Coffin Corner

Welcome to this week’s UK Marriage News

Headlines

·         Final vote on Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill on Tuesday

·         New government report shows couple counselling and marriage preparation services deliver over £11 benefit for every £1 spent

·         Marriage Week aims to break world record for wedding vow renewal!

Government and Political

·         Final vote on Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill on Tuesday

MSPs have their final chance to vote for amendments to the Marriage Bill in Scotland (and then to vote for or against the Bill as a whole) on Tuesday.  The Bill does not explicitly provide protection for those who disagree with the proposed new definition of marriage.  A number of amendments have been tabled which address these concerns.

·         Almost Half of Young People Made Homeless by Parents

Homeless Link has published their annual Young and Homeless report for 2013, based on a survey of homelessness organisations and local authorities and interviews with young homeless people and staff at homelessness providers. Key findings include:

·         The main cause of homelessness amongst young people is that their parents are no longer willing to house them (44%), with the main driver being the irretrievable breakdown of that relationship. Nearly half of young homeless people become homeless for this reason

·         Almost half of young homeless people are NEET at the point of becoming homeless and many lack independent living skills, sometimes due to disrupted education or difficult childhood experiences

·         Around a quarter of local authorities and two-thirds homelessness agencies reported that young people’s needs were more complex than last year

·         6 in 10 agencies said they were unable to provide support in the last month due to limited capacity

·         A range of welfare reforms are having a negative impact on young homeless people in particular, including the Shared Accommodation Rate limiting access to suitable private housing, as well as benefit sanctions

·         Local authorities prevented homelessness for around a fifth of young people approaching them for help, with homelessness more commonly prevented amongst younger people aged under 18

The report continues: “Family breakdown was the main driver of this cause of homelessness. 53 of 67 homelessness providers and 50 of 70 local authorities ranked this as one of the two main reasons for why families were unwilling to accommodate the young person. The breakdown in relationship with a step-parent was also a major driver.”

·         Early Intervention for Severe Behavioural Problems

The Centre for Mental Health has published Building a Better Future, an economic analysis of the long-term consequences of severe behavioural problems that start in childhood and the benefits of effective early intervention. Key points include:

·         About 5% of children aged 5-10 have conduct disorder with a further 15 – 20% displaying behavioural problems

·         Conduct disorder is twice as high among boys as girls and rates of conduct disorder are higher among children from disadvantaged backgrounds

·         Children with severe behavioural problems are 8 times more likely to be on the child protection register, 6 times more likely to die before 30 and 20% more likely to end up in prison

·         If well implemented, parenting programmes can be very effective in improving child behaviour, particularly by encouraging positive parenting

·         Other benefits of parenting programmes include positive impacts upon sibling behaviour and the mental health and wellbeing of parents

·         In broad terms the effectiveness of parenting programmes is much the same across a wide range of family types and ethnic group

Studies suggest that the average cost of bringing a child with conduct disorder below a clinical threshold as a result of a parenting programme is around £1,750 per case while the lifetime costs of conduct disorder have been put at around £175,000 per case

Research and Public Opinion

·         New government report shows couple counselling and marriage preparation services deliver over £11 benefit for every £1 spent

An independent new evaluation of relationship support services has demonstrated clear financial and emotional benefits to individuals and society as a whole reports Relate (See also the Telegraph). Specifically, the Department for Education-commissioned report found that Relate’s couple counselling and Marriage Care’s marriage preparation services deliver £11.40 and £11.50 of benefit respectively for every £1 spent. This is calculated by looking at what costs are saved by reducing the likelihood of relationship breakdown.

The DfE commissioned the independent evaluation as part of the Prime Minister’s commitment to relationship support. Relationship breakdown is estimated to cost the UK economy £46 billion each year, with often devastating and long-lasting emotional effects for individuals and families. The report looked at services offered at different stages of a couple’s relationship: marriage preparation, short relationship education classes and couple counselling. All services were found to be associated with positive impacts, with marriage preparation and couple counselling in particular leading to positive changes in wellbeing and relationship quality.

The Relationships Alliance, a group of leading charities which aims to put strong and stable relationships at the heart of a thriving society, welcomes the report. Ruth Sutherland, Chief Executive of Relate (which is part of the Alliance), said: “We are delighted that this report demonstrates the financial and social benefits of services provided by Alliance members, providing further evidence of the case for investment in this area. Every day, we see first-hand the devastating impact that relationship breakdown can have – so we know that our work to help couples understand each other and have the tools to improve their relationships if they want to is absolutely crucial.

The report also found that people who used relationship support services were more likely to access support in the future. However the authors identified the need for improved signposting to these services so that more people can benefit throughout the course of their relationships. They also call for a clear strategy for relationship support which encourages central and local government and local public health departments to take account of the importance of adult couple relationships and their impact on health and wellbeing.

Mark Molden, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, added: “We welcome the report’s findings and recommendations. We know that relationship support works and we would encourage people of all ages to find out more about how the services evaluated in this report could help them at different stages of their relationships. We must also continue to help other professionals and service providers understand more about what we do, so that they can direct people to our services in their day to day work. It’s not just about getting support when there’s a crisis; it’s about building and maintaining strong relationships which see people through everything that happens during our increasingly busy and fast-paced lives."

Further supporting these findings are the results of a DfE-funded Randomised Control Trial of OnePlusOne’s training programme for frontline practitioners working with families. The training was found to have a large and positive impact on the way that practitioners handled conversations with parents about their relationship difficulties, with practitioners who received the training more than twice as likely to be confident in knowing both where and how to refer parents on for further support.

·         When therapy works, the results are lasting

Some people respond well to cognitive behavioural therapy. Some don’t. A recent study found that kids with anxiety who responded well to CBT were still doing better up to two decades later than kids who didn’t respond well to treatment in childhood reports Prevention Action.

Research at Temple University in Pennsylvania found that children whose anxiety was successfully treated by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in childhood were less likely to develop alcohol dependence, drug addiction and panic disorders in later life. By contrast, those who were treated but who did not respond successfully to CBT were more likely to experience substance misuse problems and anxiety disorders.

However, compared to the general population, children who had anxiety disorders were more likely to experience nicotine dependence and generalized anxiety disorders as adults – regardless of whether they responded well to CBT or not. “Childhood anxiety disorders may serve as a gateway disorder for later substance misuse,” the researchers concluded.

