marriage

Happily Married Men and Women Should Be PR Agents for Marriage

As an institution, the state of marriage is a grim picture – as clearly shown by recent statistics. Fewer people are getting married, and those who do are getting married increasingly later in life.

In fact, since the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking it in 1940, Americans are now less likely to be married than at any other time. In 1949, 78.8% of households were led by a husband and a wife. Today, it’s just 47.1%.

The lack of marriages is a hot topic of conversation and debate in social science circles.  According to Dr. Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and author of Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families and Save Civilization, it comes down to competing worldviews.

On one side are those, now the majority, who possess the “Midas mindset” – a prioritization of individual desires – wealth, work, and bucket-list pursuits accompanied by this idea that you’re only going to get married when you find the perfect mate. A recent Pew study found that 71% of those surveyed believed a great career was the pathway to a fulfilled life compared to just 23% who believe a happy marriage will bring them the riches the world will never provide.

It’s that latter group who are part of a “family-first” approach. Dr. Wilcox contends this prioritization is supported by what he calls the “5 Cs”:

  1. Communion – A deep emotional and spiritual bond between partners
  2. Children – The role of parenting in building a lasting relationship
  3. Commitment – Unwavering dedication to the partnership
  4. Cash – The financial stability that supports a strong marriage
  5. Community – Support networks that reinforce the relationship

As you might assume, Dr. Wilcox believes marriage should be a “cornerstone” of life and not the “capstone” that’s only laid in place after you check off all the boxes on your to-do list. In other words, getting married should be foundational to everything else.

Academics and scholars such as Brad Wilcox are well-versed in the research and make a compelling intellectual and social case for marriage. Pastors are also well positioned and authorized to advocate and encourage young people to get married. After all, the Bible is clear that marriage is one of God’s best creations. “It is not good for the man to be alone,” said God Himself. “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18).

The Bible also highlights marriage’s many benefits ranging from companionship to procreation to sexual intimacy to spiritual strength and personal stability. The apostle Paul also points out that marriage reflects the relationship between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:25-26).

Yet, we should not rely entirely on professors and pastors to make the case for marriage. First in the home and then outside of it, every happily married man and woman should be talking up the institution as a wonderful blessing.

Mothers and fathers should be intentional and deliberate about not only modeling a good marriage but also sharing about why it’s so good. Every child should know how their parents met and how they fell in love. Fathers and mothers should talk with their sons and daughters about dating and discernment. The parents need to help cast a vision and explain how much better life is when you have committed your life to someone and can spend your remaining years with them.

Elderly couples should tout the joys of marriage to the young. Fathers should talk to their sons about finding a wife and mothers to daughters about finding a husband.

The sitcom Seinfeld is considered one of television’s most popular shows of all-time. Known for finding humor in the ordinary, the program nevertheless paid a great disservice to the institution of marriage on a variety of occasions, but never more so than when Jerry’s neighbor, Cosmo Kramer, tries to discourage him from getting married. Consider this exchange:

Kramer: What are you thinking about, Jerry? Marriage? Family?

Jerry: Well …

Kramer: They’re prisons. Man made prisons. You’re doing time. You get up in the morning. She’s there. You go to sleep at night. She’s there. It’s like you gotta ask permission to use the bathroom. Is it all right if I use the bathroom now?

Jerry: Really?

Kramer: Yeah, and you can forget about watching TV while you’re eating.

Jerry: I can?

Kramer: Oh, yeah. You know why? Because it’s dinner time. And you know what you do at dinner?

Jerry: What?

Kramer: You talk about your day. How was your day today? Did you have a good day today or a bad day today? Well, what kind of day was it? Well, I don’t know. How about you? How was your day?

Jerry: Boy.

Kramer: It’s sad, Jerry. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Of course it’s just a fictitious show, but the program had a reputation for taking a nugget of truth and exaggerating it. Many people really believe what Kramer said – which is why fewer and fewer are pledging to stay together till the end. Ironically, the “sad state of affairs” occurs when young people deliberately choose to forgo marriage for selfish or foolish reasons.

As happily married Christian men and women, we shouldn’t be joking about marriage being a prison. We’ve all heard people sarcastically refer to it as a “ball and chain” or some variation thereof. It might get a laugh, but it also plants a poisonous seed with the unmarried.

