Marriage Matters - Cohabitation Creates Unstable Lives for Children

While the divorce rate for couples with children has dropped almost to what it was before the "divorce revolution" in the 1970's, co-habitation has now become a bigger threat to the well-being of children than divorce. Cohabiting partners are more than twice as likely to break up, putting children at risk of unstable circumstances.

Since 1970 the number of Americans living together outside of marriage has increased twelvefold. Children are now more likely to have unmarried parents than even divorced ones, creating a growing risk for children. Forty-one percent of all births are now out-of-wedlock.

WHY MARRIAGE MATTERS

These concerns were published in August of 2011 in a report, "Why Marriage Matters: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences." The report was co-sponsored by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values, whose mission is the strengthening of marriage and family life.

W Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, chaired the report which is co-authored by 18 family scholars from leading institutions. More than 250 journal articles on marriage and family were surveyed in forming the conclusions. Wilcox says, "We're moving into a pattern where we're seeing more instability, more adults moving in and out of the household in this relationship carousel."

Children at Risk

The report concludes that the children of cohabiting parents are at risk for a wide range of problems - drug use, depression, psychological problems, dropping out of high school, physical abuse and poverty. Children living in cohabiting households are three times more likely to be physically, sexually or emotionally abused compared to children in intact, biological married parents homes.

Cohabitation more harmful than divorce

Cohabitation is even more harmful to children than divorce, according to Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage & Families at the Institute for American Values. She is a child of divorce and knows the pain involved in not having a father at home, but Marquardt says that "children of divorce are the lucky ones". She contends that divorce is an institution. It has norms. But cohabitation has no norms. "We can't describe what is happening or what happened... In cohabitation a child's mother and father are not able to form a bond. We don't have names for all of this." There are no norms, rituals or roles that bring stability to the relationships as there is in marriage.

Cohabitation carries with it a breakdown in responsibility and authority. There is no clarity as to the lines of responsibility and authority. Children don't know who is responsible and who will be there to help them.

Cultural shifts lead to retreat from marriage

Cultural shifts are outlined as the most significant factors in the retreat from marriage. The culture has shifted toward a short term, hedonistic focus with the goal of immediate gratification.

Amy L. Wax, Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, agrees that the most important causative factors of changing behaviors are cultural not economic concerns. She contends that the demoralization of sexuality and the deregulation of the family that began in the 1960's led to a divergence in class and race in regard to family relationships. While educated whites generally lived traditional lives, minorities, low income and those less educated were hit hard by the demoralization of sexuality.

Wax says that people need guidelines to focus their lives. It used to be that being an adult meant establishing a household. We taught that there are steps we need to take to get from here to there. Now the elite movement toward 'anything goes' and the 'celebration of diversity' contends that we dare not make judgments. They argue that you can't expect the working class to get married.

Cohabitation moves into the Middle Class

Out-of-wedlock births have previously been primarily among the poor, but high school educated whites are now as likely to have children out of marriage. The demoralization of sexuality is moving into the middle class at a rapid pace. Wilcox notes that "family instability is on the rise for American children as a whole."

Why Marriage Matters - Three Conclusions

The authors presenting the new data offer three conclusions regarding marriage and families in America today.

1. The intact, biological, married family remains the gold standard for family life in the United States. Children are most likely to thrive - economically, socially and psychologically - in this family form.

2. Marriage is an important public good, associated with a range of economic, health, educational and safety benefits that help local, state and federal governments serve the public common good.

3. The benefits of marriage extend to poor, working-class and minority communities, despite the fact that marriage has weakened in these communities in the last four decades.

REFERENCES:

1. Marriage Matters - Conclusions from the Social Sciences.

By Press Release: August 16, 2011: University of Virginia - The National Marriage Project

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/579647/?sc=rsin.

2. Institute for American Values.

Why Marriage Matters : Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences.

Why Marriage Matters, The Conversation -Conversation on Blip TV. August 24, 2011.

With Elizabeth Marquardt, Amy L. Wax and W. Bradford Wilcox.