Research on marriage confirms
value of chastity

By Daniel Sarell

For all of the pastoral teaching that informs our ministries to families, analyzing the latest social data is equally helpful, telling us what is happening in our society and how the Church can respond in a timely way.

At Rutgers University in Camden, N. J., the secular National Marriage Project publishes an annual report called “The State of Our Unions.” This report is especially helpful for identifying areas where we as Church might focus our energies for evangelization and in developing ministries that promote chastity.

The 2004 report found that teenagers who get married are up to three times more likely to divorce than those who marry later in life, and women who have children before marriage are less likely to find a spouse.

According to the study, people of similar “values, backgrounds and life goals” are more likely to stay married. That might seem obvious, but how many times have we heard the phrase “opposites attract” in conversations about romance?

The study also indicated that introductions made by “family, friends or acquaintances” are more likely to lead to marriage. These introductions account for 60 percent of marriages and suggest that chance meetings, dating services and nightclubs are not the best ways to meet one’s mate.

Singles who are ready for marriage may do well to lay off the Internet chat, get involved in parish activities and have an open mind when Mom invites her single accountant to Sunday dinner.

The report’s findings on divorce are also very telling. Children of divorce are “slightly less likely to marry and much more likely to divorce.”

I am reminded of a recent discussion with a married man whose parents were divorced. “Divorce” for him is like a room toward which he is always tempted to escape when times are tough. Awareness of that temptation strengthens him to seek reconciliation with his wife, rather than giving up easily.

As more children of divorce become married adults, we should not minimize the effects that their divorce experience will have on their own marriages, and we must find ways in our parishes to compassionately include younger children of divorce without stigmatizing them.

Despite popular theories that the divorce rate among those who live together before marriage will decline as cohabitation becomes more common and accepted, the data remains consistent, confirming the conclusion that cohabitation leads directly to unsatisfying and conflicted marriages and “eventual divorce.”

Challenging young people to resist cohabitation might make us seem “out of touch.” But when we are not courageously prophetic through gentleness and compassion, not only are we passively condoning immoral behavior, we also are setting ourselves up for another generation of children from broken homes.

We strongly urge pastoral ministers to educate themselves on these issues and “be not afraid.”

Alas, there is good news about marriage in the report.

Marriage leads to “healthy, productive behavior … wealth accumulation,” and more satisfying sex than cohabiting couples.

While the divorce rate has held steady at about 50 percent, those couples who delay their first marriage until after college or until their mid-twenties, have not lived with different partners and/or are “strongly religious and marry someone of the same faith” all have divorce rates “far below 50 percent.”

The correlation between education and successful marriage is strong, suggesting that education “gaps” by race and gender should be closed because more equal access to education will make for healthier families in the future. Remember this when pledging your annual support to center-city and home mission Catholic schools.

Still think the Church is out of touch? This research was not conducted by moral crusaders, but by social scientists that impartially collect data.

It is by grace, not by accident, that prudent, chaste and faith-filled behavior leads to healthy and satisfying marriages. We should not judge others harshly, yet how would we be judged if we have not lovingly reached out with integrity to married couples and those discerning marriage, a sacramental vocation so vital to the life of the Church?

(Daniel Sarell is director of Family Ministries for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis) †