We read a lot these days about social media influencers. Then there are those who leave product reviews on Amazon. People post about movies and music and rate food recipes all day long.

What if we devoted similar energy, attention and passion to extolling the many wonderful aspects of Christian marriage? Talk up your spouse and why you love being married to them. Enthusiasm for one of God’s greatest creations can be contagious and effective.

New Study: Online Dating Produces Fewer Healthy Relationships

It’s basic law of nature: Young men meet young women, get married and begin building a meaningful life together. It’s how a family starts.

But how couples meet today really matters. By strong margins, most couples now meet online. Unfortunately, very few meet through family or church.

In fact, in 1960, most U.S. couples (24%) met through friends; 19% met through family, while only 6% met through church.

In 2000, friend introductions held strong at 28%, while co-worker introductions and meeting at a bar took second and third place (15% and 13%, respectively). Family introductions took fourth place at 11%.

Only 5% met at church, rivaled by online dating (also 5%).

By 2024, a whopping 61% of couples met online, followed by meeting through friends (14% ) and coworkers (9%). Family was a paltry 4% and church was 2%.

You can see the changing trends in this creative video.


With most couples meeting online, it’s inevitable that relational strength and success will be impacted.

Early research indicated that meeting online had a slight positive effect on marital satisfaction and protecting against separation or divorce.

But later research conducted by the Institute for Family Studies demonstrated that meeting online was the least beneficial source for happy marriages, trailed only by bars. Church-facilitated meetings resulted in the highest levels of being “very happy” in marriage.

A new study by a team of psychologists from Poland’s University of Wroclaw examined this question anew with nationally representative data from 50 internationally diverse countries.

The first line of their study correctly notes, “The Internet has fundamentally reshaped how people meet and form romantic relationships.”

They concluded meeting online is not the best way to build the strongest, happy relationships and marriages.

They report, “On average, participants who met their partners online reported lower relationship satisfaction and lower intensity of experienced love compared to those who met offline, with effect sizes ranging from small to medium.”

Those who met in person tended to have healthier and more satisfactory interactions in intimacy, passion and commitment. The research team reported “these differences were generally small” but “importantly, these differences remained significant even after controlling for a broad set of demographic covariates, including gender, age, relationship length, socioeconomic status, [and] education.”

Why the Difference?

Why do online-introduced couples generally have less fulfilling relationships? Scholars offer three possible reasons:

  1. People who meet through their families, friends, church or work communities tend to have similar values and interests because how they meet selects for these similarities. Sociologists call this homogamy, or similarities in people’s sociological, educational and values background. People have fewer similarities when meeting online.

  2. Although related, having an overabundance of choices is uniquely a problem of online dating. Meeting a potential spouse through family, friends, school, work or one’s own neighborhood are all very powerful sifting mechanisms. One is likely to find like-minded individuals through similar interests and activities or through family and friends who know you well. Online dating, however, opens the door to many more possibilities. People are more likely to compromise in important areas because of the many options out there.

  3. In online dating, people commonly misrepresent themselves and it is difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction. The research team explains, “These inaccuracies are harder to conceal in face-to-face meetings, especially when shared social circles enable easier verification of personal details.”

As online dating becomes the main way people meet a potential spouse today, it is important to realize some ways of meeting a spouse produce healthier relationships and marriages over others.

These scholars conclude the study with this warning, “While online venues offer unprecedented opportunities for connection – especially across geographic and social boundaries – our findings suggest that relationships initiated offline are, on average, characterized by higher satisfaction and more intense feelings of love.”

Just another reason to favor and invest in IRL (in real life) communities of meaning.

Related Articles and Resources

If you or someone you know is struggling with marriage issues, Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counseling staff. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

To reach Focus on the Family’s counseling service by phone, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Please be prepared to leave your contact information for a counselor to return a call to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

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Image credit: Data is Beautiful / YouTube

Will Taylor Swift’s Engagement to Travis Kelce Ignite a Wedding Boom?

Can marriage be contagious?

The news of Taylor Swift’s engagement to Kansas City Chiefs’ star Travis Kelce on August 26 lit up the internet and various social media platforms. Within the first 24 hours of the announcement, the couple’s joint Instagram post generated 30 million likes. It’s currently north of 36 million, a distinction that makes it one of the site’s most popular posts of all time.

