Senior writer for The Weekly Standard, Jonathan Last, has a book forthcoming entitled What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster. He gave a hint in the December 10th issue of the magazine in an article entitled A Nation of Singles (pages 22-26).

From 1910 to 1970, those who had been married were as high as 98.3% and, during those six decades, the percentage never dropped below 92.8%. But around 1970 until the present, the United States has dropped to 88.6% (to the year 2000). Looking at age groups, among those who are at the age of marriage – groups between 20 and 34 and 35 and 44 – a little over half of adult Americans are single!

Last offers two reasons for this massive shift away from “wedded bliss” to “blissful single.” First, citing a report by Joel Kotkin (“The Rise of Post-Familialism”; available at joelkotkin.com), there is a swing away from religion in our country. Just being religious usually motivates people to marry because all the major religions in the world promote marriage and the family. “The more devout they are, the higher their rates of marriage and the more children they have” (25). But our society is becoming distinctively more secular.

Secondly, there is also a decided rupture between sex, marriage, and having children. It is clear that American society has dragged sex out of the marriage covenant. While divorce rates have remained constant, the rate of cohabitating continues to rise. If you are living together with the benefit of a sexual relationship but without the burden of having children – it lowers American’s fertility rate. If you don’t want children, generally you don’t want marriage either. One in five women today does not want any children.

Here’s another repercussion of not wanting children – you don’t care if you are spending on credit. Our current generation of politicians is no longer spending their children’s inheritance; they are now spending – on credit – our children’s income. If children aren’t important to you, you don’t care what kind of future you leave them.

But without the responsibility of families and children to provide for, men tend not to work as hard, as long, as intensely. That also has negative repercussions on the economy.

The fact is, though, many studies have shown that married people are happier, better off financially, and healthier. Children grow up more stable emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually if they have a mom and dad in the home.

In the words of Last: “Marriage is what makes the entire Western project – liberalism [the classic definition, not in the sense of “progressivism”, p.h.], the dignity of the human person, the free market, and the limited democratic state – possible” (26).

We as Christians need to exemplify before our children the great blessings of marriage. We also need to rededicate ourselves as spouses to one another. In the words of Jesus: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

–Paul Holland