On the State of the Family

ROME (Zenit) - The aspiration to walk down the aisle to marry the man or woman of one's dreams continues to be a very common one, even though the growing number of cohabiting couples may seem to prove the contrary.

Evidence of support for commitment came in a book recently published by the London-based Institute for the Study of Civil Society. "Second Thoughts on the Family," by Anastasia de Waal, compiles information taken from a specially commissioned opinion poll, plus interviews with 27 "opinion makers."

The poll by the institute revealed that around 70% of young people would like to get married. This contradicts the position held by both main political parties, Labor and the Conservatives, the book points out.The parties work out their policies under the premise that people not living in married families are simply choosing not to. This option, de Waal continues, is interpreted by some as a positive sign of diversity, by others as a decline in family values.

Both interpretations, the book continues, miss the point. In fact, there is a clear relationship between poverty and family structure, with high marital rates in the middle and upper classes.The evidence found in the institute's studies show that the real divide over the family today is one of economic class, due to strains that result in much higher rates of cohabitation and divorce for lower income families.

Thus, while the intellectual justifications for family fragmentation were popularized by people from higher socio-economic levels, the large-scale practice of cohabitation and single parenthood has been much more prevalent in the lower income levels.Meanwhile, intellectual trends in upper and middle class groups no longer see the two-parent family as being incompatible with feminism or equality. Many self-declared feminists are married, de Waal points out, and so are their children.Unfortunately, she continues, supporting marriage, as opposed to privately aspiring to it, is still seen as outdated.

Dividing line

In the book's summary of the findings, de Waal cites data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a survey that examined the situations of families that began family life around the year 2000. The study found that:

-- Among those who were single parents at the time of their child's birth, 28% had no educational qualifications. For those who were cohabiting the level was 13%, while for those who were married just 8% had no qualifications.

-- By contrast, 43% of mothers who were married at the time of their child's birth had the highest level of educational qualifications. Among those cohabiting this fell to 24%, and among single parents it was only 10%.

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-- At the time of birth 68% of married parents lived in economically advantaged areas, while this was true for 56% of cohabiting couples and only 35% of single parents.

Faced with this sort of information, de Waal maintains that all parties on the political spectrum should be concerned about family structures and marriage. The combination of lower marital rates in low income areas, higher divorce rates and more single-parent families among the less well-off are strongly connected to structural poverty.

Causes

The relationship between family structure and economics is also a central factor in child poverty, which is much more common in single-parent families. The British Labor government has taken initiatives to alleviate child poverty, de Waal admits, but they also need to focus on addressing the causes of separation instead of only dealing with the outcomes, she argues.

Thus, a more effective family policy would foster stability through arrangements regarding work, childcare and helping parents fulfill parental responsibilities. Working to this end does not mean forcing dysfunctional families to stay together, de Waal explains, rather it means supporting families that work.

The Institute's study proposes a number of policy measures that could help support families.

-- Remedying the weaknesses in the education system that have led to a higher rate of educational and economic inactivity among young people in the United Kingdom.

-- Introduce income splitting for parents and a tax system that takes into account the dependent status of children as well as non-working and low-earning partners.

-- Making more simple and universal the child maintenance system.

-- Introducing mediation between divorcing parents as a central element so as to work through the practical and financial arrangements. This would be not only to improve care of children post-separation but also to open potential reconciliation.

Class divisions

The economic and educational divisions behind family structures was also the theme of an article by opinion columnist Miranda Devine, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 10.In Australia in 1996, a university-educated woman aged 30-34 was less likely to have a husband than her less-educated counterpart. By 2006, Devine noted, she was more likely to be married.

Commenting on the results published in the study "Partnerships At The 2006 Census," by Genevieve Heard, a research fellow at the Monash's Centre for Population and Urban Research, Devine said: "While dispensing with formal marriage may once have been considered a logical consequence of financial independence for better-educated women, for the children of the underclass it has been a disaster." Heard's research showed that among women aged 30 to 34 in 2006, 61% of those with degrees were married compared with 53% of those with just a high school education.

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Civilization

Meanwhile, earlier this year the 1947 classic by Harvard sociologist, Carle C. Zimmerman, "Family and Civilization," was republished by ISI Books. In his forward for the new edition Allan C. Carlson, president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, commented that Zimmerman was not optimistic about the future of the family in Western civilization.

The family was not only vulnerable to intellectual challenges from those who favored an atomistic model, but it could also decay due to changes in religious or moral trends, according to Zimmerman.

Carlson notes that Zimmerman failed to predict the post World War II baby boom, but that he was prescient in foreseeing a great family crisis at the end of the 20th century.Zimmerman's book itself traces the history of the family in a broad overview of the last two millennia. One of the central themes of his book is the close relationship between the state of the family and the well-being of civilizations.

The struggle over the state of the family which Zimmerman predicted for the end of the 20th century would be one in which the state will have exhausted its ability to preserve and direct order in the family system.Such crises had occurred before, he observed, such as in the final stages of the Greek and Roman periods. The family was rescued by the rise of Christianity, but Christianity nowadays, wrote Zimmerman, does not enjoy popularity among those who lead the current civilization.

Community

The Second Vatican Council document "Gaudium et Spes" had words strikingly similar to those of Zimmerman in some parts. "The well-being of the individual person and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family," it noted (No. 47).

"Yet the excellence of this institution is not everywhere reflected with equal brilliance, since polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love and other disfigurements have an obscuring effect," it continued.

The family is the foundation of society, the council fathers declared. "All those, therefore, who exercise influence over communities and social groups should work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and the family" (No. 52). An exhortation well worth repeating in the face of continued challenges to family life.