When Marriage Disappears, We All Wash Out To Sea

At the urging of friends, I conceded to posting for seven days for the "Love Your Spouse Challenge" that was popular on Facebook recently. I enjoyed reflecting on and having the opportunity to share personal stories of the good times and challenges. I think Deb and I have a pretty good marriage, pretty solid. We knew what we were signing on for, were in our early and late thirties, respectively, and had the support of our families. It is also not lost on me that we have a lot working for us in terms of economic advantages. I have plenty of stories to share of how we have been blessed and challenged by marriage. None of them were disingenuous, but something about the nature of the 'challenge' was bothering me that I couldn't put my finger on. 

It wasn't until I read an excellent study on the state of marriage in the U.S. titled "When Marriage Disappears" that touched on a lot of troubling aspects about the state of marriage as a whole that made my stories seem like they were missing the forest for the trees. It's as if I was busy painting a picture while a war raged outside our bedroom window.

The state of marriage in the U.S. is kind of like a "Social Global Warming"--the acceleration of the damage done has far-reaching implications threatening to erode the economic and social well-being of our culture, and what has been contributing to it has been happening for decades: the acceptance of and ease with which divorce occurs; children born out of wedlock; the commonplace nature of cohabitation; severing sex from it's intended purpose--the pleasure reserved for married couples and the ontological extension of that love in the creation of new life. 

There's been a good deal of press in the press (I'm thinking of the NYT, specifically) about the growing "marriage gap" that divides among the fault line of class. That is, the affluent are "doubling up" on the economic and social advantages that comes from marriage, while the poor and middle America are being left behind. But marriage is beneficial to everyone--both individually and collectively--not just the well off. Marriage may be even more important for poor and middle class Americans, but the rate of marriage for those in this socio-economic strata are not keeping pace with the well-off. From the study:

"The United States is increasingly a separate and unequal nation when it comes to the institution of marriage. Marriage is in danger of becoming a luxury good attainable only to those with the material and cultural means to grab hold of it. 

It goes on:

"The marginalization of marriage in Middle America is especially worrisome, because this institution has long served the American experiment in democracy as an engine of the American Dream, a seedbed of virtue for children, and one of the few sources of social solidarity in a nation that otherwise prizes individual liberty."

I think it was this paragraph that hit the nail on the head though, which drove home my unease with the "You and Me, Babe" focus of the Love Your Spouse Challenge. Because marriage is about more than just you and me:

"Over the last four decades, many Americans have moved away from identifying with an 'institutional' model of marriage, which seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy in a permanent union.  

This model has been overwritten by the 'soul mate' model, which sees marriage as primarily a couple-centered vehicle for personal growth, emotional intimacy, and shared consumption that depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses. 

Thus where marriage used to serve as the gateway to responsible adulthood, it has come to be increasingly seen as a capstone of sorts that signals couples have arrived, both financially and emotionally--or are on the cusp of arriving."

The poor and middle strata are finding that

"their life experience is at odds with their aspirations. They have not been well served by the 'soul mate' model of marriage, which is less accessible to them--for both cultural and material reasons--than is the older 'institutional' model of marriage."

Read the study. It offers some really insightful data into how we all suffer when marriage seems 'unattainable', when we attempt to twart the traditional model of marriage and replace it with a foundation made of sand rather than rock. There's nothing wrong with stories--when you paint a picture of a good marriage through your witness, it shows that it's not unattainable, that it's just one example of many of what it can look like. But it needs support--from government, faith communities, and individuals--and it also goes beyond the attaining of individual happiness. Happiness and financial advantage are the by-product, not the end goal. 

We're down at the beach for the weekend. It's a stormy weekend with Hurricane Hermine hitting the coast. Beaches are at risk of severe erosion when there is not strong dunes with rooted grasses to keep it at bay. That's why there are restrictions on walking on the dunes or damaging them; it is recognized how valuable they are. Once they are gone, there is nothing to keep from being washed to sea.

Maybe we should start seeing the institution of marriage in the same light.