Anxiety is common in both adults and youths. Roughly 10-20% of children in US report “distressing levels of anxiety.” Anxiety disorders can have important long-term implications, including depression, suicidal thinking, and substance misuse.

CBT is considered an effective treatment for childhood anxiety disorders. CBT is a talking therapy that aims to change how participants think about a situation, in order to change how they act. Typically, 5 to 20 weekly sessions lasting between 30 and 60 minutes each take place. CBT helps participants make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts.

Several clinical trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of CBT for anxious children. But long-term studies of the role that early anxiety treatment might play as children grow up have been scarce. Although follow-up research has been carried out (from one to seven years after treatment), longer follow-ups are uncommon. How does treatment of anxiety in children relate to their adult outcomes?

The Temple University researchers tracked down adults who had received CBT treatment for anxiety as children, and assessed their mental health 7 to 19 years after treatment. The participants were aged 7-14 at the time of treatment and 18-32 in the latest follow-up. Self-report measures and diagnostic interviews were used to assess their anxiety, depression, and substance use. Substance use and misuse included alcohol, drugs, and nicotine. Of 150 individuals who were eligible for this follow-up study, 66 (44%) were located and agreed to participate.

For many of these young adults who were treated for anxiety as children, poor mental health persisted into adulthood. A large minority of the study participants – 44% - had an anxiety disorder as adults. Just over a quarter also met the criteria for depressive disorder, and 42% had a substance use disorder.

Compared with a control group from the general population, both successful and unsuccessfully treated groups had higher rates of nicotine dependence and generalized anxiety disorders.

Researchers also compared successfully and unsuccessfully treated patients. They found that those individuals who did not respond successfully to CBT for an anxiety disorder in childhood had higher rates of panic disorder, alcohol dependence and drug abuse in adulthood. Those individuals who responded well to CBT during childhood were less likely to develop these disorders.

Overall, the results of this study say little about whether CBT is an effective long-term treatment for anxiety. However, they do suggest that in those cases where CBT works for children, the benefits can be lasting.

·         What prevents many men seeking help

Longstanding perceptions of what constitutes masculinity are prompting many men to avoid seeking help when they require it, an expert has said reports BPS. According to Martin Seager, an advisor to the Samaritans and a former head of psychological services at two NHS trusts, males are traditionally unwilling to get assistance if they are feeling depressed or suicidal. This, he said, is because many are "in the grasp of these very old rules about masculinity", the Independent reports. "Too many men would rather die than feel shame," he commented.

Mr Seager, who is a member of the Society, said this has been apparent throughout his 30-year career, as women accounted for most of the people he saw seeking help from NHS psychological services.

By contrast, he believes it is far more evenly split down the middle at the Samaritans. Mr Seager believes this is because people can get support from the charity without disclosing their identity. "There's a clear shame thing," Mr Seager observed.

·         Building a Lasting Relationship: The Three Pillars of Commitment

When it comes to understanding the fate of any given relationship, I’d argue that knowing something about a couple’s commitment level, or their attachment to each other and long-term perspective on the relationship, is critical says Science of Relationships. Beyond predictions about staying together versus breaking up, commitment is also associated with all sorts of positive relationship outcomes (see our previous article on 5 Reasons Commitment is Good For Your Relationship). But how is commitment built in a relationship? More than 30 years of research on this topic has identified three pillars that form the foundation of commitment in relationships.

Pillar 1: Satisfaction: This one isn’t particularly surprising — individuals who are happy in their relationships and feel positively about their partners (i.e., those with high satisfaction) are more likely to be in the relationship for the long haul. Satisfaction stems from the benefits and costs of being in a relationship. A satisfying relationship has a lot of benefits, like intimacy, emotional support, sexual fulfilment, security, and companionship. But even the best relationships have some costs. For example, you may have less time to hang out with your friends if you are spending time getting the aforementioned benefits from your partner. These benefits and costs together form a global sense of “outcomes” associated with a relationship. Are the outcomes in your relationship positive? Are the benefits greater than the costs?

The second piece contributing to your satisfaction are the outcomes you expect to receive in your relationship. Do you have really high expectations for your relationship? If so, your outcomes need to be similarly high for you to be satisfied. However, if your expectations are low, it doesn’t take much to make you happy. For example, imagine that Mitchell and Claire are each getting one backrub a month from their respective romantic partners. Claire has pretty low expectations; she only expects to get a backrub once a year, so her current relationship is wildly exceeding her expectations, and therefore she should be really satisfied with her outcomes. Mitchell, on the other hand, expects to get a backrub from his partner once a week, so if he only gets one each month he’ll be very disappointed with his outcomes (and relationship). Of course, exclusively basing one’s relationship expectations on the frequency of backrubs is overly simplistic, but substitute whatever outcomes you value in your relationship and it works just the same.

The bottom line is that relationships that meet and exceed your expectations will be satisfying, but not getting what you want and believe you should get from your partner is a recipe for dissatisfaction.

Pillar 2: (Low) Alternatives: Satisfaction is all about what you get from a current partner. But what about alternative partners, or those people who you could be with if you weren’t with your current partner? Perhaps there is someone who could give you better outcomes than your current partner (e.g., more frequent or better backrubs). If you suspect that you could do better elsewhere, then your commitment to your partner is probably low. Why would you stay in your current relationship if you could be with someone who could better meet your needs for intimacy, emotional support, sexual fulfilment, security, and companionship? (To fully answer this question, see Pillar #3 below.)

Usually when we think about alternatives, it’s that particular someone who you could imagine being with if you weren’t with your current partner — that hot guy in class, the waitress at the coffee shop who always laughs at your jokes, or your neighbour who always likes to stop and chat when you run into each other while walking your dogs. But alternatives don’t necessarily have to be specific “other” possible romantic partners. Maybe you could get better outcomes from spending more time with your friends or focusing on your schoolwork rather than being in your current romantic relationship. Having no relationship at all is a great alternative to being in an unsatisfying or unhealthy relationship.

Pillar 3: Investments: Some days are better than others in your relationship, and attractive alternatives may come and go from your life. As a result, satisfaction and alternatives both fluctuate. But when satisfaction is low (e.g., you just had an argument with your partner) and alternatives are high (e.g., you just found out that your ex wants you back), why do people stay in their relationships rather than breaking up? It comes down to the investments in your relationship.

