One of the most critical values my husband and I try to teach
our three teenagers is the importance and joy of marriage.
After my desire for my children to be at peace and have a
personal relationship with their Creator, my second greatest desire
is that they would one day be happily married and raise children of
their own.
Why? Because I know the joy of this great blessing, and because
I've seen the pain and heartache of divorce, out-of-wedlock births
and single parenting. Yet our modern culture refuses to spread the
truth because it is politically incorrect.
But the truth is clear: God's design is for children to be born
of and raised by two married parents. Sadly, we know that many
people cannot help the fact that they're raising their children
alone. But many others actually make the choice to raise children
by themselves - and the children are the ones who suffer.
Many people fear being so blunt. But gutsy author and researcher
Kay Hymowitz knows the importance of speaking the truth. She boldly
detailed at a speech
before a large audience at The Heritage Foundation how research
proves that children and mothers who are part of families that
include fathers and husbands are far better off than those moms who
try to make it on their own.
But what about the "Murphy Browns" out there? Aren't there waves
of high-powered career women happily having children out of
wedlock, too?
You'll find some, all right. But not nearly as many as the sad,
struggling single mothers and children living in poverty. In her
new book, Hymowitz explains:
Starting in 1980, Americans began to experience a widening
Marriage Gap that has reached dangerous proportions. As of 2000
only about 10 percent of mothers with 16 or more years of education
- that is, with a college degree or higher - were living without
husbands. Compare that with 36 percent of mothers who have between
nine and 14 years of education. All the statistics about marriage
so often rehashed in magazine and newspaper articles hide a
startling truth. Yes, 33 percent are born to single mothers
… but the vast majority of those children are going home
from the maternity wards to low-rent apartments.
How many single-mother families will you find living below the
poverty line? According to Hymowitz, 36 percent - more than one out
of every three. How many married couples? Only 6 percent, or about
one out of every 20. That's a huge difference - one that
Americans need to hear about. But good luck finding any
class-warfaring politician who will admit this crucial factor. It's
just too explosive. It's not nice.
Why do we find such a gap? Conventional wisdom blames the lack
of decent "marriage material" out there: Too many potential
husbands for low-income women are flipping burgers, unemployed or
in jail, the story goes. But, Hymowitz notes, three facts cast
doubts on this theory. First, middle-class men with decent jobs are
avoiding marriage, too. Second, cohabitation among low-income
couples has been increasing; why aren't the men who are good enough
to cohabit with good enough to marry? Third, marriage makes even
low-income women and children better off financially.
Perhaps we should ask why well-educated women opt for marriage
in such overwhelming numbers. After all, they're better able to
shoulder the financial burden of raising a child on their own - and
yet they don't. Because, Hymowitz says:
Educated women know they'd better marry if they want their
children to succeed academically, which increasingly is critical to
succeeding in the labor market. The New Economy may have made
single motherhood a workable arrangement for high-earning mothers
in purely economic terms, but it made a husband a must-have in
terms of child rearing. No one understands better than an Amherst
or Stanford B.A. that her children will have to go to college one
day … if they are to keep their middle-class status.
What do husbands offer? Added income, to be sure, and a helping
hand with the kids. But it's more than that; after all, a
cohabiting partner could do as much. "As society's bulwark
institution, traditional marriage - that is, childbearing within
marriage - orders social life in ways that we only dimly
understand," Hymowitz writes.
Our Founding Fathers had a good grasp of it, though. "To the
institution of marriage the true origin of society must be traced,"
James Wilson, a member of the Continental Congress, wrote in 1790.
Growing up with married parents reinforces the values that underlie
Western civilization: virtue, self-sufficiency, industriousness. In
short, self-government begins at home.
That's why marriage matters. Its decline among the poor
perpetuates something our country was founded in part to abolish: a
permanent underclass. A growing
body of social-science research shows that children in
unmarried households are far more inclined to suffer from a wide
variety of problems, from increased drug and alcohol abuse, to
crime and school failure. They're also far more likely to not
graduate from college and to have their own out-of-wedlock children
- and the cycle continues.
That's not to say the cycle is unbreakable. But we can't hope to
do so until we begin talking about the problem openly. So take your
pick: Speak up and hurt some feelings. Or stay silent and hurt
millions of children. What's your choice?
Rebecca Hagelin
is a vice president of The Heritage Foundation and the author
of .