America’s Way Forward on Marriage

This is a lightly edited excerpt from the Witherspoon Institute’s recently published book, Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles (Second Edition).

When it comes to family life, the great paradox of our time is this: every society that we think of as generally best for human flourishing—stable, democratic, developed, and free—is experiencing a radical crisis around human generativity. Family fragmentation and fatherlessness are increasing enormously, usually coupled with the collapse of fertility to levels that, if continued, spell demographic and social decline. Suddenly, developed nations are finding themselves unable to accomplish the great, simple task of every human society: bringing young men and women together to marry and raise the next generation together.

With legalized same-sex marriage and historically low marriage and fertility rates, the United States has accelerated its own descent into this state of affairs. For the first time in our nation’s history, older people are projected to outnumber children by the year 2030. In the face of decline, however, we are witnessing a “marriage movement” and pockets of reasoned resistance. The great task for America in our generation is to energize a return to and renewal of traditional marriage. We need to transmit a stronger, healthier, and more supportive marriage culture to the next generation, so that each year more children are raised by their own mother and father united by a loving marriage, so that they can grow up to have thriving marriages themselves.

Our task is a daunting one. Creating such a marriage culture is not a job for the government. Families, religious communities, and civic institutions must point the way. But law and public policy are also teachers; they will either reinforce and support these goals or undermine them. We call upon our nation’s leaders and our fellow citizens to support public policies that strengthen traditional marriage as a social institution. This nation must reestablish the normative understanding of marriage as the union—intended for life—of a man and a woman, who welcome and raise together any children who are the fruit of their self-giving love, extending the family tree into a flourishing grove where other citizens can rest in its shade.

In particular, we advocate the following eight actions toward undergirding and strengthening marriage:

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