Investments represent the things you’d lose if your relationship were to end — they are the stabilizing factors that keep things afloat during the tough patches that couples go through. They may be tangible items, like the house you and your spouse purchased together, or intangible things, like the work and effort you put into your relationship over the years. Investments can be from the past, like all of the memories you have with your partner, or may relate to the future, like the vacation you planned together for next summer. Social networks, like friendships with others, are another sort of investment — if you were to break up with your partner, who would “get to keep” the friends you and your partner have in common? In short, investments are the things that you value in your relationships that would be lost if you broke up, and they make it harder for people to easily leave their relationships.

Numerous studies show that these three pillars (satisfaction, alternatives, and investments) pull the majority of the weight when it comes to relationship commitment. This isn’t to say that other things don’t contribute to commitment, but across the board, these three pillars are essential for understanding how commitment is built.

·         Rom coms could save your marriage

Forget the flowers, compliments and give-and-take, the key to a lasting relationship is snuggling down in front of soppy movies says the Telegraph (and the Daily Mail).  It is the problem that has puzzled couples since the dawn of time, but according to new research it could be an Indecent Proposal that saves your marriage. Forget the flowers, compliments and the give-and-take - or even spending time apart - the key to a lasting relationship is snuggling down in front of soppy movies.

Academics in America analysed 174 couples in the “move-and-talk” study and concluded discussing on-screen relationships in five romantic comedies over a month could slash the early divorce rate.

Participants attended a 10-minute lecture on the importance of relationship awareness and how watching couples in movies could help spouses pay attention to their own behaviour. They then watched Two for the Road, a 1967 romantic comedy about the joys and strains of young love, and met to discuss the characters, before being sent home with around 50 romantic titles.

Ronald Rogge, associate professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York and lead author of the study, said: "The results suggest that husbands and wives have a pretty good sense of what they might be doing right and wrong in their relationships.

“Thus, you might not need to teach them a whole lot of skills to cut the divorce rate. You might just need to get them to think about how they are currently behaving.”

The research was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

·         Married couples

Married couples are happier than those who live together, a major State-funded study said yesterday reports Maybeido. It found that even though husbands and wives have greater doubts than unmarried couples about the quality of their relationships, they are more content than cohabitees. When asked if they are happy with their lives overall, married couples rate themselves much happier than other couples do.

The Enduring Love? study, produced by the Open University, said mothers were the happiest people of all. And in general, couples without children were happier than those who were parents. However, married people were happier than unmarried couples, whether or not they had children.

The study, based on surveys of almost 5,000 couples, found marriage was associated with happiness despite the willingness of married couples to admit to flaws in their relationship. Married couples were more willing than others to admit worrying more about the chores or money than whether they shared the same values.

They were less likely to say they liked to make time for each other, and more likely to say they were drifting apart than that they were entranced with each other’s sense of humour. But nevertheless they said they were happier. The report said: ‘Both married and unmarried people without children are happier with their partner than parents.’ However, it found: ‘Married parents are as happy with life overall as couples without children and both groups score higher on this measure than their unmarried counterparts.’

The findings echoed results revealed by the Government’s own attempt to measure national happiness and well-being, in which surveys conducted by the Office for National Statistics found that married people are more satisfied with their lives than others.

Married people are, according to overwhelming evidence gathered over many years, generally better off than the unmarried. They enjoy better health and their children do better at school. But the new wave of academic well-being surveys that try to ‘drill down into embodied lived experience’, as the OU report puts it, are now signalling that marriage is likely to bring greater happiness with it.

The Open University report, which was funded by the Government’s Economic and Social Research Council, said both married parents and childless married couples put their overall happiness at around 4.1 out of five. Unmarried couples, whether parents or childless, scored just over 3.9.

·         Who says romance is dead? Workaholic couples resort to putting sex in the diary

Busy British couples have given up on ‘date nights’ with three out of five now simply making appointments for sex to save their floundering marriages, Netmums finds reports the Telegraph. If spontaneity is the secret of keeping the flame of romance alive the future is looking decidedly bleak for Britain’s working parents.

According to research by the parenting website Netmums, British couples’ lives have become so dominated by work that they are now resorting to booking appointments with each other to ensure that they make time for intimacy. It might not be the most romantic approach to marital harmony, but the fashion for so-called “scheduled sex” has become so common that the website has ranked it near the top of a list of new parenting trends of 2014.

In an informal poll of users on the site, three out of five of those who responded admitted planning ahead for sex with their partner, with many even putting it into their diaries. A third of them said they scheduled it as a weekly fixture but a quarter admitted they managed once a month or less. It amounts to a reinvention of the fashion for “date nights” but without any hint of romance.

Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of Netmums, said: "Spontaneity is lovely when you have time for it but people are realising that actually if you wait for the spontaneous moment it will probably never come. “The general consensus is that it is worth making the effort even if even if you don’t feel like it.”

She said that during the recession couples with young children increasingly gave up on going out together opting for evenings in. “Because they know it is coming maybe they send each other little texts during the day – it is often a bit more than just a functional 10 minutes in the utility room.”

·         What’s the most important factor blocking social mobility? Single parents, suggests a new study.

Next week, in his State of the Union address, President Obama is expected to return to a theme he and many progressives have been hitting hard in recent months: namely, that the American Dream is in trouble and that growing economic inequality is largely to blame says the Slate. In a speech to the Centre for American Progress last month, Obama said: “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream.” Likewise, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently wrote that the nation “claims to reward the best and brightest regardless of family background” but in practice shuts out “children of the middle and working classes.”

Progressives like Obama and Krugman are clearly right to argue that the American Dream is in trouble. Today, poor children have a limited shot at moving up the economic ladder into the middle or upper class. One study found that the nation leaves 70 percent of poor children below the middle class as adults. Equally telling, poor children growing up in countries like Canada and Denmark have a greater chance of moving up the economic ladder than do poor children from the United States. As Obama noted, these trends call into question the “American story” that our nation is exceptionally successful in delivering equal opportunity to its citizens.

But the more difficult question is: Why? What are the factors preventing poor children from getting ahead? An important new Harvard study that looks at the best community data on mobility in America—released this past weekend—suggests a cause progressives may find discomforting, especially if they are interested in reviving the American Dream for the 21st century.

The study, “Where is the Land of Opportunity?: The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States,” authored by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and colleagues from Harvard and Berkeley, explores the community characteristics most likely to predict mobility for lower-income children. The study specifically focuses on two outcomes: absolute mobility for lower-income children—that is, how far up the income ladder they move as adults; and relative mobility—that is, how far apart children who grew up rich and poor in the same community end up on the economic ladder as adults. When it comes to these measures of upward mobility in America, the new Harvard study asks: Which “factors are the strongest predictors of upward mobility in multiple variable regressions”?

