Benefits of Marriage

Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collectio n

Thursday, March 23, 2000 Deseret News

Marriage: contract or institution?

Married people are healthier, happier and more successful

By Carma Wadley Deseret News senior writer

Marriage is more than a relationship between two people.

It is a social institution.

That means it is governed by legal, moral and community expectations,
says Steven Nock, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.
That means, "No matter what marriage may mean to a particular man and
woman, it has clear meaning to others."

As an institution, marriage has certain systems of economics, government,
education and more that go beyond simply an intimate relationship.

But society seems to be forgetting that, says Nock. The view of marriage
as a simple contract between two people is increasingly reflected in law
and media. Moreover, he says, recent trends in cohabitation and unmarried
childbearing suggest that growing numbers of Americans see no inherent
distinctions between a contract and an institution.

Nock was one of a number of social science and legal experts from around
the country who gathered this month at Brigham Young University for a
three-day conference on marriage and family.

"Unfortunately, trends have indicated a steady devaluation of marriage in
our culture," says Alan Hawkins, director of the BYU Family Studies
Center, which hosted the conference. "However, current issues are
bringing discussion of the value and definition of marriage to the
forefront."

Devaluation of marriage has both personal and societal costs, says Nock.
The institution of marriage gives people a template, a pattern that
guides all of domestic life.

"A man can say to his spouse: 'I am your husband. Your are my wife. I am
expected to do certain things for you, and you likewise. We have pledged
our faithfulness. We have sworn to forgo others. We have made a
commitment to our children. We have a responsibility and obligation to
our close relatives, as they have to us.' These statements are not simply
pledges, they are also enforceable."

Compare this to an unmarried couple living happily together, he says.
What, if any, are the assumptions that can be made? What are the limits
to behavior? To whom is each obligated? From who can this couple count on
for help in times of need?

"My work for the past few years has shown that marriage produces
measurable and significant benefits for the adults involved. Married
people are healthier, happier, more successful and more productive. There
is also unequivocal evidence that children fare better in marriages than
in other forms of relationships."

And finally, he says, there are the obvious yet unknown collective costs
we pay for the un-institutionalization of marriage: lower earnings,
higher rates of poverty, higher rates of welfare receipt, Medicaid,
public assistance, hospital admissions, suicide, chronic and acute
illnesses, accidents and lower productivity. "If we were able to estimate
the macro-economic costs of divorce, unmarried childbearing and lower
marriage rates, we would surely discover that we pay an enormous price
for the retreat from marriage."

Consumer culture

So, why is this retreat occurring?

William H. Doherty, professor and director of the Marriage and Family
Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota, sees it as a reflection
of the pervasive "consumer culture" of our society. "Consumer culture has
always been based on individuals pursuing their personal wants and
desires. But in the late 20th century, consumer advertisers began to
emphasize desire for desire's sake: Just do it! Obey your thirst! Your
kids always get what they want, now it's your turn! Consumer culture has
always been one of self-gratification, but the entitlement dimension is
more prominent now," he says. And that has carried over into the
institution of marriage.

The marriage vows that are becoming popular around the country these
days, he says, are a promise " 'to be together as long as we both shall
love.'

Can you imagine a more fragile basis for a lifelong commitment?"

Listen to contemporary humor about marriage, he says, and you hear things
like: When choosing a husband, ask yourself if this is the man you want
your children to visit every other weekend. Or, from a recent movie, men
should be like toilet paper: soft, strong and disposable. If you go in
with these ideas, what can you expect?

>From his 23 years as a marriage and family therapist, Doherty says he has
also seen a shift in justifications for ending a marriage. "I don't mean
to say that most people are not experiencing real emotional pain at the
time they decide to end their marriage. It's just that the reasons they
give are far different from the hard, nasty problems that propelled
spouses in previous generations to divorce: abuse, abandonment, chronic
alcoholism, infidelity."

Now people are more likely to give reasons that come down to being
disappointed in what they are getting from the marriage: The relationship
just wasn't working for me anymore. Our needs were just too different. We
were not the same people we were when we got married.

Covenant marriage

So, what can be done?

One thing, Doherty says, is better preparation going into marriage. Our
consumer culture is not all bad. "When it comes to marriage, good
consumers choose their mate carefully rather than impulsively. They take
time to get to know the person before making a commitment. They take
premarital education classes."

Another, he says, is to support the growing trend toward covenant
marriage.

Louisiana and Arizona have laws permitting covenant marriage, and more
than a dozen states are considering them, he says. These laws give
couples an option of choosing this kind of marriage, which requires
premarital education, marriage counseling in times of trouble and a
two-year separation period before a divorce can be decreed, unless there
is abuse, adultery, abandonment or a felony conviction.

Covenant marriage elevates marriage to a position of "serious
commitment," says Katherine Shaw Spaht, law professor at Louisiana State
University, who helped draft Louisiana's legislation. The intent is not
simply to make divorce more difficult, but to focus on strengthening the
marriage from its inception. And, she says, it restores the element of
permanence.

Unfortunately, she says, recent surveys have shown that only about 40
percent of the population of Louisiana have heard about the covenant
marriage option, and only about 2 percent to 3 percent have chosen it, so
more education is needed.

In the end, says Doherty, marriage has to be more than a self-satisfying
lifestyle. "We have to find new ways to be married in the new century or
nothing will offset the problems we inflict on children and on society.
The stakes are very high indeed."

Next week: How successful will YOUR marriage be?

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