One can be forgiven or sometimes even encouraged to ignore celebrity relationship news or gossip. More than half the time it’s likely wrong, tawdry or downright unproductive. But the paparazzi nevertheless still chase and report – and the public often gobbles it up.

There’s no denying the fact that Taylor Swift is a cultural phenomenon. Born and raised on a Christmas tree farm in Reading, Pennsylvania, her first album debuted when she was in the 9th grade. Her latest “Eras Tour” grossed more than two billion dollars – an industry record.

Travis Kelce broke his silence about the engagement earlier this week on his brother Jason’s podcast, telling the retired NFL player that he’s enjoyed communicating the couple’s plans to marry to family and friends.

“It’s been really fun telling everybody who I’m going to be spending the rest of my life with,” he said. Beyond their initial statement, Taylor Swift hasn’t yet spoken publicly about the engagement.

Emily Rella is an editor for People Magazine. A day after the announcement, she published an essay on the site celebrating the news and included these thoughts:

“As a millennial, our current cultural examples of love — true, soulmate-level, real L love — aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. This notion of yearning and desire and all-or-nothing, consuming passion feels less realistic, with the fairy tale ending seemingly out of reach. It’s not so much that millennials stopped believing in love in some jaded, brooding way … I think it’s more so that we’ve become more comfortable with the idea that it might not happen for us in the way we once dreamed of when we were younger. “

Rella is openly expressing what many academics and counselors have been writing, speaking and sharing for years. Focus on the Family has long cautioned about the fanciful idea of finding one’s perfect “soulmate” and have suggested that fairy tale endings are just that – unrealistic and fictitious tales that are likely to lead to disillusionment, disenchantment and disappointment.

But given the volume and energy behind the “Swiftie” brigade, will this one engagement lead to others? Can romance and marriage be contagious?

Sociologists call this phenomenon a “behavioral contagion” – a tendency for someone to imitate what they observe and experience with others, sometimes even subconsciously. While the term may be relatively new, the trend isn’t. There’s a reason most people used to marry young, have lots of children and usually stay married the rest of their lives. They did so because most of the people in their circle lived like this and so deviating from the norm was, well, abnormal.

One could make the argument that simply getting married just because other people are getting married is a recipe for disaster and eventual divorce. To be sure, couples should prayerfully, deliberately, and thoughtfully pursue marriage. There are many things to consider, and none of them should include trying to copy Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

Yet it’s a very good thing when young people, especially, are excited about the prospect of marriage. It’s a good thing for them to see others happily married, to recognize that a stable and steady union is healthy and preferable to the chaos of what is often modeled in popular culture.

It’s unclear where Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are spiritually or how they may view the institution of marriage in a faith context. But if the excitement they’re generating with young fans opens the opportunity for parents and pastors to talk about God’s beautiful gift of marriage with them, that conversation and trend will be time well spent.

Is Marriage Making a Come Back? Scholars Share Some Good News

Nearly all indicators on marriage and married birthrates in America have been moving in the wrong direction over the last few decades. Marriage rates have been declining steadily, 54% overall since 1900. Matrimony has declined markedly among younger adults since 1980. Married births dropped precipitously over this same time compared to growth in births from single and cohabiting mothers. Additionally, cohabitation shot up over the last 40 years, with a shocking 80% of marriages today being preceded by cohabitation.

People are also waiting longer to marry, with age at first marriage increasing to 31 for men and 29 for women. These numbers were 23 for men and 20 for women in 1950.

This bad news seems to be turning round, according to important marriage scholars.

Brad Wilcox, a chaired professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at University of Virginia writes in The Atlantic, saying that marriage “[shows] new signs of resilience.”

Professor Wilcox explains that “reports of marriage’s demise are exaggerated.” Other scholars have noted that it “is not naive optimism to believe that we are on the threshold of a marriage renaissance.”

Wilcox explains, “Rather quietly, the post-60s family revolution appears to have ended.” This is most notably indicated by twin facts. Divorce has been declining for some years, and this has been well-established. More recently, the share of children living with two married parents is up.

In a companion story to Wilcox’s Atlantic essay, his Institute for Family Studies demonstrates these trends.

