By the time you read this, Prince William and his bride, Catherine Middleton (who, depending upon the distribution of titles, may henceforth be known officially by the odd formulation “Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales”) will have exchanged vows. The organ will have boomed the recessional. The royal carriage with its elegantly adorned and perfectly groomed horses will have paraded the happy couple through cheering crowds in a London bedecked with Union Jacks and flowers. And the guests in their finery will have feasted on a sumptuous wedding breakfast.
You needn’t be a royal watcher to join wholeheartedly in the rejoicing at a wedding. And we should celebrate — not because the principals are royalty, but because marriage itself badly needs reinforcing. For the past several decades, we’ve been conducting an experiment to determine whether marriage really matters all that much to society. The results are in. But the news hasn’t yet been taken on board.
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People like Kate and William (absent the title) — college-educated, upper-middle-class strivers — are not the ones who need reminding about the importance of marriage. Among the upper-middle class, marriage continues to be the norm. Among the lower-middle class though, marriage rates have collapsed.
This has created a cultural gulf between classes in America that affects every aspect of life, and arguably threatens the cohesion of America itself. This territory has been explored by Kay Hymowitz in her 2006 book, Marriage and Caste in America, as well as by scholars such as Sara McLanahan, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, and David Popenoe, among others. Charles Murray’s forthcoming book, Coming Apart at the Seams, which he previewed in a recent lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, examines marriage as one of four key virtues that conduce to a healthy polity (the others are industriousness, piety, and honesty).
Echoing George Gilder, Murray notes that marriage is crucial because it “civilizes men.” Married men don’t just earn more and have significantly lower rates of criminality, substance abuse, depression, and poor health than single men. They also contribute more social capital to society. Married men are far more likely to coach little league, volunteer at church, and shovel their elderly neighbor’s walk. Married people, far more than singles (there are exceptions of course), take responsibility not just for themselves and their children, but for the community.
In 1960, Murray observes, 88 percent of upper-middle-class adults were married. In 2010, the figure was 83 percent. A small drop. But among the working class, 83 percent of whom were married in 1960, the figure today is 43 percent. What does that mean?
It means that life for adults is more chaotic and less rewarding. Married mothers have far lower rates of depression than single or cohabiting mothers. Married women also experience much less domestic violence. Married couples build more wealth than singles or cohabiting couples. Married adults are also healthier, live longer (particularly men), and are more likely to report that they are happy with their lives.
Children pay an even higher price for the absence of marriage. As Hymowitz writes: “If you want to analyze the inequality problem — start with the marriage gap. Virtually all — 92 percent — of children whose families make over $75,000 per year are living with [married] parents. On the other end of the income scale, the situation is reversed: only 20 percent of kids in families earning under $15,000 live with both parents.”
The evidence is overwhelming. Parental behavior — that is, choosing, or not, to wait until marriage to have children — is the key determinant of success for children. “Children of single mothers,” Hymowitz writes, “have lower grades and educational attainment than kids who grow up with married parents, even after controlling for race, family background, and IQ.” And it isn’t just the presence of a man in the house that makes married families more successful. “Poverty rates of cohabiting-couple parents are double those of married couples, even controlling for education, immigration status, and race.”
For those who love social-science statistics, there are reams of them about the poor outcomes for kids whose parents didn’t marry. They are far more likely to suffer from ill health (physical and mental), joblessness, and substance abuse than are kids from intact families. They are 40 times more likely to become victims of sexual abuse. And they are far more likely to become unwed parents themselves.
So by all means raise a glass — not so much to William and Kate, who’ve been well feted, but to the institution that holds the secret of success for the rest of us.
Sorry, Ms. Charen, I must disagree with you for once.
I think the pageantry of a wedding detracts from the institution of marriage.
Then again, there's that significant event in U.S. history when we declared independence from monarchical rule. Too bad the Brits have not followed suit. What remains is the single most pointless and insulting institution in the history of man.
I will gladly raise one for Will and Kate, not because they are royalty, but because they are beginning along journey together. As for reinforcing marriage, I have done that every day for twenty years.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Maybe wealth causes marriage. If you've got a job you can afford to be married. Modernization has left a lot of people behind, and all the king's (or prince's?) horses and all the king's men can't do a thing about it. Maybe John Galt can.
Sadly, marriage is gradually becoming an institution only for the middle, upper-middle, and upper classes. I think the biggest reason for this is people don't believe that it is even possible anymore for those who are lower classes, for them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and attain even middle class. That is because the art of delayed gratification (the entire concept of saving a little for tomorrow) is largely an un-heard-of relic of yesteryear.
If you are lower class (and you know if you are, even if you wont admit it) largely the thinking is the only way to better yourself is to "marry UP" and then you will at least be middle class. Unfortunately, those who are marriage minded in the middle class (both men and women) have great reluctance/resistance of "marrying DOWN" as they don't see that kind of marriage as any benefit to them. What ends up happening is people in the lower class don't marry (at all) and they refuse to make the changes in their single lives that would elevate themselves to at least middle class (those changes of course are saving money, getting higher education, and owning and caring for a home.)
The days of two young kids (the husband, a laborer, the wife, a home maker) getting married, having kids, and scratching to save and survive are gone the way of the Dodo bird. It just doesn't happen.
Please...enough of this... “it’s too expensive for the ‘working class’ to get married”.
