A vanishing breed

What will happen to society if dismal marriage trends continue?
Janie B. Cheaney
posted January 10, 2010

Excerpt:
With California's Prop 8 under review, we're rightly concerned about the legal future of same-sex "marriage." But in the long run, that burning issue may be little more than a side show. The real problem is among heterosexuals.

A study by the National Marriage Project, disturbingly titled When Marriage Disappears, indicates that stable unions are vanishing in the very social strata where they once were strongest: the "moderately educated middle," or high-school graduates with some college. "In the last three decades," says project director W. Bradford Wilcox, "nonmarital childbearing, divorce, low-quality marriages and family instability all have been on the rise in middle-American homes. For instance, nonmarital childbearing among women with high school degrees more than tripled in the last three decades—from 13 percent in 1982 to 44 percent in 2006."

The results are reduced earning power, greater stress, and troubled adolescence leading to a continuation of the cycle: "So the health, wealth and happiness of middle America is taking a serious toll." The good news is that marriage rates among the more affluent and educated (about 30 percent of the population) have actually improved. But if trends continue, the gap between rich and poor will only widen, with an increasingly hopeless and tumultuous underclass creating havoc outside the gated communities of the happily married. (For more about the National Marriage Project findings, see page 61.)   the rest