Stronger Families, Stronger Marriages
As appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer
Wednesday, April 5,1995
Murray Dubin, Inquirer Staff Writer

A national shift away from a "culture of marriage" has led Americans to believe that it is no longer "till death do us part," but "as "long as I'm happy."

And that cultural change hurts children and burdens society with incalculable social costs.

The call for the nation to once again value "enduring marital relationships" comes in "Marriage in America," a research report released late last week in New York from the Council on Families in America, a volunteer panel of scholars and analysts.

"The culture of divorce has failed to deliver on its promise of individual happiness," says David Popenoe, council co-chair and professor of sociology and associate dean for the social sciences at Rutgers University.

"We are wrestling with a culture of immediacy versus a culture of long-term goals, a culture focusing on self-expression and not self-reliance," says William A. Galston, White House senior domestic-policy adviser, who served on the council in. a private capacity.

The report's message is simpler to state than to carry out: "To reverse the current deterioration of child and societal well-being in the United States, we must strengthen the institution of marriage."

While there does seem to be agreement among scholars that marriage is less valued than it was 40 or 50 years ago, there is less agreement that society's problems, from teenage pregnancy to poverty, can be laid at the doorstep of marriage dissolution.

One skeptic is Frank F. Furstenberg, a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor and the author of Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Part.

He wrote in 1993:

"There are two reasons for my skepticism. First, the historical evidence reveals that various indicators of children's well-being such as lower test scores, delinquency, drug use and teenage pregnancy began to take a turn for the worse just as, or even shortly before, divorce and nonmarital childbearing started to climb in this country.

``Life in single-parent families....cannot explain the upsurge of problem behavior that has occurred in the last several decades.

"Second, family change in the United States is not unique. The nuclear family has been receeding in all developed countries. Yet most nations are not experiencing the same level of problem behavior witnessed here. And, no one has shown that youth problems are more severe in countries with high rates of marital disruption and nonmarital child-bearing like Sweden and Norway, than in countries that maintain more traditional family systems, like Italy or Spain."

The new report is bursting with statistics - juvenile violent crime rose sixfold from 1960 to 1992; poverty has shifted from the elderly to the young with 38 percent of the  nation's poor today identified as children - but Popenoe acknowledges that the "evidence is never conclusive" of the relationship between marriage decline and child well-being. "We need to gather more and better evidence and disseminate it more widely."

And there is an immediate need to support parents, from special housing vouchers to part-time leave for new parents, says council member Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the National Parenting Association.

"Valorizing parents is critical," she says. "Parents are feeling badly that their roles are being devalued. They want respect. There has to be aneconomic impact to that. The costs of child raising are almost always private, but [many of] the rewards are public. We have to redraw that balance."

The report calls for a national conversation on marriage. Galston says that conversation must range from teenage pregnancy in urban areas to divorce in the suburbs, from more women working to who does the housework.

"I don't think we can reinstitutionalize marriage without thinking about the profound changes in our country and the profound changes in gender relationship?," says Galston, who announced in mid-March that he was resigning his White House post so he can spend more time at home with his family.

"The movement of women into the workforce has not yet been counter-balanced by the movement of men into the house."

He adds that going back to the view of the marriage in the 1950s is not possible. "The changes have made marriage more difficult. We're beginning to understand that. We are going to have to refashion our view of marriage."

Jean Bethke Elshtain professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a council member, says that the idea must be reinforced that "being a parent is not just another lifestyle choice. It's an ethical choice."

Among the report's recommendations:

• To religious leaders and organizations: "Reclaim moral ground from the culture of divorce and nonmarriage."

• To civic leaders and community groups: "Create community-based organizations - from father's clubs to boys and girls clubs - that model and promote fatherhood and male responsibility."

• To employers: "Create personnel policies and work environments that respect and favor the marital commitment."

• To legislators: "Reconsider state marriage laws that lean toward no-fault divorce. Consider revisions that would ... shift the support of the law toward the marital partner trying to save the marriage."

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