Up until and including just a generation ago, marriage was two young adults with nary two nickels to rub together joining forces and working hard to make a life for each other. Funny how this traditional formula was pretty successful for them and for us as a nation.
Also consider its much more expensive for women to have children out of wedlock then to marry.
The poor economy is partly because of the decline in marriage which increases the population dependent on social benefits.
Perhaps the government needs to stop the hand outs to put the necessary pressure on our youth to consider once again marriage as on option.
They shacked up together long before the wedding. I don't think the white dress and pageantry should apply, and I certainly wouldn't hold them up as marital role models to my children.
Cackon, you are wrong to say the British should have done away with their monarchy as the US sadly did.
Why give politicans more power? The removal of royalty enabled Hitler to abuse the new German constitution.
Has France been a better place after most of its royal family was murdered?
What about Iran or Russia?
Here in Australia our Queen puts a lid on the power of politicans. (Read "Head of State" by David Smith to understand why.) The push for a republic here is all about more power to the political class hidden in crass jingoistic nationalism.
Mona, Charles is the Prince of Wales - William is the Duke of Cambridge and his wife is the Duchess of Cambridge. Get your title right - there can be only ONE Prince of Wales at a time!
"Up until and including just a generation ago, marriage was two young adults with nary two nickels to rub together joining forces and working hard to make a life for each other. Funny how this traditional formula was pretty successful for them and for us as a nation."
It doesn't work that way anymore. I mean there are some exceptions, but largely, people aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get married under less than ideal circumstances. The norm nowadays seems to be "...get married only when you MUST!" (must = someone is already in a family way.)
"They shacked up together long before the wedding. I don't think the white dress and pageantry should apply, and I certainly wouldn't hold them up as marital role models to my children."
One of your adult children comes to you, tells you (for the first time) that they are IN LOVE with someone who loves them back, but the person your child loves owes $25,000 on the credit cards and doesn't make enough income to pay them off AND keep their own apartment. Their living expenses exceed their earnings. Would you rather 1) your son or daughter marry them and inherit all that unsecured debt 2) live together, sharing expenses thus freeing up more income to pay off the credit cards BEFORE marriage (enabling the your child's loved one to PROVE themselves) or 3) tell your child to leave that person as they are unworthy of your child? That is a real-life problem that exists today that largely didn't exist 30 years ago.
You've set up a false choice. I see two other obvious, and more responsible, options:
1. The person in debt takes responsibility for their mistakes, sacrifices, and works their tail end off to pay the debt before committing to marriage. The pair waits to be sure the commitment to improved financial behavior sticks.
2. The person in debt takes responsibility and develops a detailed game plan for how to get out of debt after marriage. The pair goes through detailed marriage counseling, including financial counseling, to ensure they are both committed. The person in debt works toward this goal in good faith for at least one year during their engagement. Then, they marry, and together wipe out the debt.
Both of these are responsible, moral choices that have a happier ending than your false, immoral ones.
Marriage and all its attendant happy horse $ hit certainly stimulates the economy. Weddings, rings, the one-day-only costumes, the dry cleaning, etc., cost a bomb these days, and I think the working class is wising up to De Beers's diamond scam. In this economy, food is much more important than "putting up appearances". Social-climbing is becoming a luxury affordable only to the middle- and upper-middle classes.
"You've set up a false choice. I see two other obvious, and more responsible, options:
1. The person in debt takes responsibility for their mistakes, sacrifices, and works their tail end off to pay the debt before committing to marriage. The pair waits to be sure the commitment to improved financial behavior sticks."
Did you not read anything that I said or did you just not comprehend? I said that the person in debt doesn't make enough income to pay them off. Let me repeat that, they do not make enough money to pay their credit cards off.
Have you ever in your life, ever, known anyone who was in a negative cash-flow situation? Have you? Your moralistic rhetoric notwithstanding, taking responsibility for their mistakes is wonderful but that doesn't do anygood if there is absolutely nothing they can do about it short of declaring bankruptcy.
My way, (they live together) you cut the living expenses in half which frees up some money to actually cut into the debt. Your way, nothing gets done and he or she will owe $30,000 on the credit cards the next year. But at least they don't live in sin, right Lesley?
"2. The person in debt takes responsibility and develops a detailed game plan for how to get out of debt after marriage. The pair goes through detailed marriage counseling, including financial counseling, to ensure they are both committed. The person in debt works toward this goal in good faith for at least one year during their engagement. Then, they marry, and together wipe out the debt."
Well, that is not good enough for me. (And I think you'd be lying to us all if what you said, your rhetoric, is good enough for you and your kids.)
I don't care if my kids marry someone who is poor, someone who has nothing. Having zero, is just fine. I started with nothing. But I don't want them marrying someone with NEGATIVE WEALTH. No way. I want him or her to have all their debts squared away before any nuptuals with my kids. Those are MY morals. You can create any morals for yourself if you want. (I suppose you might think bankruptcy is moral, yes?)
Actually, the sons of the Prince of Wales are styled "Prince X of Wales", although I'm not sure whether William will retain that title after being made Duke of Cambridge.
They seem like very nice kids. I'm very happy for them, as I am for any young couple starting a life together. But royalty and hereditary titles are purely medieval, and very distasteful to my American sensibilities. Not to mention the absurd amount of money that was spent on this wedding. I am delighted it is over.
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