

When people – economists and non-economists alike – look at the size of that college premium, they usually conclude that more people should go to college.  On a personal level, they urge individuals to enroll.  On a policy level, they don’t just favor all the existing measures that encourage college attendance; they want government to redouble its efforts.

Funny thing, though.  When people – economists and non-economists alike – look at the size of the male marriage premium, they barely respond. . . I could be missing something; if you think so, let me know.  My considered judgment, though, is that the double standard is all too real.  People should push both education and marriage – or neither.

5. Meet the Marriage Killer, The Wall Street Journal

Nagging can become a prime contributor to divorce when couples start fighting about the nagging rather than talking about the issue at the root of the nagging, says Howard Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Denver and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies. . . The good news: Couples can learn to stop nagging. . .

The first step in curbing the nagging cycle, experts say, is to admit that you are stuck in a bad pattern. You are fighting about fighting. You need to work to understand what makes the other person tick. Rather than lazy and unloving, is your husband overworked and tired? Is your wife really suggesting she doesn’t trust you? Or is she just trying to keep track of too many chores?

6. The Leading Edge: HHS Department Releases Report on Relationship Education, American Association of School Administrators

School of Thought: Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Matters to Our Youth is a report by the US Department of Health and Human Services that looks at relationship education for our nation’s students. Despite the geographic and organizational diversity of these programs, five common themes emerged from their demonstration projects:

• Youth desire information about healthy relationships.
• Young people need facilitators they can relate to and trust.
• Participants are able to develop a vision about what a healthy relationship is, and what it is not.
• Relationship education can be a powerful change agent within youth relationships.
• Young people are receptive to positive money management/budgeting strategies.

7. How to Commit to the End, Simple Marriage

January 14th is my 40th wedding anniversary. I was 17 and pregnant when I got married. I was mom to four little girls by age 22 (my third pregnancy was twins). The odds were stacked against us. The first 10 years were filled with drama and insanity. We talked about going our separate ways. Deep down we knew we never would. We knew there had to be a better way. . .

We were ready for change, we let go of blame, excuses and took responsibility. We were willing to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our therapist would give us homework. We never missed a lesson. The secret to a loving relationship is to do the work it takes to grow lovingly and peacefully into the future.

For more, see this site.

In the comment threads here at Family Scholars Blog there has been a fair amount of discussion about what constitutes the core of marriage. By “core,” it seems as though people are referring to the essence of marriage, or to its defining features and/or purpose.

Supporters of same-sex marriage (SSM) are sometimes challenged to identify this core of marriage, since it is us (supporters of SSM, that is) who argue that marriage is something that two people of the same sex can have.

Why I view this challenge as problematic is because I contend that it is inaccurate to speak of marriage as though it has, or should have, one “core” that is universally-accepted by all in a society, much less across all societies that have ever existed. For one, it is a demonstrable statement of fact that people have differing beliefs as to what constitutes the, or even a, core of marriage. To some, the core of marriage is “one man and one woman.” To some, it is “two adults in a romantic and mutually-supportive relationship.” To some, it is “one man and one woman (and this same man and another woman, and this same man and possibly another woman).” To some, it is “a group of people who are all married to each other.” Further variations exist.

Two, a related point, marriage is a human construct and, as such, is given meaning by the humans who utilize it, recognize it, and speak of it.

Sure, some argue that marriage is not a human construct and that it instead comes from, say, God or is just a fact of nature. But, that argument is unconvincing. How does one prove that marriage comes from God? How does one recognize a marriage in nature, in the way that, say, we would recognize a tree or a flower?

Most of us understand how babies are made but, in nature, absent the existence of a marriage license, how do we know that a marriage exists? Is it every man-woman pair that engages in sexual intercourse? Is it only the ones who say they’re married? Is it any man-woman pair that has children, even if they don’t plan on staying together for life?

My point with these rhetorical questions is that marriage is not a universal, readily-recognizable entity in the way that tangible, natural phenomena are.

Abstractions aside, what matters to many same-sex couples isn’t where marriage supposedly comes from or what its “One True Core” is. Many do not view this conversation as an esoteric debating exercise. What matters are the rights, benefits, obligations, and privileges that flow from a state which grants some partnerships the legal status of marriage.

