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In March 1995, the Council on Families in America -- a national, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary group of scholars and family experts whose purpose is to examine family and child well-being -- issued its first major report. Entitled Marriage in America: A Report to the Nation, it received widespread media attention including segments on ABC's Day One with Diane Sawyer and All Things Considered on National Public Radio, a feature article in USA Today and other major newspapers, coverage by many national newspaper columnists, and much attention from the nation's talk radio hosts. The report was the result of some two years of intensive investigation, including the commissioning of essays on marriage topics from leading experts around the nation. This book presents the full text of the report, plus a selection of those essays. They are a stirring reflection of the deep concerns about the state of marriage among the nation's marriage experts. Marriage in America is in trouble. A culture that once treasured the institution of marriage has been steadily displaced by a culture of divorce and unwed parenthood. In the past several decades the divorce rate has doubled and the percentage of unwed births has quintupled. Trends such as these have created tragic hardships for children, generated poverty within families, and burdened us with insupportable social costs. At the same time, no one seems to be much happier. The essays in Promises to Keep, written by lawyers, theologians, social scientists, policy makers, and activists, go to the heart of the problem at the level of detail which the report could not develop. Most were the subject of intense deliberation by Council members at regular meeting in New York City and contain the seeds of the major ideas included in the final report. Many lay out clearly -- and unequivocally -- the depth of the problem we face. Others point us down the path of marital resurrection. Although the authors do not agree with one another on every issue, together they provide a remarkably penetrating statement on the state of marriage in America today. From the Introduction by David Popenoe
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Institute for American Values |
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