Healthy Marriage Leadership Summit

Let love of the brethren continue. . . . Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Heb.13:1-6

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from food, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

I Timothy 4:1-5

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. . . . Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Romans 12:9-21

“America needs healthy marriages and healthy marriages need America.” What do I mean by this statement? We need a social system that understands the importance of healthy marriages and will fight to preserve what is known as the “institution of marriage” for the betterment of the society and its people. With all the ills within our society, there is no nation more open to the possibility of change. There is no nation in which marriage has the potential to become all God intended it to be, for we are still “one nation under God.”

I am not attempting to equate America with the Church for it is not. However, because America was founded on the truths of God’s Word, there are many similarities in how we function as “one nation under God” though we have many parts, facets, nuances, and unique principalities we still function as one nation.

We do not need to and in fact cannot look back at our nation’s history to predict its future for we are only 200+ years young. However, we can look at the history of social orders and civilizations in days gone by that have opted to take the route it appears our nation has chosen regarding marriage and family life. Those societies and nations crumbled from within. In essence they committed suicide. The terms we might use to describe what took place would be decay, deterioration, implosion—none of which are encouraging words.

Should we choose to regurgitate gloomy statistics regarding the state-of-affairs among Americans we could turn to secular publications such as Newsweek and read the following information.

The 2002 report Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-one Conclusions from the Social Sciences communicates the value of marriage by 13 leading family scholars from across the political spectrum. According to research cited in the report:

• One-third of all parental divorces plunges the mother and children into poverty.
• Boys raised in single-parent homes are twice as likely to commit crimes as boys raised in two-parent homes regardless of race or income. Boys in stepfamilies are three times as likely to commit crimes as boys raised by their own two parents.
• Girls raised in single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up as young, unwed mothers than children whose parents married and stayed married.
• Children of divorced or unwed parents have lower grades, are more likely to be held back, and are more likely to drop out of high school.

However, in choosing to approach this from a positive stance we draw from the words of Patrick Fagan who in his March 16, 2001 article, “Encouraging Marriage and Discouraging Divorce” wrote, “After four decades of rising government spending to treat the effects of broken families, a cultural shift in attitudes toward marriage is evident across America. Elected officials, social scientists, community leaders, and policymakers across the ideological spectrum are admitting that strong marriages–not government intervention–are key to improving social and personal well-being. Increasingly, research is showing that children in married families are healthier, perform better in school, live in poverty less frequently, and are involved in crime or other destructive behaviors less often. But as marriages fail, social problems and social spending to deal with those problems increase.”

Some benefits of marriage…

• The marriage premium—Married men earn more than their single counterparts.
• Employees in marriages that last a lifetime are generally happier and healthier than employees who are divorcees, cohabiting, or un-partnered.
• The emotional support of a spouse seems to help people recover better when illness strikes or to manage a chronic disease better over the long term.
• Absenteeism of married workers is lower, and they stay at particular jobs longer.
• 70% of all US economic consumption is associated with the family.
• Married couples suffer less stress and health problems overall;

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that reveals some additional benefits. The study showed that married adults are healthier than all other segments of the adult population. They:

• are the least likely to experience health problems
• are the least likely to engage in risky health behaviors such as smoking and drinking
• have fewer headaches and less lower back pain
• have less psychological stress
• are more physically active than people in general

There have been two possible reasons shared by their leading statisticians as to why married Americans are healthier. The first reason proposed is that married couples due to their marital status automatically have certain advantages over their unmarried counterparts. They may have advantages in terms of economic resources, social and psychological support and encouragement of healthful lifestyles. They may also have a greater motivation to remain in good health.

The second possibility that is espoused is in marital selection. The theory here is that healthy people get married and stay married, whereas unhealthy people either do not marry or are more likely to become separated, divorce or widowed.

In either case, the report substantiates the fact that association between marital status and health persists regardless of the couple’s socio-economic status, education and poverty, where people were born or their ethnicity.

Marriage is good for America in that it supports a society that is healthier, happier and enabled to consider the welfare of others within the society and the world at large. Healthy marriages strengthen the present social order and secure the stability of our nation’s future.