In legal terms, in the US, marriage has multiple meanings or “cores.” In New Hampshire, for instance, “[m]arriage is the legally recognized union of 2 people. Any person who otherwise meets the eligibility requirements of this chapter may marry any other eligible person regardless of gender.” The core of marriage is two people, of any gender, who meet certain requirements.
But, in Nevada, the state’s Constitution reads, “[o]nly a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state.” There, the core of marriage is between two people, one of the male sex and the other of the female sex, who meet certain requirements.

From a religious standpoint, Catholicism defines marriage as a “covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. [It] has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptised.”

Other religious groups, such as the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), Unitarian Universalists, and some rabbis in the Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism movements view both mixed-sex and same-sex couples as capable of comprising the core of marriage.

In light of this definitional diversity, perhaps marriage doesn’t have to mean the same thing for everyone across all secular, societal, and religious contexts. Perhaps it is an institution that never can mean the same thing to all in a society. Certainly not in a society that is increasingly accepting of the equal dignity of non-heteronormative relationships and their needs to protect their families via the legal system. Read More

A study found that in polygamous cultures, levels of rape, kidnap, murder and robbery increase as the dissatsified men left on the shelf go on the rampage. Researchers from the University of British Columbia say that monogamous marriage has replaced polygamy because it has lower levels of inherent social problems…

Marriage Media
Week of January 16, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin

1. Family Fact of the Week: Marriage’s Sobering Effects, Heritage Foundation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report last week showing that. . . one in six U.S. adults binge drinks about 4 times a month—that’s more than 38 million people. Fortunately, marriage appears to have a positive effect on both men’s and women’s relationships to alcohol, with a decline in alcohol problems among couples who have tied the knot. . . The instance of binge drinking declines by 11 percent among recently married men, and marriage seems to also reduce the number of women who report binge drinking by 20 percent.

2. Are You with the Right Mate?, Psychology Today

What to do when the initial attraction sours? “I call it the first day of your real marriage,” Real says. It’s not a sign that you’ve chosen the wrong partner. It is the signal to grow as an individual—to take responsibility for your own frustrations. Invariably, we yearn for perfection but are stuck with an imperfect human being. We all fall in love with people we think will deliver us from life’s wounds but who wind up knowing how to rub against us.

3. Marriage: Saying ‘I don’t’, Los Angeles Times

As of 2010, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, married couples had fallen to barely 51% of U.S. households, with a full 5% drop in new marriages between 2009 and 2010 alone. The data for 2011 aren’t in yet, but if that decline continued last year, less than half of American adults are in a legal marriage now. Is marriage going the way of the electric typewriter and the VHS tape? Not exactly.

4. Blair: Marriage Without Meaning, The Dartmouth

I just want to focus now on the reason legislation about marriage is appropriate to pursue even in our time of fiscal crisis. The state does not create marriage – it recognizes it. It recognizes it because of the terrible importance marriage possesses for the health of a country. The decline in a healthy marriage culture, which started in the ‘60s and ‘70s in our country, has been linked again and again to higher crime rates, higher poverty rates, poorer education and lower levels of psychological health in children, among other things.

5. Relationship Help, Huffington Post

However couples therapy is only part of the answer to the question of how to increase relationship health. The most important answer is in one word: Education.

Relationship education includes classes, workshops, and online learning where partners can learn the skills and principles that over 30 years of research has shown to be associated with relationship happiness. In controlled clinical trials, couples who complete a relationship education program communicate better, handle conflicts and negative emotions more constructively, have lower risk of divorce and higher levels of relationship happiness. My message to couples: Don’t wait until things get really nasty or until you have lost that loving feeling.

6. Twogether in Texas, East Texas Review

Twogether in Texas grew out of the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative and operates with funds from Texas Health and Human Services Commission. In just over three years, it has helped thousands of people nurture stronger marriages — and save a few bucks in the process.

“I originally came here today to get my $60 voucher,” one participant said after attending a workshop in Fort Worth. “However, I’m leaving with so much more. I don’t even care about the money I saved because the knowledge I gained today is priceless.”

