A University of Chicago study* done 10 years ago, revealed startling and drastic changes in the makeup of the American family in the last thirty-five years. Hang on to your hats, folks, and look what the enemies of “traditional values” have helped to bring to America:
- 56% of adults are now married, vs. 75% in 1972.
- 51% of children live with their two parents, vs. 73% in 1972.
- 33% of couples now live together unmarried, vs. 15% in 1972.
- 18.2% of children now live with a single parent, vs. 4.7% in 1972.
- 26% of American families are now “traditional.”
What should we expect from such a dramatic shift in cultural values? What do these figures say about where America is going?
Firstly, from an historical perspective, this shift in family values is undoubtedly the most radical in human history. Never before, let alone in a twenty-five year period, has a culture shifted so dramatically in terms of its confidence in, and commitment to, the institution of lifelong marriage. This shift does not show up in history’s records of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the darkest days of the so called “Dark Ages”; the calamity of the “black death plague”; any or all wars of the last 2000 years; let alone any relationship to economic depressions or severe famines. In short, these shifts are like unto cultural earthquakes of +20 on the Richter Scale. Indeed, it would be difficult to overstate their significance.
While there are many, many implications to these statistics, those that grip one most at present are two: 1) what they say about people’s faith in their ability to make realistic long-term relational commitments, and 2) what they say about the relational expectations they are modeling for our nation’s children.
Life, at best, has a true measure of uncertainties. The idea that a man and woman can enter into and keep a lifelong marriage commitment ought not to be one of them. Both my parents and my wife’s parents, and all four sets of our grandparents made over fifty years of marriage work. When I was in school in the 1950’s, I’m not sure I even knew a divorced couple. In the 1940’s over 70% of the African-American households were made up of married couples. Why do so many people believe that they cannot survive in a marriage anymore? Has life changed so much for the worse? Have male/female natures grown fundamentally incompatible in the last twenty-five years?
Has some “aquarian age” anti-marriage demon grasped America by the throat and choked out our faith in our ability to work through relational challenges? What fundamental values have so changed that one cannot or should not trust his/her own ability, let alone anyone else’s ability, to make and hold to ultimate commitments? Well, hold on, folks, because the answers to these questions will emerge in the next twenty-five years, and if we do not heed them, near total social chaos will be our common bottom line.
Principle Based Evaluation: The family is the basic building block of a healthy society. Viewing these decade old statistics gives us an historic glimpse into the battles we are fighting today.
For more information on the author, Dennis Peacocke, go to: http://www.gostrategic.org/
* “General Social Survey” by University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center
Tom Jackson
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Your family speaks loudly Dennis Even I didn't know the solidity of your family on both sides for three generations - now moving on to four and five! Those (your) lives speak louder than words, and hopefully no plastic or pretentious compromises in those marriages for the sake of peace and prosperity. I would have like to have seen what another ten years of statistics reveal. Do we have the guts to face it? |
Ashley McCuen
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... I completely agree that the family is the building block of society. I recently did a research paper on the institution of traditional marriage, and discovered that marriage is the longest, oldest and most popular social institution in the world! It is found in virtually every society around the globe! Yet, in America today, the marriage rate is equal to that of the divorce rate. And according to the US Department of Commerce, the number of divorces in America has quadrupled since 1970! In unbelievable numbers, we have seen and witnessed the break up of what was made to last a lifetime. In my research on this topic, I came to a scary conclusion--the institution of traditional marriage is not only under dangerous attack, but it is quickly becoming outdated. With the prominence and tolerant acceptance of divorce, cohabitation, and gay marriage, traditional marriage is in trouble. What will it look like in the next 25 years? What will the divorce rates and the percentage of those who actually get married look like then? Besides going against the trends and living happy, healthy marriages, what can we as Christians do to fight this attack? We cant just sit around, hoping something will just change; we must do something. |
Erin Oostra
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Hope in Marriage These are incredibly heartbreaking statistics indeed. It is interesting to look at these statistics for the United States (provided by http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm): •Number of marriages: 2,162,000 •Marriage rate: 7.1 per 1,000 total population •Divorce rate: 3.5 per 1,000 population (44 reporting States and D.C.) There seems to no longer be any hope for a successful marriage. People today are basing their relationships on what they can get from their partner. They go into marriage thinking that their partner will somehow complete them and make them whole, but the only one who can do that is God. So why is marriage going down the toilet? Because this generation has flushed God and his standards and relationship down the toilet too. Hope in marriage is found in Him alone, and that is how these statistics will eventually change. (also see http://www.hopeinmarriage.org/womens_index.htm) |
Tessa Hart
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Am I recycable??? I come from a traditional family. My parents have been married for 27 years and have five children. Growing up I didn't really hear the word divorce. Now it's everywhere. Marriages have become like dating relationships. Once the husband or wife gets tired or annoyed with their spouse the relationship is over. Perhaps this is why so many choose to live of life of marriage outside of the covenant lifetime commitment. They want all the pleasure without the responsibility. What would you feel like if the person you loved said to you, "lets not get married cause that way if we get tired or mad at each other there won't be any problem breaking up." This would be a sure sign the person did not love you. they just want to use and then recycle you. My response would be, "Well I'm not recyclable." To read more about the permanence of marriage visit, http://www.gospelway.com/famil...nence.php. To find divorce stats in your state go to, http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml I am continually praying for the divorce rates to change in America and we will return to traditional marriage. Read these articles and then pray your guts out. |
