This week, February 7-14, has been designated by several different organizations as National Marriage Week USA. As their mission statement explains:
Recognizing that ~

… social science is clear that children are best served when they grow up with both a mother and father, it is critical to strengthen the bonds of marriage to best support children so that they can thrive and flourish.

The group’s objective is to ~

… encourage many diverse groups to launch individual and simultaneous efforts, as well as some collaborative, in order to raise the issue of marriage to the national agenda.

 
The idea of a national campaign to help promote strong, healthy marriages actually started in the UK in 1996, and has since spread to several other European countries. It’s certainly a timely issue considering the Left’s relentless assault on the very concept of a long-term, heterosexual, committed relationship.
 
Just days ago, California’s Ninth Circuit Court, apparently doing their part to commemorate National Marriage Week, arbitrarily ruled that individual citizens have no right to determine the legal definition of marriage. Nothing like a little judicial activism to undermine Judeo-Christian values.
 
In the past few decades, Western societies have somehow decided they can get along just fine without traditional marriage. According to the Pew Research Center, in the U.S. in 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married. Today that number is hovering around 50%. Wow.
 

Remember back in the 70’s and 80’s when we were constantly being told that all families were “dysfunctional?” Ha-ha. It was good for a few laughs… and sitcom fodder. But too many of us started to believe it – all evidence to the contrary. The problem never was family dysfunction – it was human dysfunction. We’re all a little “broken.” But do we need to break our families because we’re too self-centered. proud or apathetic to make them work?
 
The truth is, the traditional family, flawed as it may be, still represents the best environment in which to inculcate values; responsibility, selflessness, empathy and kindness (wonder why is bullying such a big problem these days?) and a sense of self-worth – knowing one “belongs.” It’s difficult to develop any of those things if it’s just me -and my broken self – against the world.
 
To-the-Source (Dinesh D’Souza’s weekly e-letter) featured a great article a couple year ago asserting that healthy marriages are vital to healthy societies, part of God’s plan for a fallen human world: “Supporting Marriage.” ~

The founder of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, revolutionized the family when he proposed lifelong monogamy as the moral ideal for marriage. Prohibiting divorce was a radical step in the ancient world, as the astonished reactions of Jesus’ disciples clearly shows. Yet this norm was the first step in equalizing the relationship between men and women, and indeed, among men. For each man, no matter how wealthy, could have one and only one wife. No man, no matter how powerful, could discard his wife. It is no exaggeration to say that the marriage norm of lifelong monogamy instituted by Jesus, laid the foundation for the many of the most distinctive features of Western society.
 
Yet the very features that make Christian civilization both distinctive and great are now under attack as never before. Easy divorce, abortion on demand and even same sex marriage all disrupt the organic life of the family. The modern world demands all of these as basic human rights, without seeing that these policies promote the alienation of man and woman from each other and children from their parents.

 
Traditional marriage contributes to economic as well as emotional well-being. Among other evidence, Heritage.org offers the following statistical conclusions on their Family Facts site:
 
• Children in non-intact families face a higher risk of poverty throughout childhood.
• Among children whose parents divorce, those with mothers who remarry are least likely to be poor.
• Married women are less likely to experience poverty.
• Unmarried first-time mothers face a greater risk of poverty and welfare dependence.
• Men who become fathers outside of marriage are more likely to be poor.
 

Think of the emotional and economic hardship America could avoid if the secular left weren’t constantly pushing society away from traditional values. Fox News reported on Monday that;

Research is overwhelming on the fact that this disadvantages children on an enormous scale—think increased teen pregnancies, increased prison populations, and children who grow up with no modeling for how to attain healthy marriage in the next generation…
… a new book, “Coming Apart,” by Charles Murray, says that a retreat from marriage among the working class is a key factor in the growing economic divide in America.
 
Murray says that marriage is more or less holding its own among the upper middle and upper class, but falling off a cliff among the working class and lower class. Perhaps Occupy Wall Street should take notice.
 
… Marriage builds the economic stability of children, supports the raising of a healthy next generation, and is a cornerstone for the economic health of our nation.

 
The National Marriage Week website has several suggestions for building stronger marriages and families – starting with ideas for Valentine’s Day. 🙂 In some cases it might mean just simple acts of thoughtfulness. For many of us it may take some hard work, but isn’t that true of anything worthwhile?
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Related:
 
A new path to upward mobility—get married and stay married ~ Fox News
Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control ~ Surprisingly, this article is from… Business Insider.
Judging Marriage: What Is the Proper Role of the Courts? 9th “Circus’s” unconstitutional ruling @ Heritage’s “The Foundry.”
A House Divided on Marriage ~ Editorial from National Review Online ~

As Lincoln knew, on a fundamental moral question the nation must become all one thing or all the other. Ultimately, the people of the nation, who are the real owners of the Constitution, may have to weigh in on whether the truth about marriage — the union of a man and a woman to make a family — will prevail over the inventions of the judges.