(Rockford, Illinois) World Congress of Families founder Dr. Allan Carlson warned America of dark days ahead as a new Census Bureau report highlights the further decline of marriage.
According to the recently released America Community Survey, for the first time in our history, married couples (with or without children) now represent a minority of U.S. households – 49.7% or 55.2 million of the nation’s 111.1 million households.
The past half-century has seen the steady decline of marriage -- from 76% of all households in 1957 to 53% in 2000 to just under 50% today.
“Marriage is the bedrock of society,” Carlson, the author of Conjugal America: On The Public Purposes of Marriage, observed. “It’s married couples who have children – guaranteeing society’s survival. Married couples care for the elderly and infirm. They provide most of the support for charities and civic activities. Their decline is a harbinger of atomization and fragmentation.”
None of this occurred in a vacuum, Carlson noted. “Since the 1960’s, our institutions have combined to denigrate marriage and the family. Hollywood offered a jaundiced view of marriage and family life, celebrated extra-marital sex and made self-fulfillment – not duty – the highest goal. Our educational institutions, the news media and the bureaucracy reinforced this perspective.”
No fault divorce destabilized marriage and created skepticism in the eyes of the young. Tax policy penalized family formation. Relativism demanded no moral judgments of those who chose to live together, sans benefit of clergy.
Said Carlson, “To understand the way that culture drives this phenomenon, consider the following: In conservative Utah County, Utah, married couples represent 69% of households. In liberal Manhattan married couples account for only 26%.”
Carlson cautioned, “Unless America is to go the way of Europe, where married couples are increasingly an endangered species, we must rediscover the importance of marriage in creating social peace and assuring society’s future.”
World Congress of Families IV will be held in Warsaw, Poland, May 11-13, 2007. Sessions will include: “The Family – A Sanctuary of Love and Life,” “The Family Home – The Center of Upbringing And Education,” “The Family – The Seedbed of National Renewal.” and “What’s Wrong With Cohabitation?”