7. Your Marital Style May Predict Divorce, Houston Chronicle

After thirty years of divorce research, she came up with five basic marital styles. What is important to note are the ones that were most likely NOT to end up in divorce. The two that led to the longest, most content marriages are the cohesive marriage and the traditional marriage. Indentifying your style may be the first step in re-taping your communication and saving your marriage.

1. Cohesive Marriage. This marriage style is one in which the couple doesn’t spend every waking moment together, but they are tightly bonded. These couples often have their own interests, their own careers, but at the end of the day they want to be in each other’s arms. They draw their support and love from each other. They are the gold standard as they make marriage look real. Most people idealize this type of marriage.
2. Traditional Marriage. This is the marriage your parents may have had. The breadwinner is the guy, and the wife takes on the duties of the home, kids and running the couple’s social life. Although it led to the least divorces in Dr. Hetherington’s thirty-year research study, the individual people may not have been the happiest. This marriage works great if both partners enjoy and embrace their roles. If something changes, such as the wife begins working, this type of marriage may become unstable.

For more, see this site.

Marina Adshade, an economics professor with an interest in “sex and love,” writes:

Today we will take a few minutes to show a little appreciation for an important right in Western society – the right to divorce. [...]

Economists Justine Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson, in a 2006 paper, showed that these legal changes had significant impacts on the quality of life of women. Taking advantage of in state-by-state variations in the time in which these laws were put into place they found that freer access to divorce brought with it an 8 –16% decline in female suicide, a 30% decline in domestic violence and 10% decline in the murder rate of women.

You may argue that these benefits to unilateral divorce laws come at significant costs – hardship for children and female poverty, just to name two – but that would only be true if the change in divorce laws increased the rate of divorce and that has not been proven. In fact, the best evidence suggests a very small positive effect on divorce rates only in the ten years after divorces became easier to obtain. And even then, that effect was only among those who were married before the laws were put in place.

The explanation for why easier access to divorce has not increased divorce rates is simple – men and women enter into marriage more cautiously when they know that divorce is easier to obtain. This is because while the laws may have made divorce easier from a legal standpoint, they have not made marital dissolution emotionally or economically painless.

It is this fact that explains why women marry later in life when it is easier to divorce.

A second explanation, which also explains the fall in domestic violence and suicide in states that support unilateral divorce, is just knowing that your spouse can divorce you without your consent encourages married individuals to treat each other better.

In the article, Adshade also argue that the use of “covenant” marriage agreements doesn’t actually make people less likely to divorce, but they do make the divorces harder on the people involved (“Anecdotal evidence suggests that even when abuse has been proven judges strictly enforce separation periods of up to two years.”). Those costs fall disproportionately on women:

The purpose of a covenant marriage is to increase the cost of divorce, significantly, and as a result give parties an incentive to stay in a failing marriage. If women are lower wage earners than men, or are out of the workforce all together, then the imposition of these costs falls disproportionally on women making it difficult for them to leave a bad marriage. That part of the arrangement is significant since in the majority of divorces it is the wife who wants the marriage to end.

I pretty much agree with Adshade on all of this. Married life was not a paradise in the 1950s, and the people I know who got divorced did so only after a lot of anguish and thought. Contrary to what the marriage-rescuers seem to believe, most Americans take marriage very seriously; trying to make it even harder to divorce is punitive, it is anti-liberty, and it will not actually improve anything.

From KIRO TV today:

Washington’s Legislature has enough votes to legalize gay marriage with a statement from Democratic Senator Mary Margaret Haugen Monday who said she will support the measure, becoming the 25th vote needed to pass the bill out of the Senate. The House already has enough support, and Gov. Chris Gregoire has endorsed the plan. [...]

Washington would become the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriages, following New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. Washington state has had a domestic partnership law since 2007, and a “everything but marriage” law since 2009.

And from the Seattle Times a couple of days ago:

Once the hearings are over, the bills could move out of committee by Thursday in the Senate and by Jan. 30 in the House. The chairmen of both committees said they have the votes they need. The House bill is also expected to go through the House Ways and Means Committee. It’s not clear if the Senate’s measure will go through Senate Ways and Means.

Gay-marriage advocates say the earliest the bills could get floor votes would be the first part of February.

