Welcome to On marriage | Kids + Family

Why Marriage – Why Curbing the against Marriage Mentality is Important
There seems to be this new stigma coming up in our society (from some) that, with the high divorce rates in many developed countries, marriage is something that should be avoided. The simple truth of the matter is that our society is built upon the tradition of marriage and monogamy, and by going against that tradition we are bound to only make things worse.
Imagine for a second, a society without marriage. Instead of divorce rates of 50% (the current rate of divorce in the US), suddenly you have no divorce. But you do end up with more couples breaking up. You end up with more children left in single parent situations, and you likely end up with a more promiscuous society. After all, without commitment, there is no reason to stay when things get rough, so we just leave the relationship and start a new one.

Many problems come when we begin to go against marriage. In this article I want to talk about two reasons why marriage is important.

Against Marriage – The Main Problem(s)
Before we discuss “why marriage” let’s first discuss the problems. The most common reasons you hear from those against marriage is divorce rates and sometimes money (alimony from those divorces, etc). From that let’s talk about divorce for a moment. What is the reason divorce rates continue to grow?
The reality of the issue is that we are the reason. We live in a society that teaches us to focus on self. Where once we were taught family was more important than anything else, we are now much more likely to here “take care of you first”.

If we are ever to curb the rising divorce rates in our society, what has to happen is a shift back to focus on the family. Where commitment to taking care of that family overrides the petty ideals of self-happiness (they’re usually misguided anyway).  With that, let’s talk about two reasons why we need to switch our focus back to family, and learn to find happiness in supporting those families.

Why Marriage – For the Children
The main reason marriage should be important is for our children. Statistics have shown over and over that children of divorced parents are less likely to succeed as they grow, they have higher rates of poverty both in childhood and adulthood, and they are more likely to get in trouble with the law.
That reason alone should be reason enough to curb the “against marriage” mentality.

Why Marriage – For our Society as a Whole
The next major reason we need to switch our focus back to family is for our society as a whole. When we make the focus on the individual, instead of the family, it stands to reason that fewer of us build support networks. We work to make ourselves happy, while forgetting about everyone else.
What ends up happening is that the social backbone of our society as a whole begins to breakdown. It’s less likely for family’s to work together for success in a community (many of us don’t even know our neighbours). With that comes the fact that life becomes lonely and that self-happiness we set out to find is suddenly harder to find at all.
To put it simply – marriage matters. The next time you find yourself asking “why marriage” you now have two reasons!