Marriage Matters. It’s Important!

This blog post is a continuation of my series on the advantages and disadvantages of marriage. Today’s post deals with the impact of marriage on children.

Healthy marriages have a dramatic effect on the health and welfare of children.

High school students from intact families “outperform those students from divorced families across all categories,” including having grade point averages 11% higher and missing nearly 60% fewer class periods than those from non-intact families. (J. of Divorce and Remarriage 38.3/4 2003:167-185)

Young women ages 13-19 that have ever lived with a single, solo, parent have a greater risk of having a premarital teen pregnancy than young women that have never lived with a single, solo, parent. (J. of Marriage and Families vol.66, 2004)

Marriage Matters. It’s Important!

This blog post is a continuation of my series on the advantages and disadvantages of marriage. Today’s post deals with the health implications of marriage.

Higher stress hormones—epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisone—and three related hormones are associated with higher probabilities of a husband’s withdrawal in response to a wife’s negative behavior during a conflict (J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 4/96,Vol.64.No.2,324-332). Abrasive arguments between husbands and wives are linked to weakening of certain immune responses and increase in levels of stress hormones, increasing susceptibility to illness, particularly infectious diseases and perhaps cancer. The more negative behaviors couples show toward each other, the more their immune measures are weakened (Psychosomatic Medicine 59:339-349). Couples who demonstrate negative behaviors toward each other during discussions—sarcasm, putdowns, overt nastiness, and dismissals—show indications of weakened immune systems compared to other couples who behave more positively. These results are found both for newlyweds as well as older couples married for many years (ibid.). Happily married people also show greater proliferation of white blood cells when exposed to foreign invaders than do other subjects (Gottman, The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work 1999,page5-6).

Marriage Matters. It’s Important!

Caring Hands Pregnancy Center, where my wife, Nancy, and I serve, is in constant contact with people who have poor quality or nonexistent marriages. For that reason, I am posting a series of articles on this blog recounting the reasons for good marriages and the problems that ensue because of their absence.

Studies now show that people with strong marriages tend to be healthier, happier, and live longer. Despite the stereotypes and negative portrayals in the media, the evidence is clear. It is good to be married!

An unhappy marriage can increase the chance of illness by 35% and shorten life by 4 years. Happily married people live longer, healthier lives than divorced or unhappily married couples (J. of Marriage and the Family 41.267-285). Non-married women have a 50% higher mortality rate than married women. Non-married men have a 250% higher mortality rate than married men (J. of Marriage and the Family 52(1990):1061).

Virtually every study of mortality and marital status shows the unmarried of both sexes have higher death rates, whether by accident, disease, or self-inflicted wounds. This is found in every country that maintains accurate health statistics (J. of Marriage and the Family 52(1990):1061)

In the most recent national surveys, married men and women have a lower risk for death from heart attacks compared to other marital status categories and enjoy a better chance of returning to health when they receive a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (Psychological Bulletin 127,4,472-503).

The Love of God

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above would
Drain the oceans dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

How To Use Money We Don’t Have

I see in our neighborhood new playground equipment being installed in perfectly good playgrounds that, to me, seem adequate for our children. Streets that are in good repair are being torn up and replaced with new asphalt we don’t need and paid for with money we don’t have to produce jobs that don’t appear. Street corners where there is negligible traffic are being provided with expensive traffic lights and pedestrian walk lights where few people ever walk.

This is all being done with TARP money in order to “stimulate the economy.” Isn’t big government wonderful!

Sex-Starved Americans

Our society seems absolutely soaked in sex; and our population seems to be demanding even more of it! A recent Barna Group poll indicates that among Americans between the ages of 20 and 40, attitudes about sex are significantly less traditional and less moral from a Christian perspective than that of people over the age of 40. They “were twice as likely to have viewed sexually explicit movies or videos; 2½ times more likely to report having had a sexual encounter outside marriage; and 3 times more likely to have viewed sexually graphic content online.”

There is no need to recount the sexual explosion within the entertainment, advertising, and political worlds—these things are common knowledge to everyone.

This whole scenario is a disgrace to our people. We seem to have so little resource within ourselves that we can only gravitate to the basest qualities of our beings. We cannot think of anything better. So…we go to sex. Young people do not have enough strength to avoid anything but their “animal instincts” on which to rely.

David Kinnaman, the leader of the Barna Group who studied the sexual trends mentioned above had this to say about the study. “We expect to see this mindset of sexual entitlement translate into increased appetites for pornography, unfiltered acceptance of sexual themes and content in media, and continued dissolution of marriages due to infidelity.”

But those who would cling to time-honored moral values should not throw up their hands in surrender. We should remember, as Randy Alcorn has said, “…in Sodom’s sexual revolution, God fired the last round.”

Hate America at its Worst

It seems that the “Hate America” bunch has reached its apogee of nastiness. Popular leaders seem unleashed in their freedom to bash America and the American people. It seems to me that they have no respect for the majority of decent Americans who love this country and stand for tried and true values.

For instance: Federal California District Court judge Vaughn Walker lately struck down Proposition 8 (a voter initiative that eliminated the legality of same-sex marriage in California) and opined that those who disagree with him—the majority of California voters—can be motivated only by bigotry. He stated, “Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.”

Mayor Bloomberg, of New York has said that residents who want the Islamic mosque moved away from Ground Zero are people who should be “ashamed of themselves.” Apparently, he disagrees with 61% of the New York population.

Nancy Pelosi has referred to people who disagree with her and do not like the health care bill as people who should be “carrying swastikas.” Name calling like the above is sure evidence that the speakers have lost a rational basis for debate—it always happens that when good and reasonable arguments are exhausted, debaters turn to name calling.

This blog post was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal opinion page of 8/10/10.