If the bill passes, according to a Fox news report, “gay and lesbian couples would be able to get married starting in June unless opponents file a referendum to challenge it at the ballot.” Of course, NOM and other opponents of marriage equality are already gearing up for just such a challenge.

But this time it might not be easy for them.

In October, a University of Washington poll found that an increasing number of people in the state support same-sex marriage. About 43 percent of respondents said they support gay marriage, up from 30 percent in the same poll five years earlier. Another 22 percent said they support giving identical rights to gay couples but just not calling it marriage.

When asked how they would vote if a referendum challenging a gay marriage law was on the ballot, 55 percent said they would vote yes to uphold the law, with 47 percent of them characterized as “strongly” yes, and 38 percent responded “no,” that they would vote to reject a gay marriage law.

Of course, it’s happened multiple times that marriage equality has done worse in the voting booth than polls indicated. But poll trends indicate that more voters favor equality with every passing year. So we’ll see.

The fight against marriage equality in Washington is led by Pasteur Ken Hutchingson, who says that people who favor same-sex marriage are like John Wilkes Booth, and “trying to put a bullet in the head of one of the greatest traditions that has ever existed,” and tells lawmakers who vote for marriage equality that they think “that you know better than God.” Oy.

Apparently there is Room for Debate.

Check out the NYT for a forum on the topic, featuring some familiar voices including FamilyScholars blogger Brad Wilcox.

And for my own two cents on poly arrangements and children, see One Parent or Five.

An article in Le Figaro (which I stumble through only with the help of Google translator) on a new initiative and outreach to mayors from the secretary of state for families in France:

Claude Greff will meet January 25 the President of the Association of Mayors of
France to present the news. The “preparation kit to civil marriage” will be tested in cities volunteers before being distributed to the municipalities upon request. “Many mayors have expressed their interest,” promised Secretary of State.

The original article in French.

Marriage Media
Week of January 9, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin

1. The Secret to a Happy Marriage? Small Acts of Kindness, The Globe and Mail

And yet the Holy Grail of the equitable marriage is far trickier to find than a hot cup of tea for your beloved. Among those parents with high scores on the generosity scale, 50 per cent reported their marriage as “very happy.” Among those with lower generosity scores, only 14 per cent claimed to be “very happy.”

“It’s signaling to someone that you want to go above and beyond the call of duty. On a regular basis, it’s signaling that you value them,” says Prof. Wilcox. “It’s really little acts of service that don’t cost a huge amount.”

2. Millennials Divorce Marriage, Forbes

While researching our upcoming book, INVISIBLE: How Millennials Are Changing the Way We Sell, we discovered that if there were a Millennial Mantra, it would most likely be My way. Right away. Why pay? Try applying that mantra to love and sex and power.  Make your own interpretation about how such an attitude might impact the long term viability of the nuclear family.  The picture you paint will probably be a bit frightening but it is just as likely to fill you with hope.

3. Marriage Matters: Happiness Factors, Sturgis Journal

The report noted a “hybrid” model of married life combining “newer soul-mate aspirations with older institutional features” seems to be the best path to successfully combine marriage and parenthood for today’s parents.

Factors associated with the older, institutional features of the traditional model of marriage include commitment, shared religious faith, support of friends and family, sound economic foundation provided by a good job, and quality family time. The factors inherent in the “soul-mate model” of marriage are shared housework, good sex, marital generosity, date nights, and having a college degree.

4. UA Study: Divorce can Raise Risk of Early Death, USA Today

The risk of dying early was 23 percent greater among divorced adults than married couples tracked by researchers for an average of 11 years. Researchers found the risks associated with divorce are similar to other well-established public-health risks, such as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, getting limited exercise, being overweight and drinking heavily, said the study’s lead author, UA psychology professor David Sbarra.

The study did not conclusively determine that divorce leads to early death. The paper, published recently in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, examined 32 studies involving more than 6.5 million adults in 11 countries, including the United States. The studies were published over a span of 27 years.

5. Understanding Jealousy, Preserving Trust: Keeping Your Relationship Strong, Military Community & Family Policy EMagazine

It is completely normal to feel a little jealous from time to time even in the healthiest of relationships. Sometimes you may feel jealous about things that seem to take up a lot of your partner’s time, like relationships with other people, job demands, or time spent online. When you feel neglected by your partner due to his or her interest in something else, you may worry that your partner’s other interests are a threat to your relationship and wonder if you can trust him or her. The way that you and your partner deal with jealousy is critical to maintaining trust and avoiding more serious problems.