1) Family structure. Of all the factors most predictive of economic mobility in America, one factor clearly stands out in their study: family structure. By their reckoning, when it comes to mobility, “the strongest and most robust predictor is the fraction of children with single parents.” They find that children raised in communities with high percentages of single mothers are significantly less likely to experience absolute and relative mobility. Moreover, “[c]hildren of married parents also have higher rates of upward mobility if they live in communities with fewer single parents.” In other words, as the figure below indicates, it looks like a married village is more likely to raise the economic prospects of a poor child.

What makes this finding particularly significant is that this is the first major study showing that rates of single parenthood at the community level are linked to children’s economic opportunities over the course of their lives. A lot of research—including new research from the Brookings Institution—has shown us that kids are more likely to climb the income ladder when they are raised by two, married parents. But this is the first study to show that lower-income kids from both single- and married-parent families are more likely to succeed if they hail from a community with lots of two-parent families.

2) Racial and economic segregation. According to this new study, economic and racial segregation are also important characteristics of communities that do not foster economic mobility. Children growing up in communities that are racially segregated, or cluster lots of poor kids together, do not have a great shot at the American Dream. In fact, in their study, racial segregation is one of only two key factors—the other is family structure—that is consistently associated with both absolute and relative mobility in America. The figure below illustrates the bivariate association between racial segregation and economic mobility.

3) School quality. Another powerful predictor of absolute mobility for lower-income children is the quality of schools in their communities. Chetty, et al. measure this in the study by looking at high-school dropout rates. Their takeaway: Poor kids are more likely to make it in America when they have access to schools that do a good job of educating them.

4) Social capital. In a finding that is bound to warm the heart of their colleague, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, Chetty and his team find that communities with more social capital enjoy significantly higher levels of absolute mobility for poor children. That is, communities across America that have high levels of religiosity, civic engagement, and voter involvement are more likely to lift the fortunes of their poorest members.

5) Income inequality. Finally, consistent with the diagnosis of Messrs. Obama and Krugman, Chetty and his team note that income inequality within communities is correlated with lower levels of mobility. However, its predictive power—measured in their study by a Gini coefficient—is comparatively weak: According to their results, in statistical models with all of the five factors they designated as most important, economic inequality was not a statistically significant predictor of absolute or relative mobility.

Chetty, who recently won the John Bates Clark Medal for his achievements as an economist under the age of 40, has been careful to stress that this research cannot prove causation—that removing or adding these factors will cause mobility in America. The study also acknowledges that many of these key factors are correlated with one another, such as income inequality and the share of single mothers in a community. This means that economic inequality may degrade the two-parent family or that increases in single parenthood may increase economic inequality. But what does seem clear from this study of the “land[s] of opportunity” in America is that communities characterized by a thriving middle class, racial and economic integration, better schools, a vibrant civil society, and, especially, strong two-parent families are more likely to foster the kind of equality of opportunity that has recently drawn the attention of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has stressed his commitment to data-driven decision-making, not ideology. Similarly, progressives like Krugman have stressed their scientific bona fides, as against the “anti-science” right. If progressives like the president and the Nobel laureate are serious about reviving the fortunes of the American Dream in the 21st century in light of the data, this new study suggests they will need to take pages from both left and right playbooks on matters ranging from zoning to education reform. More fundamentally, these new data indicate that any effort to revive opportunity in America must run through two arenas where government has only limited power—civil society and the American family. This is a tall order, to be sure, but unless President Obama, and progressives more generally, can enlist a range of political, civic, business, and cultural leaders—not to mention parents—in this undertaking, this new study suggests they will not succeed in achieving one of their most cherished goals: reviving America as a “land of opportunity.”

·         New academic study links rising income inequality to ‘assortative mating’

Here’s another reason the rich are getting richer and the poor are falling farther behind:  A new working paper by an international team of economists finds that better educated people are increasingly more likely to marry other better-educated people while those with less formal schooling are more likely to choose a less well-educated partner reports Pew Research. As a consequence, income inequality has increased because education is strongly correlated with income—the more schooling you have, the more money you typically earn, according to a team of economists headed by Jeremy Greenwood of the University of Pennsylvania.

Economists call the tendency of people with similar characteristics to marry “assortative mating.” For their study, Greenwood and his team tracked patterns in marriages grouped by education level from 1960 through 2005 using U.S. Census data.

Their analysis identified three distinct trends.  Consistent with previous research, they found that “the degree of associative mating [by education level] had increased” over that time period, according to the working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. (For a detailed look at marriage patterns of couples, see this Pew Research report.)

But the big surprises came in household income trends among couples with relatively more and relatively less education. Virtually across the board, the income gap between couples with relatively high and those with relatively low levels of education had widened substantially since 1960 relative to the average household income.

For example, in 1960, a husband and wife, each with a high school education, would earn about 103% of the average household income.  But in 2005, that same couple would earn only about 83% of the average. At the other end of the education spectrum, a couple in which both partners had done post-graduate work earned about 176% of the mean household income in 1960 but a whopping 219% in 2005.

Expressed another way, the relative earnings of couples with high school degrees had fallen by 20 percentage points relative to the average while the household incomes of highly educated husbands and wives had increased by 43 points.

To assess the overall impact of these trends on income inequality, they conducted a novel test. They first computed the overall level of income inequality in 1960 and 2005.  Then they estimated what income inequality would have been if couples were randomly matched by education level. In effect, they asked what income inequality would have been if education didn’t matter in selecting a spouse, and if men and women with lots of schooling were as likely to marry people with relatively little education as they were to choose better educated partners.  The difference in those two numbers would mark the impact of associative mating by education on income inequality.

The statistic they used to gauge income inequality was the Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality on a scale from zero to 1.  Zero represents no inequality—as if everyone earns exactly the same amount—and 1 represents perfect inequality, which would occur if one person earns everything and everybody else makes nothing.

Greenwood and his colleagues estimated that the Gini coefficient was .34 in 1960, or about a third of the way to complete inequality. When they randomly matched people by education level and recalculated the coefficient, the answer was basically the same:  The Gini coefficient still stood at .34, suggesting that assortative mating by education played little, if any, role in income inequality.

Then they applied the same method to 2005 data. Now the overall Gini coefficient was .43, an increase of about .09 since 1960 and consistent with other research. But when they randomly matched people by education and re-ran their analysis, the Gini index plummeted to .34, showing that today, “assortative mating is important for income inequality.”

