The Future of Marriage

This past summer I read the book, The Future of Marriage, by David Blankenhorn, the founder and the current president of the Institute for American Values, an organization whose purpose is to strengthen families and civil society, and the author of Fatherless in America.

As both a pastor, pastoral counselor, and psychologist, whose specialty is couple's counseling, I have a great interest in making families stronger. We live in a culture, however, that has for decades seen the weakening of the family and now a full court press to redefine the family in ways that I think are destructive to persons and society. The discussion carried on in the media is in my opinion not only flawed, but incredibly shallow and one-sided. Blankenhorn's book is a welcome addition to the debate that currently rages in our society as to the definition and nature of the family. Over the next several weeks I intend to blog about this book, chapter by chapter, because I think it is so important and what he has to say has not been heard by many.

Today I want to summarize the introduction to this book. Blankenhorn attributes a conversation that he had with the executive director, Evan Wolfson, of Freedom to Marry, an advocacy group for equal rights for same-sex couples. Wolfson wanted Blankenhorn to speak out for their position. He felt conflicted about the request and it caused him to do the research, thinking, and writing to develop a position that he believed in. He writes,
In talking to Evan, I also realized that we disagreed fundamentally on the matter of children.

Other than telling me that he thought children were "adaptable," he seemed hardly interested in the issue, as if he had never really thought about it. For example, when I told him that marriage as an institution is centrally concerned 2with procreation in all human societies, he rejected the idea out of hand, proposing instead that marriage aw a natural human institution is largely about private property...For me, marriage is fundamentally about the needs of children. And in thinking and writing about it for nearly two decades, I have come to believe one thing with more certainty than anything else: What children need most are mothers and fathers. Not caregivers. Not parent-like adults. Not even "parents." What a child wants and needs more than anything else are the mother and the father who together made the child, who love the child, and who love each others (2-3).

He states that marriage is the most important of all social institutions and from an evolutionary and anthropological point of view "the decisive turning point in our history as a species" (4). Marriage, Blankenhorn believes is by far the most pro-child institution that we have. He notes that in the 70's and 80's when the amount of divorce was drastically increasing, the majority of opinion by scholars was that children's well-being was only marginally associated with marriage and family structure. However, after a plethora of research conducted in the 80's and 90's the results caused a drastic reassessment of this previous position and, in fact, overturned it. The research clearly demonstrated that marriage matters. It makes a significant impact on the health and well-being of our children.

Blankenhorn concludes his introduction by saying,

If our national debate on same-sex marriage is finally to be redemptive rather than divisive, it needs to meet two tests. First, it must not only accept but also deepen and advance the principle that all persons are equal in rights and dignity. Second, it must also help us rediscover and renew marriage as the main protector of our children and our primary social institution" (8).

I'm hoping that this book review generates some good discussion about this very important topic.