6. Qualities of a Healthy Marriage, University of Maryland

Several social scientists, in examining “healthy marriages,” have identified a number of traits, qualities and skills of people who had been able to maintain successful, satisfying relationships. These people:

[Note: There are 37 qualities listed.]

7.  Questions for Your Own Circle of Experts, The New York Times

If you have friends or relatives in the last third of their lives, Karl Pillemer, who heads the Cornell Legacy Project, suggests that you ask what their experiences, both positive and negative, have taught them about living effectively. Their answers may both enrich your understanding and appreciation of important elders in your life and improve your own chances of living successfully. Interview questions like these 10 formed the basis of Dr. Pillemer’s book “30 Lessons on Living: Tried and True Advice From the Wisest Americans.”

For more, see this site.

Marriage Media
Week of January 2, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin

1. Statisticians Reveal What Makes America Happy, Technology Review: MIT

The results are interesting. The biggest personal factor in determining happiness is health. Healthy people are about 20 percent happier than average while unhealthy people are about 8.25 percent more unhappy. Next comes marriage. Married individuals are about 10 percent happier than people who have never been married. Personal income plays a smaller role. In general, however, people with higher incomes are happier, with the people in the highest income bracket about 3.5 percent happier than average.

2. Judge Launches Foundation to Reduce ‘Disease’ of Divorce, The Telegraph

For more, see this site.

A thoughtful column by Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Sarah Hampson about our recent report, “When Baby Makes Three.”

…Undertaken in co-operation with the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, an organization headed up by Elizabeth Marquardt, a famously pro-marriage family scholar who argued in her book, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce, that even amicable divorces profoundly shape the lives of children in negative ways, the study set out to counter what it calls “the increasingly individualistic tenor of modern life.”

In that way, the study can be seen as another backlash against the popular divorce culture, not unlike books such as Mark O’Connell’s The Marriage Benefit: The Surprising Rewards of Staying Together and Maggie Scarf’s September Songs: The Good News about Marriage in the Later Years which criticized the consumerist attitude in modern marriage – the idea that if a partner no longer pleases you as he did when you first acquired him, you promptly trade him in for a different model.

“Since the 1970s and the advent of the Me Generation in North America, there’s been a stress on seeing marriages as a vehicle for fulfilling individual needs as opposed to (at least in part) an opportunity to serve your spouse on a regular basis, something that is good for both you and your partner,” comments W. Bradford Wilcox, associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. more

Marriage Media
Week of December 26, 2011
Courtesy of Bill Coffin

1. Common Traits of Long and Happy Marriages, USA Today

In my book, ‘How to be a Grown Up,’ I talk about the 4 Cs of a quality relationship:

• Consider your partner’s feelings, thoughts and desires;
• Compromise as often as you can;
• Comfort your partner when he or she is in pain, even if you are the cause of their distress;
• Compliment daily — it lifts people up, counteracts insecurities and it simply feels good.

2. Why Are Fewer Americans Getting Married?, PBS

RAY SUAREZ: How is who gets married shaped by income, education, factors like that?

STEPHANIE COONTZ: Well, one of the things we’re seeing is a tremendous class divide in the access to stable, satisfying relationships, whether married or cohabiting. And the marriages of college-educated couples have been getting more and more stable. The divorce rates have been falling. But that’s not so for high school dropouts and even increasingly for high school-educated couples.

3. Tips for a Kinder, Gentler Marriage: Share Your Spiritual Lives, Huffington Post

Couples who pray together and share religious values are more likely to express affection and love, perform acts of kindness and be less critical of their partners, according to a study of 1,491 respondents ages 18 to 59 to the 2006 National Survey of Religion and Family Life.

4. A Response to Keith Ablow, The National Review Online

But Dr. Ablow’s ill-advised foray into policy analysis is not the least of the problems with his article. He comments, in an off-hand way, that in his clinical observations, “the vast majority of married people consider their unions a source of pain, not pleasure, and that too few of them are equipped with the psychological and behavioral tools to achieve true intimacy or maintain real passion.” Translation: People don’t have good enough relationship skills to get and stay married, so let’s give them an easier way out.