One reason for these changes is because more married women than ever are joining the labour force (and marrying similarly educated men), which reinforces the income gains for better educated couples.  Their evidence: When they randomly matched men and women by education level, income inequality in 2005 declined. (Other studies have also shown that the increase in married women’s labour force participation has not been the same across education groups.  College-educated married women have increased their work hours, so it has become even more valuable for college-educated guys to have college-educated wives, at least in monetary terms.)

The study is the latest entry in a contested area of research to examine inequality and income of married couples.  On the one hand, economist Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution has found that between 10 percent and 16 percent of income inequality in the United States “was caused by the growing correlation of earned incomes received by husbands and wives.”

Researchers Deborah Reed and Maria Cancian reported  in 2001 that the increasing correlation of husbands and wives’ earnings in the late 1960s through the mid-1990s worked to worsen inequality. They also found, contrary to some researchers, that changes in men’s earnings was the largest source of rising income inequality while changes in women’s earning actually reduced the disparity.

Partner News

·         Nearly 90% of couples find marriage preparation useful, so why do 75% of them dread going?

Marriage Care is encouraging engaged couples to rethink their attitude to marriage preparation following the release today of new research, commissioned by the Department for Education, that highlights its benefits. The Government’s ‘Evaluation of Relationship Support Interventions’ report assesses the effectiveness of marriage preparation, relationship education and couple counselling services provided by a number of charities including Relate, Marriage Care, and The Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships.

It revealed that 88% of couples who attended Marriage Care’s marriage preparation courses found them useful, despite the fact that only 25% had wanted to attend from the outset. Significantly, of the 243 Marriage Care clients interviewed post-course, all said that they believed every engaged couple would benefit from signing up for some marriage preparation. “Marriage preparation is like cod liver oil,” says Mark Molden, Chief Executive of Marriage Care. “Although the relationship benefits are clear, at the moment it tends to be something that people do because they feel they ought to rather than because they want to.”

David and Kelly are youth-workers who signed up for marriage preparation at a Marriage Care centre in Nottingham. “Initially we weren’t very enamoured about attending,” says Kelly. “Afterwards my friend asked how it went, expecting me to say it was rubbish, but I said ‘no, it was brilliant’. It gave us tools to talk to each other properly, and at the end I was reduced to tears. I’ve recommended it to my friends so many times over.”

Adds Bridie Collins, Marriage Care’s Director of Relationship Education and Support, “Couples who choose to get married in the Catholic Church are required to have a certificate of attendance at marriage preparation. This can be just one more thing on the ‘to do’ list – until the couple arrives at our course and discovers that it actually does make their relationship stronger.” The Department for Education findings confirm this, stating that although couples already felt good about their relationship, those attending Marriage Care’s marriage preparation courses saw a significant positive change in their relationship quality or well-being, often in the space of only one day.

“As a society, we spend more time learning to drive than we do on preparing to share the rest of our life with someone we love,” says Mark. “We expect that successful long-term relationships will just ‘happen’ without the need for any guidance or learning, but unfortunately the divorce statistics and increasing number of separated families demonstrate that this thinking is flawed. We need to open up the UK debate, and question why we don’t take our relationships seriously enough to invest in them during the early stages.”

Marriage Care is the largest single provider of marriage preparation services in England and Wales, with 52 centres and nearly 800 trained volunteers. The national charity supports couples through the best and worst of times, offering two different marriage preparation services (FOCCUS© and Preparing Together) as well as relationship counselling. “Marriage preparation highlights important areas of life that can make or break a marriage, and it gives couples space to discuss their thoughts and feelings,” Mark explains. “Whether couples choose the FOCCUS© questionnaire and facilitated feedback sessions or our Preparing Together day course, the communication process and increased understanding that they share as a result can make a real difference to how successfully they navigate the tough times that all long-term relationships face over the years.”

Duncan, a fitness coach, agrees. He went to one of Marriage Care’s courses in Newcastle with fiancée Alexandra: “It highlighted stuff that you might have talked about but not given any weight to. Everyone thinks that their problems are their own. Others think you are alright from the outside, but inside you could be quite anxious. That’s why I thought this course was so good, because it gave us an arena where you could talk about the things that you might be thinking about, and that’s important. It felt safe to do that.” The research uncovered that attending marriage preparation significantly changed participants’ attitudes towards attending couple counselling in the future.

“This is a really positive development,” says Bridie. “We offer support at all stages of a marriage or relationship, and not just during a crisis situation, so if attending marriage preparation helps give confidence to couples to come much sooner for support when their relationship hits tough times then that’s good news.”

The Department for Education study also showed that Marriage Care reaches more economically disadvantaged couples as a result of its commitment to offer its services to all regardless of ability to pay. “Couples need to be able to access relationship help and support regardless of their financial situation,” says Mark. “More broadly, with £11.50 of benefits delivered for every £1 spent on our marriage preparation services, it makes financial sense for our society to support long-term relationships at the outset, rather than waiting until they get into trouble.

New Books, Resources and materials

·         You don’t have to stop arguing, just ‘do it better’ relationship experts say

Arguing doesn’t have to mean that children suffer if couples take action to ‘argue better’, research suggests says One Plus One. Conflict and feuds are a normal part of being in a relationship and research shows that family relationship patterns can be passed on from one generation to the next, so it’s important to be aware of ways to ensure they are less harmful.

The book, Parental Conflict: Outcomes and Interventions for Children and Families examines the differences between ‘destructive’ and ‘constructive’ conflict and how both kinds affect children, why some children are more adversely affected than others. It features the latest evidence on how conflicts impacts on child physiology and interventions to help couples in conflict.

It shows that conflict can affect family life by influencing the way couples parent, as well as how children understand and make sense of this conflict. Destructive conflict such as sulking, walking away, slamming doors or making children the focus of an argument can have a detrimental impact on their development.

Children exposed to such conflict between parents are at a greater risk of a range of negative outcomes including social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.  However, children react better when parents can relate to each other more positively during arguments, and when conflicts are resolved.

Co-author, Dr Catherine Houlston, from OnePlusOne said: ‘We know that conflict is a normal and necessary part of family life. ‘It’s not whether you argue but how you argue which matters most to kids. Evidence suggests that working with couples at an early stage in their relationship or during times of change we can modify destructive patterns of conflict behaviour. Practitioners and those working regularly with parents are in a key position to identify families in need’

Co-author Professor Gordon Harold, Andrew and Virginia Rudd Professor of Psychology at the University of Sussex said: ‘Today’s children are tomorrow’s parents. ‘The psychological fallout from homes marked by high levels of inter-parental conflict can lead to negative behaviour and long-term mental health problems that repeat across generations. Effective intervention can help to break this cycle, improving outcomes in the short and long term.’

