Marriage may be out of fashion but it still confers considerable benefits to adults and children, according to a comprehensive study on the state of the family.
The Office for National Statistics has published definitive proof that married couples live longer, enjoy better health and can rely on more home care in old age than their divorced, widowed, single and cohabiting peers. Children who live with their married parents are also healthier, and can expect to stay in full-time education for longer, whatever their economic background.
It has always been thought that marriage had a positive effect on health, but the findings are the most solid evidence yet that, despite rapidly changing social attitudes and an end to the stigma of divorce and lone-parenting, marriage is still good for you.
It will add fuel to an already heated political debate on the family. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has promised tax cuts for married couples, and to change the tax credit system so that couples with children receive as much as single parents.
Did I miss something? When did marriage go “out of fashion?”
Dear Bernini, Around the time MTV was started?
When I had my annual health assessment (what used to be called a “physical”) a month ago, my doctor said these very things. One of the major reasons I am in such good health at the age of 68, he said, is that I have a happy marriage. My wife and I have made an interesting life for ourselves together, in our time with family and especially our grandchildren, in our travels and living abroad, our scholarly achievements, and in the content we share in our day-to-day activities. I think most importantly, although we belong to different denominations, we share a common theological and sacramental life, a common commitment to a life of prayer and daily spiritual discipline. God has truly blessed our marriage, and part of God’s blessing is the gift of good health for us both.
perhaps not the 80’s although that was a dreadful decade after 83. i think it may have started around 1967…free love and all that…i remember seeing movies that made the idea of marriage seem quite old fashioned.
Marriage became unfashionable when committment became unfashionable. Commitment became unfashionable when both sexs could get what they wanted – immediate gratification – without committment. LM
The health and longevity statistics for those living out an active GLBT lifestyle are not good.
Marriage goes in and out of fashion. I was watching an old Doris Day movie (“By the light of the silvery moon”), where the boyfriend comes back from serving overseas in WWI, and expresses his belief that ‘marriage is an old fashioned convention’ and has no place in ‘modern society’. I think the movie was made in the 50’s???
At any rate, that belief was accelerated with the free love and open marriage movements of the 1960’s and and the ‘no-fault divorces’ of the 70’s. We are still seeing the fall-out from those.
Marriage has never been out of fashion in my family or my wife’s family.
We can both trace our family trees back at least six to eight generations and all of our ancestors were married to each other.
And, obviously, none of our ancestors shirked their procreational responsibilities.
Well, why can’t the institution be shared with gay people?
[blockquote] Well, why can’t the institution be shared with gay people? [/blockquote]
Because marriage is an immutable institution. It was established by God, and man does not have the authority to change its form. You can no more join two men in marriage than you can can invalidate the concept of adultery. If a couple declares their marriage to be “open” does that mean God will not hold them to account? Of course not, for they have no authority to make such a declaration. So also with two men who claim to be married. Their declaration of marriage is meaningless, for it comes without authority. Man cannot overthrow that which God has established.
carl