5. Chinese Marriage Sets Example for West, ABC News

China is said to be the bedrock of our financial future but two Queensland researchers are finding their approach to relationships could also lay the right foundation for a lasting marriage. The divorce rate in China is about one-third of Australia’s. University of Queensland psychologist Danika Hiew is in the middle of a study that is attempting to find out why. She spoke to our reporter Matt Wordsworth.

6. Troops Returning from Iraq Face New Battle at Home, Sacramento Bee

The divorce rate among military couples has increased 42 percent since the Afghanistan-Iraq wars began in 2001. Thousands of couples have endured multiple deployments resulting in years of separation. Research reveals that plans to pursue divorce or separation increase with each subsequent month a service member is deployed. . . “When troops return home, civilians think ‘ok, that’s it. It’s over.’ But that’s not true. The stress on our marriage of 13 deployments since 9/11 has been immeasurable.”

7. ‘Take Time to Be a Dad Today,’ Says Obama Administration’s Fatherhood Website, CNS News

“Talk about everything before marriage like your families, parenting styles, career goals and aspirations, where you want to live, where you like to vacation, religious preferences, where you grew up, what your childhood was like, finances, finances, finances, budgeting, credit reports, health issues, have you ever been incarcerated, confined to a mental institution . . . Talk about everything. The more you know the better decisions you can make.

For more, see this site.

Video is up at ConversationCenter.org of our December 8th release event, with David Blankenhorn interviewing Brad Wilcox, me, and David and Amber Lapp. Great questions too from an illustrious audience. Take a look.

In her watershed 1993 article in the Atlantic, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote of how “every time the issue of family structure has been raised, the response has been first controversy, then retreat, andfinally silence.”  That decisively had been the case 28 years earlier in the aftermath of the 1965 release of what quickly became known as the “Moynihan Report” on family breakdown in the African American community.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant secretary of labor in the Johnson administration, never once attributed blame to African Americans themselves, but rather, indicted the nation’s history of slavery and racism.  His analysis, in fact, was exquisitely progressive, laying the conceptual foundation, for example, for affirmative action.

Nevertheless, Moynihan was routinely pilloried for supposedly being a racist keen on blaming victims, and as a result, large numbers of otherwise brave men and women were intimidated into silence on the subject of out-of-wedlock births for a couple of decades.  And even when, in the 1980s, it began to get a bit less scary to talk and write about family breakdown, the best and fairest of people doing so still risked being called dirty names, most notably sexist and racist.

Jumping ahead to the present moment, I’m increasingly of the mind that talking and writing about family fragmentation in the United States is no longer as dangerous as it once was.  Granted, my evidence is largely anecdotal and personal, pertaining as it does to a new book of mine released about four months ago:  From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation.  Also granted, the book is not exactly leading any bestsellers list, which is to say the number of people even aware of its existence, shall we say, is modest.

Then again, I’ve talked about the book on national radio three times, wrote articles based on it for three national publications, and I’ve been making presentations all around the Twin Cities, among other promotional activities. The book also has been reviewed several times.  Nevertheless, it’s no modest matter at all that I have yet to be called a single dirty name.  Or at least I haven’t heard or read of any.  Actually, people on all sides of various aisles have been saying very nice things about it.

Obviously, this is pleasant news personally, for which I’m terrifically thankful.  But it’s also encouraging news for the nation, as we need to muster as much candor and good thinking as we can when it comes to the extraordinary number of children not growing up under the same roof with their mother and father.

But to the real extent we’ve made progress in the decency of discourse on this painfully sensitive subject, why exactly have we? My best answer is that as more Americans have grown more frightened by family fragmentation and its many and lasting effects, fewer voices are inclined to question the decency and motives of those who have been sounding alarms.

Might others think this is the case?

At Slate law professor John Culhane writes that heteros taking advantage of civil unions in Illinois are a greater threat to marriage than gay marriage.

He doesn’t reference previous arguments others have made along these lines, including many who have been worried about precisely this effect in France where the civil-union like PACS arrangements are far more often entered by heterosexual couples compared to homosexual couples.