Forthcoming conferences and events

·         Forthcoming conferences

Details of all forthcoming conferences can always be found under our listing at 2-in-2-1

·         Marriage Week aims to break world record for wedding vow renewal!

Thousands of couples across the UK will reaffirm their wedding vows simultaneously on Saturday 8th February 2014 at 5:15pm for The Big Promise world record attempt as part of Marriage Week 2014.

The couples taking part in The BIG Promise event, launched in the Houses of Parliament during Marriage Week 2013, hope to break the current world record of 1089 couples renewing their vows which was set in the US in 2009.

Dave Percival, The BIG Promise project coordinator, said: “The thought of thousands of couples from Newquay to Orkney saying together ‘We will!’ is just fantastic. The occasion will be both serious and huge fun – a bit like marriage really!”

“Marriage Week has always stood for encouraging and thanking couples for all that marriage means for them and for society. This year we really want people to celebrate just how important the promises we make are. They offer the foundation for a stable and loving family; what we build on that foundation is up to us, but we want people all over the country to join with us and send out the message: ‘these promises matter’!”

One couple taking part will celebrate fifty years of marriage together on the day of The Big Promise! Tom and Doreen Shaw from Sheffield will join with their friends, community and family to reaffirm their vows on their golden wedding anniversary at the Rock Christian Centre in Sheffield.

Looking forward to the world record attempt, Doreen Shaw said: “We started out with nothing but our marriage wasn’t built on what we had, rather on who we were. Marriage has made us better people I hope. We are so excited to celebrate 50 years together on the same day as The Big Promise.”

Consultations and Campaigns

Below is our running list of current and recent consultations and campaigns. New items or those requiring action are highlighted. The Reference numbers are to the newsletter where we covered the subject.

·        The future of civil partnership in England and Wales

The Government has published a consultation paper on the future of civil partnership in England and Wales. This is the full public consultation required by section 15 the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. The Government will consider responses to the consultation alongside evidence about marriage of same sex couples, civil partnership and possible options for the future.

The closing date for responses is 17 April 2014.

Soap Box!!

·         Building a well designed marriage

Last night we did the first half of our marriage prep course with six couples. As ever the couples came in a typically sceptical frame of mind – and by the end I think most left with a definite intent to return in a fortnight’s time – initial barriers had been broken down, and we had got them thinking about life “Beyond the Honeymoon”. Last night we sent them off with their “homework” for next time – thinking about the kind of marriage and family they want to build – even to think about their epitaph as a couple.

It was good to know that doing this has now been assessed by the government funded study as meaningful, and having a benefit both to the country and to the couples. Our own experience and the feedback of the couples whom we have had through the course over the past 27 years had certainly given us that belief, but now it’s been independently assessed. Probably for us the greatest testament to the course is that one of our co-leaders is a couple who did their marriage prep with us 23 years ago – it made enough impression for them to want to come and be part of it with us after all these years!

Having the Government report can only be a good thing – it’s the sort of evidence that should have a good shelf life (the old One Plus One report (from the 90’s?) that found that Marriage Prep did no good is still quoted to me from time to time). It has the benefit of having been done here in UK (people seem to discount overseas studies) by creditable agencies on well established courses and interventions.

But, as the Marriage Care press release points out, having a creditable programme or product is only part of the battle. Our own course is mandatory for couples getting married in our church (a bit like the Catholics and Marriage Care courses) and we get >95% uptake. In earlier times when it was well plugged but voluntary, the uptake was only around 35%.

Whilst incentivising such courses (or even making them compulsory) would increase attendance, the real issue is a change of understanding needed in society that relationships are not just the product of luckily meeting the right person with an added sprinkle of “magic love dust”, but are the product of our values, beliefs, actions and environment – all of which are things we can choose to influence and alter.

We are constantly fed the line that we can shape our own destiny by working hard, doing things well etc and in so doing build a successful career, lifestyle etc – yet we continue to believe somehow that luck is the biggest influence on our love-lives.

That’s why our couples will spend the next two weeks (we hope!) thinking about what kind of marriage they want to build – hopefully it will help them develop a shared vision, one they can use as a reference point in life ahead. It also gives them a context when we meet next time in which to assimilate some of the skills and techniques we’ll share.

Hopefully they will end up want to build a “well designed marriage” based on tools and approaches that are now validated not only by experience, but by solid research that this stuff makes a difference.

Best wishes,

The 2-in-2-1 Team

Technical Stuff

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January 29, 2014

Column #1,692

The Need: “A Married Mom and Dad”

By Mike McManus

            In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said that one of the best “investments we can make in a child’s life is a high quality education.”

            Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, demurred: “Mr. President, you neglected to mention the very best investment in a child’s life – a married mom and dad.”

            He cited a new Harvard study proving that children of married parents are much more likely to be able to move up the income ladder than those of single parents.  An intact family is better off financially than one that is broken. Its children do better in school and graduate college in greater numbers than those from non-intact homes.

            Obama asserted that “the best measure of opportunity is access to a good job.”  Perkins responded, “No, Mr. President, it is a married mom and dad.

He added, “President Obama’s remarks didn’t address a key reason our economy is just bumping along – the continued dissolution of the American family.  Only 45 percent of our 17-year-old children have grown up in an intact married family. The mother and father of the remaining 55 percent have at some time rejected each other as husband and wife.” 

Either they never married or they divorced.   Unwed births are now 41 percent of all births, and America’s divorce rate is the highest of any industrialized nation.

Children of broken homes are three times as likely as those from intact homes to be expelled from school or to get pregnant as teenagers.  They are six times more apt to live in poverty and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Unfortunately, federal programs exacerbate these differences.  For example if an unmarried couple has children, she is eligible for about $25,000 of benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit and housing subsidies.  Obamacare similarly skews benefits to the unmarried, not married couples. If the couple marries, they lose those benefits.

No wonder the percentage of adults who are married has plunged from 67 percent in 1960 to only 48 percent today.

The President was correct in asserting that “corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged.  Inequality has deepened.  Upward mobility has stalled.”

