| Four in 10 Americans say marriage obsolete |
| Written by Whitney Jones | ||
| Thursday, 23 December 2010 18:29 | ||
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(RNS) — Marriage is on the decline in American society, with nearly four in 10 people claiming the institution is obsolete, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. The Pew survey, conducted in association with Time magazine, shows a shifting definition of marriage and increasing acceptance of cohabitation beyond traditional boundaries of matrimony. Since 1990, cohabitation has nearly doubled, according to the Census Bureau, and the Pew survey showed that 44 percent of adults have lived with an unmarried partner at some point during their lives. While Americans are more inclusive in their definition of family, almost seven in 10 say single women having children is bad for the society and 61 percent think children need both parents “to grow up happily.” People who regularly attend religious services were less likely than other Americans to accept new forms of family. When asked if “new family arrangements are a bad thing” 45 percent of churchgoers agreed, compared to 15 percent of those who either rarely or never attend church. The results were based on phone interviews with 2,691 adults, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Your Responses (1)
p.gregory
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lambertville, nj It is not that the institution of "marriage" is in decline. It is that those religious institutions, and behaviors associated and identified with religious behaviors and habits are in decline. As example, ask the average Roman Catholic the last time they went to "confession" or follow Rome on matters of sexuality. The RC church is in no danger of implosion, but people no longer associate certain behaviors and practices with the faith. As long as religious clergy in America are empowered by the State to perform what is in essence an act of the State, yes "marriage" as a condition of life will suffer. It further does not help when marriage becomes cannon-fodder in the ongoing culture wars of who or what grouping of people can "marry", and what makes marriage different from civil unions and other forms of legal reconginition of people in various family groupings. I think it far more healthy for the culture, for the church, for marriage, if the church got out of the business of the State, and the State got out of the business of the church. Those male, female, whoever that are so moved can go to the court house and have the civil acts of the union recognized. Those also so moved can then come to a church, a clergy and have that union recognized and celebrated in the faith for what the faith intended, a marriage, the two become one. And that by definition is a "marriage", which is the perview of the church and the faith and not of the State. |
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