Posted on 10/19/2022 8:33:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Marriage Strengthening Research & Dissemination Center (or MAST Center) recently released a new report illustrating the vast scale of disillusionment regarding the institution of marriage in the eyes of America’s young people.
Among other findings, the study found that almost 80% of teenagers (categorized as 15- to 19-year-olds) expect to cohabit before marriage, with 95% saying that they expect to marry someday.
In an article analyzing the report, Alysse ElHage of the Institute for Family Studies highlighted some particularly revealing comments from teenagers about their thoughts on marriage from a New York Times story from 2019.
A teen from Texas reflected:
I feel like nowadays it’s not really as important to get married, especially for people of my age and generation. The reason being is that we are being taught by our parents and educators that our education should come first in order to have a stable life financially and career wise, which causes many people to neglect the thought of marriage. Not only that, but society has also made marriage seem like it should be like the least important thing for a person to think about.
Another student from North Carolina wrote:
Asking if I want to get married someday is a poor question in my opinion. Marriage is just a title, a contract; it only begins to matter once love is in the picture … I think it’s acceptable to live with a romantic partner without having plans to get married.
These findings and quotes combine for a perfect encapsulation of our current cultural view of relationships and marriage: living together is expected, while marriage is simultaneously a throwaway relic from prehistoric times but also a mythical ideal. As has become customary in our modern society, confusion, and disillusionment now reign supreme.
How did we get to a cultural place where the concept of marriage has become so mocked and diluted? While many factors are at play here, arguably the most important factor is the societal loss of knowledge of why God created marriage for the human race, a covenantal relationship instituted at the very beginning of creation: “[H]e who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6).
The extent to which teens are without solid foundational beliefs has been documented by the Barna Group, which found that about 4% of Generation Z has a biblical worldview. They also note that this number is the lowest of the three previous generations (10% of Boomers, 7% of Generation X, and 6% of Millennials).
The specific loss of a Christian understanding of marriage is key here. For the secular culture, marriage has simply become the formalization of a relationship of two people who are already living together. As alluded to in the two teen quotes above, marriage is seen as a foolish and unimportant idea, unless it has been thoroughly road tested by two people who have shacked up together to see how it goes, and then maybe done as a second thought if it happens to suit their fancy.
The first problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn’t work. Studies have consistently shown that couples who cohabitate before getting married divorce at higher rates than those who wait until marriage to move in together. The reasons for this have been intensely debated amongst university elites, but for believers, the reason is clear: When God’s laws against premarital sex are broken and ignored, the results are an absolute disaster. Since the sexual revolution began in the 1960s (when premarital sex began to become widely culturally accepted), the rates of divorce, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases skyrocketed.
Still, it’s quite telling that fully 95% of teenagers say they want to get married someday. Despite how profoundly our society has cheapened marriage and sex, our souls still yearn for God’s design for humankind at the deepest level. We long for communion and unity, to be known and loved intimately and exclusively by another in the form of a vow, which is a reflection of God’s love for us. We also know primordially that we are all the incarnation of the union of our mother and father — of an act that God designed only for marriage. The entire human race would not exist without the marriage of one man and one woman, Adam and Eve (see Genesis 2).
This latest study on cohabitation shows that we believers have our work cut out for us. While combatting the lies of the sexual revolution is important, it is perhaps more effective to witness the beauty of God’s laws and the tangible ways that they bring happiness and joy to our own marriages and families. It should serve as further motivation to redouble our efforts to spread the Gospel of life, sacred vows, commitment, and true love (John 15:13) to our friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, and others in our circles of influence.
Originally published at The Washington Stand.
Dan Hart is the Managing Editor for Publications at Family Research Council. His writing has appeared in such outlets as National Review, The Federalist, First Things, The Stream, The Christian Post, the National Catholic Register, and others. Before joining FRC, he served with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he worked to promote vocations to the clergy and religious life.
Then the gays came out and said they were "born that way."
Then the gays demanded the worthless slip of paper as a constitutional right.
Then other people announced they were born the wrong way and the rest of us should pay to have them surgically mutilated.
But it won't be a truly free society until the Furries get recognized!
My wife and I lived together for two years before marriage. Still together after 40 years.
I don’t think the young people consider marriage as their goal. Rather playing house seems to be the idea. Room mates with benifits says it too.
Most young girls are under the false hope the ‘arrangement’ will one day lead to marriage. Even if they don’t think so the day does come where she always starts feeling used as she looks to the future.
I worked with a gal who lived with a man for 5 yrs and she began feeling like nothing more than a kept women. He owned everything and she didn’t have any ‘security’ if something happened to him.
And these days, the man is the only one obligated to perform to the terms of the contact, which provides very profitable rewards to the one one chooses to default on them. Just take a long hard look at any “family” court.
RE: cohabitate is not a word
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is. See here :
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cohabitate
I agree, but it’s more a function of not wanting to rather than being unable....it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to talk above the shrill tones of female entitlement.
That poor girl. She bought the “you don’t know someone until you live with them, so live with them first.”
Marriage is about two people saying they’re vulnerable enough to risk their entire lives with the other person and withhold nothing…even an escape route of things don’t work out.
Living together is “I only like you this much. I will see if I love you enough to marry you. But for now, let’s have sex, but still withhold major portions of our lives with each other.””
There’s no stability in that and that’s not love.
I agree when the government gets involved the outcome becomes “equitable” which will is wrong, write up a prenuptial just to protect yourself
What they’re actually doing is living togther until someone better comes along.
That milk from the cow will turn to cottage cheese.
Yep. Zero security and zero foundation for future marriage.
I asked a woman who had been married and divorced and who was street wise why this was so, and she said: "The woman who lives with a man befor marriage KNOWS he broke the rules to do so. She doesn't trust him. In her mind, he'll break the rules again and have sex with another woman besides her."
Blam!
The desire to cohabitate before marriage as a “test” shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of marriage. It reveals that someone is entering into a selfish relations that is only valued if one gets something out of it: what is in it for me? Marriage, on the other hand, is a selfless gift to one another: what can I give to the other? For marriage to succeed one must be “all in” from the beginning.
You didn’t know me, nor anyone in my family.
We’re also seeing people marry but once the kids are raised they think they’ve done their duty so divorce moving on to the next phase of their life.
This is of course more advantageous for a man than a woman.
Do you want to live happily ever after? The best marriage odds are these: there is a 96% chance you will be happily yoked for life if you do the following: forego cohabiting prior to marriage, go to Church on Sundays, and forego artificial contraception.
Anything less cuts down the odds.
Many do not dare to hope that a life long happy marriage is possible. We must try to restore hope and faith in the souls of our young people even when we are not good role models of it ourselves. If we want the best for our children and our country.
For the most part, unmarried couples live together for economic necessity. In my case, both my future wife and I owned homes and one home was not being lived in. We moved in together, and put the empty house up for rent and earned some income. enough income to expand our real estate portfolio.
I remember reading a while ago that the divorce rate was greater for couples living together first. The belief was that when you are living together you are more willing to make compromises. Once, they got married, it was “I’m not putting up with that the rest of my life.”
By the way, God’s view is quite clear.
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