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GOD'S PURPOSE FOR MARRIAGE
INTRODUCTION
Statistics tell the current sorry state of marriage in the USA and much of the rest of the western world, and the agonizing pain and suffering it is causing. It seems marriage is usually the first casualty of prosperity. It happened in the ancient Roman Empire, and it is happening in the USA, the most prosperous large nation on earth.
In 1787, after 20 years of labor, Edward Gibbon completed his history of the Roman Empire titled The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In it he attributed the major reasons for the fall of the Empire as:
1. “The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.” Ancient Roman historian Seneca noted of middle second century Rome, “They divorce in order to remarry. They marry in order to divorce.”
2. “Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace.”
3. “The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.”
4. “The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within, the decadence of the people.”
5. “The decay of religion–faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people.”
Does that not describe America and British Commonwealth nations today?
According to conservative estimates, 41% (45-50% according to other estimates) of first marriages, 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages in the USA end in divorce (Source Enrichment Journal as provided by www.divorcestatistics.org).
The divorce rate per 1000 of population has actually declined from 4.7 in 1991 to 3.6 in 2010. These statistics, however, can lead to the wrong conclusion that the state of marriages is improving. The statistics have to be examined together with another troubling trend. The percentage of women who are cohabiting (living with a man in a sexual relationship) rose from 3.0% in 1982 to 11% in 2006– 010; it was higher in some groups, including Hispanic, and the less educated. This means that since these people are not marrying, their separation from cohabiting partners (which can be as traumatic as a divorce from marriage with troubling consequences for the children, family and friends) does not show up in divorce statistics. Therefore the estimates that first marriages, or marriage-like cohabitation relationships break up is close to 50%, thus showing an increasing divorce trend.
The rising trend in cohabitation does not bode well for marriage in America because it has been well documented that the likelihood of first marriages ending up in divorce is higher if they are preceded by cohabitation by the spouses.
Cohabitation also contributes to rise in the number of never married adults.
According to the Pew Research Center, “After decades of declining marriage rates and changes in family structure, the share of American adults who have never been married is at an historic high. In 2012, one-in-five adults ages 25 and older (about 42 million people) had never been married, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In 1960, only about one-in-ten adults (9%) in that age range had never been married. Men are more likely than women to have never been married (23% vs. 17% in 2012). And this gender gap has widened since 1960, when 10% of men ages 25 and older and 8% of women of the same age had never married.
“The dramatic rise in the share of never-married adults and the emerging gender gap are related to a variety of factors. Adults are marrying later in life, and the shares of adults cohabiting and raising children outside of marriage have increased significantly. The median age at first marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960. About a quarter (24%) of never-married young adults ages 25 to 34 are living with a partner, according to Pew Research analysis of Current Population Survey data. “In addition, shifting public attitudes, hard economic times and changing demographic patterns may all be contributing to the rising share of never-married adults.”
There are painful consequences of broken marriages for individuals and society, which will be discussed next.
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