He called once again for a higher minimum wage, saying that “no one who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.”  He noted that in the last year five states have raised their minimum wage above the U.S. level of $7.25 an hour.  In December, fast-food workers walked off their jobs in a day of strikes for better pay.

  Two-thirds of Americans agree with an increase in the minimum, as do I. But the President was silly to pledge raising the minimum of corporations with federal contracts, virtually all of whom pay far above the minimum.

I also applaud Obama’s call “to fix our broken immigration system.” He said,” When people come here to fulfill their dreams – to study, invent and contribute to our culture – they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone.”

Even Republicans seem open to legalizing the nation’s 11 million undocumented aliens.

Predictably, Obama defended his Affordable Care Act which he said is about “the peace of mind that if misfortune strikes, you don’t have to lose everything.”  He mentioned Amanda Shelley, a physician’s assistant who had to undergo surgery six days after she signed up.

However, Obamacare undermines religious freedom.  All employers must offer not only free contraceptives but also sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs – even Catholic hospitals and universities.  Jane Belford, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Washington, charges, “We must violate our religious beliefs or face crippling fines and penalties of at least $4.2 million a year.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York told CBS: “This is about religious liberty.  The President says it is about women’s health. This is about religious freedom, not about contraception.”

Fortunately, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving two companies whose owners object on grounds of religious liberty. And dozens of additional cases are in the courts.

As Tony Perkins puts it, “Mr. President, it is not an American value to trample someone else’ conscience.  It is not an American value to use the federal government to undermine the will of the people in states that believe marriage is between a man and a woman and that children do best with a mom and a dad.”

Copyright © 2014 Michael McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

January 21, 2014

Column #1,691

(Last of a 3-part series)

Answers for the Disintegration of Marriage – III

By Mike McManus

            Marriage in America is disintegrating.  According to Census in 2013 only 48% of people were married – a substantial plunge from 67.3% in 1960.*

            A major reason for the decline of married couples is divorce.  In 1960, only 2.8 million people were divorced.  By 2013 that figure jumped nearly ten-fold to 25.3 million divorced.

            America’s divorce rate is actually the highest of the civilized world – triple that of Britain and France, for example.  After 5 years of marriage, 23% of Americans are divorced vs. only 8% of British or French. 

            Why?  If a British woman wants a divorce, but her husband does not – they must wait five years to divorce!  Six years in France.  Five or six years allows time to reconcile.

            By contrast, 27 states have a ZERO waiting period, and three states require only 30-60 days.  Why are these “Hot Head States” pushing couples to divorce? 

            An earlier column quoted Jennifer Rivera: “After being together 11.5 years, the Family Court of Miami-Dade County was able to legally end it in 11 days.  If we had more time to wait it out, such as a legalized separation, our divorce would not have happened. It was like a Drive-Thru Divorce. That’s how it felt.  They have a waiting period to get a marriage license.  There should be a waiting period to get a divorce.”

When the couple stood before the judge, they were holding hands and crying. That night they had dinner together and spent the night together.

            This divorce should never have happened.

            It would not have occurred in Illinois or Pennsylvania which require couples to wait two years if one spouse opposes the divorce.  As a result those states have nearly America’s lowest divorce rates.  Clearly, a longer waiting period allows hot heads to cool down.

            Their divorce rates are almost half that of 13 Hot Head States with No waiting – NV, WY, ID, TN, KY, AK, FL, AL, NM, MS, CO, AZ and OR. 

            According to Frank Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin’s book, Divided Families, four out of five divorces are opposed by one spouse.  Yet in America, one spouse can file for divorce and always get it.  In the old days, one would have to prove their spouse was at fault – due to adultery, abandonment or abuse.  However, in 1969 California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed America’s first “No Fault Divorce” law, allowing just one spouse to declare there were “irreconcilable differences.”

            Most states passed similar No Fault Divorce laws in the 1970s, and the number of divorces nearly doubled from 639,000 in 1969 to 1,189,000 in 1979.

            In my book, How To Cut America’s Divorce Rate in Half, I argue No Fault Divorce is unconstitutional.  Both the 5^th and 14^th Amendments supposedly guarantee that no person “be deprived of life, liberty or property without the due process of law.”  Yet how can there be “due process” if every divorce is granted?

            Divorce deprives people of life.  A divorced man will live 10 years less than a married man; a divorced woman, four years less; and their children, 5 years less.  Divorced people and their children are also deprived of liberty.  A typical father can see his kids only two weekends a month. Certainly, husbands and wives lose property when they divorce.

            Yet there is no Constitutional protection for 80% of spouses handed an unwanted divorce. Therefore, I helped design a bill introduced in Georgia called the Children’s Hope for Family Life Act. It would increase the waiting period from 30 days to one year.

            The bill would also require couples with kids to take a course on the impact of divorce on children before a divorce is filed.  Hopefully, that would persuade many to repair their marriage. And during the year, the couple would be required to take classes to improve their skills of conflict resolution.  No state has such educational requirements.

            Greg Griffin, a pastor and counselor who got a divorce he did not want, has led the battle for the bill, spending 17 months at the state legislature, meeting scores of state senators and state legislators, plus the governor.

            He has “positioned this as a children’s rights bill, asking legislators to view the bill through the eyes of a child, and give them every opportunity to grow up in an intact home.” He asks that they think of it as looking out for the safety of children like mandatory bike helmets.

            I dream that the Children’s Hope for Family Life Act passes and becomes a model for every state.

---------

Copyright © Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

January 15, 2014

Column #1,690

(second of three parts)

Answers to the Disintegration of Marriage – II

By Mike McManus

            Fifty years ago President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty, proclaiming, “For the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty.”

As a TIME correspondent it was exhilarating to cover the launching of Medicare, Head Start, food stamps and the first federal aid to education to help poor children.  Looking back, what has been accomplished?

Percentages of those in poverty don’t appear to have changed much. In 1982 15% were below the poverty line, and in 2010 it was still 15%.  Robert Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist, notes that official figures do not count non-cash payments, such as food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.  If included the poverty rate is only 5%.

However, the number of families headed by a single parent has tripled since LBJ.  Unwed births have soared 8-fold to 41%.  That’s 20 times Japan’s 2%.  (No wonder Asian kids score far better academically than Americans.)

Almost none of the stories on the War on Poverty note the connection between poverty and the disintegration of marriage. However, the Heritage Foundation has reported, “Marriage drops the probability of poverty by 82%.” 

