Heritage: Bringing back Marriage

Hawai'i Free Press

Current Articles | Archives

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Heritage: Bringing back Marriage
By Heritage Foundation @ 11:46 AM :: 3693 Views :: Energy, Environment

Related Work

As Marriage Fades, Society Suffers, Chuck Donovan

Marriage and Poverty in the U.S.

Indivisible: Marriage, Jennifer Roback Morse

Culture Round Up

Congress will have to make tough decisions in reducing the national deficit. Welfare reform can help.

Planned Parenthood continues to benefit annually from taxpayer money despite documented abuses by the organization.

Coming Soon

February 7 - 14,
National Marriage Week
This week-long event is a collaboration of organizations, communities, and religious institutions to strengthen marriages and promote the benefits of marriage to every member of society.

February 10 - 11, 7 - 9 pm,

Seek the Welfare of the City, University of Mobile
Heritage is headed to the University of Mobile to better equip students to respond effectively to the needs in their community and beyond. Bring this event to your campus.

Bringing Back Marriage: Encouraging Matrimony in the Next Generation

Marriage in popular culture has experienced its share of ups and downs, mostly the latter, in recent years. The decline of marriage has even spread to middle America, once the bedrock of healthy relationships and stable families. Men and women now increasingly forego the benefits of marriage for unstable cohabiting relationships and increasing numbers of children are born outside marriage. Despite these daunting challenges to rekindling positive popular attitudes toward marriage, the fight to restore the honor and stability of lifelong, married love is far from over.

One organization committed to restoring marriage is Love is Here, which chronicles the journey of newlyweds, Nathan and Brittany, as they search for what makes love and marriage last a lifetime. Through a series of “webisodes” documenting the real-life struggles, heartaches, and ultimate happiness of married couples around the country, Nathan and Brittany demonstrate the power and hope found in a committed marriage relationship. Pairing personal stories with resources for single, engaged, and married individuals, Love is Here provides a unique look at current marriage trends and dares to defend the promise and hope of marriage.

Love is Here acknowledges that healthy marriages offer even more than personal happiness. The organization’s mission is: “To foster healthy, lasting marriages, so more kids can receive the documented benefits from being raised by both their mother and father in a healthy-marriage home.” The effects of stable marriage on reducing a child’s risk of poverty are just as important as a couple’s emotional fulfillment in a lifelong, committed relationship.

More and more organizations are uniting to champion the impact of healthy marriage on society. Hundreds of national groups, local leaders, and religious institutions will collaborate during National Marriage Week February 7-14 to promote marriage in communities across America. It is not simply the responsibility of local communities, however, to help strengthen and promote marriage. Policymakers can also encourage matrimony by eliminating marriage disincentives in the U.S. tax code and welfare programs and by funding healthy marriage campaigns in low-income communities.

Through efforts like Love is Here and carefully crafted marriage policy, organizations and policymakers can help remind society of the benefits of marriage, support couples in building and keeping healthy relationships, and persuade the next generation that settling down doesn’t involve settling for less.

Watch the first installment of the Love is Here webisodes.

SPOTLIGHT ON CIVIL SOCIETY

Me 2 We: The Power of Marriage in Keeping Love Alive

"It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but ... the marriage that sustains your love."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1943

With cohabitation on the rise and unwed childbearing at 41 percent of all U.S. births, fewer young men and women consider marriage the sustaining ingredient for lifelong love. To counter this marital malaise, many organizations are working to educate the next generation about the benefits of marriage.

One such resource is Me 2 We. Providing relationship classes for engaged and married adults and educating dating and cohabitating couples about the economic and social advantages of marriage, Me 2 We is a clearinghouse of information on marriage for the next generation of Americans.

Of special concern to the organization is the trend of couples living together before marriage and the challenge it poses to future healthy marriages. As Me 2 We explains, “Instead of thinking in terms of ‘we’ most cohabiters think along the lines of ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ It is often the very behaviors that are learned in cohabitation that get in the way of a successful marriage.”

Research suggests that couples who cohabit before marriage have a higher risk of marital failure. Educating the next generation on the economic, social, and relational benefits of tying the knot can help future American families benefit from a society committed to stable, married relationships.