The divorce rate, since the early 1980s, has fallen by nearly 40%. Wilcox remarks much of this improvement “has happened in just the past 15 years.”

The improving trend in children being born to and living with a married mother and father is more recent to be sure. Wilcox explains, “After falling for more than 40 years beginning in the late 1960s, the share of children living in married families bottomed out at 64% in 2012 before rising to 66% in 2024.”

Married births have also risen among historically challenged racial groups. Wilcox explains “the proportion of black children being raised in a married-parent family rose from 33% in 2012 to 39% in 2024.”

Wilcox explains the crucial benefits, saying,

Marriage’s comeback is good news for society: Children raised in two-parent homes are much more likely to graduate from college than those raised in other families, and less likely to be incarcerated. Kids who don’t live with both of their married parents are far more likely to be depressed than those raised in intact families.

He adds,

After surveying the research on child well-being, the economist Melissa Kearney concluded that the “evidence is clear, even if the punchline is uncomfortable: children are more likely to thrive – behaviorally and academically, and ultimately in the labor market and adult life – if they grow up with the advantages of a two-parent home.”

Parents who are married increase these benefits for adults and children in innumerable ways. These facts explain why it is wise to celebrate notable, positive increases in marriage in our culture today. They result in higher levels of human and societal well-being.

Related Articles and Resources:

If you or someone you know is struggling with marriage issues, Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counseling staff. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

To reach Focus on the Family’s counseling service by phone, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Please be prepared to leave your contact information for a counselor to return a call to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

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Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage Harms Children and Society

As June marked the 10th anniversary of the legal de-sexing of marriage through the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision, all citizens of good will should consider how this ruling has impacted humanity through children.

We must recognize that the case for same-sex marriage was always about the same-sex family. No one who advocated for this radical redefinition of marriage and family ever considered this was just about adults. It was always about the kinds of homes children in same-sex families would grow up in and how redefining marriage would change family itself.

The journal First Things has a very helpful, short essay explaining just how de-sexing marriage and family by removing the essential male/female binary has harmed children. It is authored by John Bursch, vice president of appellate advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom and argued against Obergefell before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

Bursch explains, “Marriage, as I argued, has always served a vital function: binding children to their biological mothers and fathers whenever possible. The government’s interest in marriage has never been about adult companionship.”

This is because “the state’s interest in marriage has always been about creating a stable environment in which children can know and be raised by the two people who co-created them.”

That biological, emotional and societal connection serves as the foundation for all civilizations, as Aristotle long ago explained, is not a private preference, but a public good. Obergefell radically transformed marriage and the family into an adult-centric institution based on peculiar adult sexual desires and feelings, claiming it as a fundamental constitutional right. Bursch holds this “effectively eras[ed] the longstanding understanding of marriage as child-centered.”

An examination of the Latin root of the word matrimony or mātrimōnium establishes this ancient and universal meaning of marriage. Mater-monium is the recognition of and provision for the maternal needs, protection and care of mother and child by the father. This is what marriage has been across human history and diverse cultures for profound reasons.

In contrast, Bursch notes,

Most significantly, children are increasingly being brought into the world through practices that intentionally separate them from one or both biological parents, such as anonymous sperm or egg donation and commercial surrogacy. In other words, the law, influenced by Obergefell’s logic, now often prioritizes the desires of adults over the needs of children to know their mother and father.

Every child that same-sex families include are intentionally, by design, denied the very mother or father whose DNA and maternal or paternal parentage these children share, simply to meet experimental adult wishes. Further, these separations a created through the exchange of money. This is always unjust.

Bursch adds, “A just society must be willing to ask hard questions: not only, ‘What do adults want?’ but, “What do children need?” Modern society frequently focuses on the wrong question. We must confront the reality that children need their mother and father, together, whenever possible.”

Bursch ends his important essay with this essential and prophetic observation: “Obergefell may be the law, but it is not the end of the conversation.”

He compels us “to advocate for an understanding of marriage that serves the common good, one that remembers that every child begins with a mother and a father, and that society has an obligation to support that connection wherever possible.”

This is precisely why Focus on the Family will continue to work hard, and encourage others, to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges – so that marriage and family are returned to the rightful understanding of being about mothers, fathers and their children.

Afterall, there is no tomorrow for humanity without this essential societal good.

Image from Shutterstock.