Churches can do much to increase the odds that marriages will endure.  Last week I urged pastors to preach that cohabitation fails in 9 out of 10 cases, either before or after the wedding.

I outlined a healthier way to prepare couples for marriage, by requiring a premarital inventory and discussing it with trained Mentor Couples.  Although it is self-serving, I’d like to outline four more answers that my wife and I offer as part of our “Marriage Savers” ministry to churches:

Enrichment: All marriages run down over time and need a booster shot. Churches can use many DVD packages to help couples rekindle their love. “10 Great Dates” are sparked by a brief DVD on such topics as “Resolving Honest Conflict” or “Becoming an Encourager” that can be scheduled for 10 Friday nights. Couples watch the clip and then enjoy a date to discuss that theme.  It’s fun and easy.  “Love and Respect” are longer DVDs ideal for a weekend event.

Restoration of troubled marriages is best achieved by training couples whose own marriages once nearly failed, to mentor those in current crisis. Every church has couples who have survived adultery who can be trained to tell their story of recovery to a couple in current crisis over infidelity.  They can share how they rebuilt trust. This is far more effective than sending couples to counselors who, according to one major study, actually increase their odds of divorce. 

Reconciliation of separated couples, when one spouse wants a divorce, is best achieved with a 12-week “Marriage 911” workbook course designed to help a committed spouse grow so much, he/she attracts back an errant mate. It is taken with a friend of the same gender who is given a handbook to know what questions to ask.

Stepfamilies usually divorce at a 70% rate.  However, we help churches create a Stepfamily Support Group that saves 80% of these daunting marriages.

Marriage Savers has helped more than 10,000 churches jump-start these reforms in “Community Marriage Policies,” the 230^th of which was signed recently in Livonia, Michigan. Catholic and Protestant clergy gathered on the steps of the local courthouse to pledge implementing marriage initiatives outlined above to revive marriages in their churches. 

Equally important, they sent couples in healthy marriages to be trained to serve as Mentor Couples to help other couples prepare for, enrich and restore marriages.

An independent study of our work by the Institute for Research and Evaluation reported that on average, divorce rates fell 17.5% in seven years for a city or county. Nearly a tenth of cities – such as Austin, Kansas City, KS, Salem, OR and Modesto, CA cut their divorce rates in half.  Based on Institute estimates, more than 100,000 marriages have been saved from divorce.

In addition, the Institute estimated that cohabitation rates fell in cities with Community Marriage Covenants by one-third compared to very similar cities in each state.

Marriage rates in some cities have increased, such as Evansville, IN where Catholic Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger wrote “We are particularly proud to report that the number of marriages has risen. From 1997-2003, there were an average of only 1,143 marriages per year. But there were an average of 1,324 marriages in 2004-2005. That is a 16% increase in the marriage rate,” while the U.S. marriage rate was plunging.

Churches can reverse the disintegration of marriage – if they implement proven strategies to do so.

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.

January 8, 2014

Column #1,689

(first of three parts)

Answers for the Disintegration of Marriage - I

By Mike McManus

            Marriage is deteriorating in America – and churches seem indifferent to it.

            There were 2.1 million marriages in 2011, but 2.4 million in 1970 when there were only 203 million Americans.  With 314 million today, there should have been 3 million marriages.

            America’s congregations who perform 86% of all weddings – appear indifferent to the marriage crisis.  No Protestant denomination has issued a report on the decline of marriage let alone suggested any answers.

            To their credit the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter on Marriage in 2009.  They quote Pope John Paul II as saying that the “future of humanity depends on marriage and the family.”  And they express concern about how “reluctant” Catholics are to “make the actual commitment” to marry.

            However, in their 60-page Pastoral Letter, they do not cite the grim evidence of that fact.  In 1970 there were 426.000 Catholic marriages, but only 167,000 in 2012.  That’s a stunning 61% decline – more than double the 30% decline of U.S. marriages.

            Catholics at least track the numbers.  The Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church could not tell me how many married in their churches.

            Why are they indifferent to God’s first institution? 

 Genesis states, “The Lord God said, `It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.” After doing so, we read, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

            What might be done?  In this column and two future ones, I’ll suggest some answers.

            First, pastors should preach on the importance of marriage – and the risks of the popular alternative: cohabitation.  National Marriage Week (Feb. 9-16) is a good time to start.

            Last year 8 million couples lived together – nearly four times those who married. Why? Many are children of divorce who fear marriage and hope to test the relationship by living with a potential mate. Seems logical, but is in error.

            I suggest pastors offer three sets of numbers to prove conventional wisdom wrong:

1.      Two-thirds of those who married were cohabiting. But that’s only 1.5 million of the 8 million cohabiting couples.  What happened to the other 6.5 million? Most broke up – proof that couples cannot “practice permanence.”

2.      In our book, Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, we report that the risk that women are 18 times more likely to be assaulted by live-in partners than by a husband and are five times more likely to suffer “severe violence.”

3.      Couples who live together before marriage are 50% to 61% more likely to divorce than those who remained separate before a wedding, report two studies.

Therefore, pastors should ask, “Why live together if the couple is five times more likely

to break up rather than marry – and more likely to divorce?”

            Few cohabiting couples attend church.  But many of their parents do. Pastors could suggest they ask their cohabiting children:  “Do you want a 9 in 10 chance of breaking up before or after the wedding?”

            Additionally, I have a question for clergy:  Why marry couples who are living together?  Scripture is clear: “Flee from sexual immorality.”          Clergy who marry cohabiting couples contribute to the problem.  They should add to their sermon on marriage:  “I will no longer marry any couples who are cohabiting – unless they move apart for three months.  That will increase the odds they will marry and that their union will last.”

              Paul wrote: “Test everything. Hold onto the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”  Cohabitation is clearly evil.  But how can couples test their relationship?

            In the 1990’s my wife and I pioneered the training of couples in our church for healthy marriages by requiring them to take a premarital inventory and meet with trained Mentor Couples to discuss 150  issues such as:

·         Sometimes I wish my partner were more careful about spending money.

·         When we are having a problem, my partner often refuses to talk about it.

  Of the 288 couples we prepared for marriage, 58 decided not to marry.  That’s a big 20%.  Studies show that such couples have the same scores as those who marry and later divorced.  Thus, they avoided a bad marriage before it began.  However, of the 230 couples who did marry in the 1990s, we know of only 16 divorces.

That’s a 93% success rate over two decades – virtual marriage insurance.

We want to have healthy marriages for our children and grandchildren.

________

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist.