Posted on 06/27/2011 5:21:14 PM PDT by NYer
It is June — that time of year when many of us will be receiving wedding invitations. One thing that may have changed from years past is the likelihood that the address on that invitation is for a country club, beach or community center rather than a Catholic parish.
The number of marriages celebrated in the Church has fallen from 415,487 in 1972 to 168,400 in 2010 — a decrease of nearly 60 percent — while the U.S. Catholic population has increased by almost 17 million. To put this another way, this is a shift from 8.6 marriages per 1,000 U.S. Catholics in 1972 to 2.6 marriages per 1,000 Catholics in 2010.
The “crude marriage” rate (marriages per 1,000 of a population) for Catholics marrying in the Church is significantly different than the overall crude marriage rate of the United States. In 2009, the most recent data available, the crude marriage rate in the U.S. overall was 6.8 marriages per 1,000 people.
It’s not that Catholics are less likely to marry than non-Catholics. In 2010, 53 percent of Catholics surveyed in the General Social Survey (GSS) indicated that they were currently married. By comparison, 51 percent of non-Catholics surveyed were married (including 55 percent of Protestants and 43 percent of those without a religious affiliation). Instead, many Catholics are choosing to marry outside of the Church.
We can see this trend in polling data as well. In a 2007 survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, 46 percent of unmarried Catholics who indicated some likelihood of marrying in the future said it is “somewhat” or “very” important to them to marry in the Church.
There are some other trends that are leading to the declining numbers of marriages in the Church.
A smaller percentage of Catholics are choosing to marry at all. The percentage of Catholics in the GSS indicating that they are married dropped from 79 percent in 1972 to 53 percent in 2010. Among Catholics ages 18 to 40, this percentage dropped from 69 percent to 38 percent during this period.
Some of this can be explained by Catholics waiting longer to marry, but the shift here has been slight. In 1972, the average age at first marriage reported in the GSS for Catholics ages 18 to 40 was 20.9. In 2006 (the last time this question was asked), it was 23.9.
Thus, the decline in Church marriages is more about not marrying at all than marrying older. CARA’s 2007 survey on marriage provides some additional context. In this study, Catholics who had never married were asked, “How likely do you think it is that you will get married at some point in your life?” Twenty-four percent of these never-married Catholics responded, “not at all likely.”
Divorce is another factor in the growing gap between the overall crude marriage rate in the U.S. and in the Church. The percentage of adult Catholics who are divorced or separated, divorced and remarried or widowed increased from 8 percent in 1972 to 22 percent in 2010. Some who divorce get remarried in civil ceremonies without seeking an annulment. These marriages are included in the total number of marriages in the U.S. but couldn’t be celebrated in the Church.
Another factor is the increasing number of marriages among Catholics to spouses of another faith.
According to the 1991 GSS, 78 percent of married Catholics ages 40 and younger had a Catholic spouse. This dropped to 57 percent in 2008, with an increasing number of Catholics reporting a Protestant spouse (28 percent) or one with no religious affiliation (15 percent).
Some Catholics celebrate their interfaith marriage in the Church. The percentage of marriages celebrated in the Church between a Catholic and a non-Catholic has remained quite stable in recent decades. In 2009, 26 percent of marriages in the Church were between a Catholic and a non-Catholic.
The likelihood that a Catholic will marry a non-Catholic is related to how numerous other Catholics are in his or her community. In 2009, in dioceses in which Catholics were about 10 percent of the total population, the average percentage of marriages in the Church between a Catholic and non-Catholic was 41 percent. In dioceses in which 40 percent or more of the population was Catholic, only about 16 percent of marriages in the Church were interfaith.
Not all dioceses have experienced the same marriage-rate decline. Four reported an increase in their crude Catholic marriage rates in the last decade: Peoria, Ill. (4.2 marriages in the Church per 1,000 Catholics in 2000 compared with 5.2 in 2010), Monterey, Calif. (3.4 to 4.3), Amarillo, Texas (5.1 to 5.2), and Beaumont, Texas (3.7 to 3.8). However, in each of these dioceses the total number of marriages celebrated in the Church declined. The resulting increases in marriage rates are due to fewer numbers of Catholics living in these dioceses.
In six dioceses, the total number of marriages celebrated increased, but the marriage rate fell due to more rapidly growing Catholic populations. These include: Corpus Christi, Texas (222 more marriages in 2010 than in 2000), Charlotte, N.C. (+112), Brownsville, Texas (+30), Knoxville, Tenn. (+18), Raleigh, N.C. (+17), Lincoln, Neb. (+1).
In the 10 dioceses with the highest rates for Catholic marriage in 2010, mostly concentrated in middle America, the rates are similar to the total crude marriage rate in the U.S. (6.8 in 2009). In the dioceses with the lowest crude rates, many are likely choosing to marry outside the Church. It’s also possible that in the dioceses near the U.S.-Mexico border, some of the Catholic marriages may be occurring outside the diocese.
The Diocese of Las Vegas has the country’s lowest Catholic marriage rate (0.9 marriages in the Church per 1,000 Catholics). This may be related to the presence of the city of Las Vegas — said to be easiest place in the world to get married (outside the Church, that is).
Ah, New Jersey! We get a lot of people from up there, mainly in their 50s and up. They mellow out when they see how peaceful and cheap it is here in the bland mid-South suburbs.
I know a guy who has 5 kids, aged 6 months to 13 years. his wife stays at home and the guy works at a steel factory. he was initially studying to be a priest, but decided to leave before ordination.
he had no skills beyond a knowledge of Italian.
This helped him get the job as a translator.
he slowly worked his way up and he's doing reasonably well -- they can't afford a car or a 3 bedroom house, but the kids are well-behaved, happy, the family is deeply religious and the guy and his wife are both happy and content.
Money is not an excuse I think.
True, getting married in Church isn’t expensive at all. The party that happens afterwards IS expensive
Exactamundo!!
When i helped in India I saw families that sacrificed a lot for their kids.
I don't need that new car or new clothes -- I can shop at the second-hand stores if I want something new for daily wear, etc. etc.
I admire kearnyirish2 for his choices and I think those were the right ones.
Except for the dress. For many brides, it seems like the dress is the real reason they're getting married!
True, but having no job or immediate prospects would be a reason to hold off on marriage and children. Traditionally, before premarital sex became so common, the desire to get married motivated people to get to work at *some* kind of job. Now many just drift, hooking up here and there ... and often the children are born anyway. My mother told me last week that her friend's son's stepdaughter had just moved back to her parents' house with a baby ... no connection expected with the father at all.
That said, I know people like the ones you mention, who have everything they need, although not what many people *think* they need.
I made mine - I designed it myself on a steno pad at work (I still have the sketch), bought three different patterns that each had one of the elements I wanted (portrait neckline, bell sleeves, bustled skirt) and taped them together. I sewed it on my grandmother's Singer, the very one she made my baby clothes on, and it was like spending hours and hours with her all over again (she died in 76). I couldn't find trim that I liked; it was all either too ornate or too plain, so I bought the plain and sewed a reasonable number of sequins and pearls on. I brought the whole thing in around $200, and it's far better crafted than some I looked at for $5000, which I wouldn't have paid anyway. Unfortunately I have no daughter to leave it to.
I sew one boring skirt and one boring jumper.
Before I got married, I saw a dress on someone’s Maid of Honor that I liked, so I found a reasonably similar pattern, bought fabric, and took it to a Mexican seamstress who had made my college roommate a gorgeous dress for her sister’s debut. The seamstress made some changes that she thought would improve it; she was very talented, and also owned a small taco stand next to her sewing shop.
I think the whole thing was $300, fabric and sewing. I gave it to Goodwill or The Salvation Army many moves ago.
They’re leaving here even faster now that the jobs are leaving; under our previous governor they admitted that without illegal aliens we had lost population (and are losing an electoral vote to prove it).
Money is an excuse when you’re facing a job drought like this; there are few jobs left that are not in danger of being sent overseas or turned over to immigrants (legal or otherwise, depending on the type of work). That kind of anxiety doesn’t lend itself to financial or family commitments.
Thank you; I’m hardly perfect, though. Living like this takes a toll (I have dreams where my car doesn’t start - seriously), but I can’t accept that people with a lot less than us somehow find a way to do it while we say we can’t. For the younger people, it is harder than when I started out (I graduated in 1993, but was already working FT as a janitor throughout college). It was tough then (that’s why Bush I lost his job), but nothing like this; companies have no intention of dealing with the expense of American workers if they can avoid it.
I buy used clothes at the Meadowlands flea market, primarily for hiking; when I’m not working my leisure clothes are my hiking clothes.
: )
it’s an excuse not more. at a pinch people can still make do. How did people in the pre-industrial world do?
I’m not in your position, k, so I admire you. What you’re doing is worth it
You think the presence of a child is not a hindrance to finding a good husband? Most men I know want to have children of their own not raise someone else's. A woman's virtue may at one time have been THE deal breaker but I think, unfortunately, that is not essential to many young men today.
As someone with two children in college I have to say that there is VERY little of that available.
“How did people in the pre-industrial world do?”
They valued children as part of a stable tribe, who would contribute at a younger age than our children today. I think of my children as an extension of a tribe.
: )
Thanks; I appreciate that.
No national merit scholarships? No Pell grants? ROTC? My Bill gets opportunities to apply for scholarships all the time - Eagle Scouts Foundation, Knights of Columbus, all kinds of stuff. The Army ROTC recruiter *really* wants him - Eagle Scout, marathon runner, rifle and shotgun shooter, risk-seeker - but “I’m not really interested in being in the military.” (Interested in having your college paid for, completely, and a job afterward, kid?)
I think many people are just afraid to try. I’m not all that plus a real-meat cheezburger, so if I can get through my life, I figure lots of other people could, do. It’s not my business if they don’t, of course, unless they’re obnoxious to me, first ;-).
When people say, “I just don’t think I could do it,” I don’t say, “Well, you know yourself best ...”. And when they say, “We couldn’t afford more than two,” I don’t say, “That’s funny, because a house on your block just closed for 2-1/2 times what mine cost.” But sometimes I’m thinking it!
I tend to avoid discussions about it because some people I know are very sensitive about having both parents work full-time when they obviously don’t really need to; the money they spend on cruises, adult toys and the like would more than have allowed for more children. Instead they have strangers raise their children, and are VERY hostile whenever the topic is brought up (even if it is between other people and didn’t involve them in any way).
I must admit a lot of times it isn’t much fun, but I really couldn’t imagine it any other way. If I didn’t intend to have children I certainly wouldn’t have married; then I’d just be dog-sitting for my wife!
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