Decline Of Marriage And Possible Solutions To Reverse The Trend

[the171]

http://youtu.be/4m1EFMoRFvY

[the171]

But you don't have to put a ring on it if she doesn't want a ring. The single life is a vocation in itself.

[Norseman82]

True, but that doesn't give you a right to a spouse and also doesn't establish a requirement to marry, even if you're not going to be a religious.

 

One cannot on one hand tell a person that it is not good for him/her to be alone, that it is our job to be holy and that in order to avoid immorality people should get married, and then after all that turn around and criticize and scold people for wanting and trying to do the aforementioned.  Sorry, but that is talking out of both sides of one's mouth. 

 

 

 

And that hypocrisy may be one reason that people are losing respect for religion and why we are losing so many people (remember FPs post that referred to what Pope Emeritus Benedict said) and their envelopes.  

Edited February 23, 2014 by Norseman82

[arfink]

One cannot on one hand tell a person that it is not good for him/her to be alone, that it is our job to be holy and that in order to avoid immorality people should get married, and then after all that turn around and criticize and scold people for thinking they had a right to to the means to achieve those very aforementioned things.  Sorry, but that is talking out of both sides of one's mouth.  And that hypocrisy may be one reason that people are losing respect for religion and why we are losing so many people (remember FPs post that referred to what Pope Emeritus Benedict said) and their envelopes.  

 

You are either assuming that I said people do not have a right to seek marriage or you are conflating the right to seek marriage with the right to a marriage. You have no right to another person in marriage, it is a gift. No one has a right to a gift, that's why it's a gift.

[Norseman82]

The single life is a vocation in itself.

 

No, it is not.  You are  in error.  The CCC only considers marriage and "virginity for the sake of the kingdom" (which is clarified as ordained and consecrated/religious life) to be vocations.  Single is a "state of life", not a vocation.

[Norseman82]

You are either assuming that I said people do not have a right to seek marriage or you are conflating the right to seek marriage with the right to a marriage. You have no right to another person in marriage, it is a gift. No one has a right to a gift, that's why it's a gift.

 

That's like saying it's not good to starve or be dehydrated (since you could die), but food and water is a gift, not a right. 

 

 

As Catholics, we should spend more time helping each other find spouses instead of criticizing people like you and others have done here.  That might help reverse the trend. 

 

I'm headed to bed now.  Dobra noc.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Norseman82

[arfink]

It's not a sin to be without sexual relations. Being without them does not assure you will fall into mortal sin and thus be damned, and in fact the Church expects a great many people to do completely without them, including many people who do not particularly have a charism for celibacy, and even some married people depending on circumstances. Your analogy is very weak.

 

Being married is not a requirement for salvation. Even for the non-religious. You will not automatically go to hell without being married.

 

Look, I know you've been jilted and feel gipped as a result. You talk about it frequently on Phatmass. You need to let go. Nobody is entitled to this stuff. As a guy who has been filled with bitterness and entitlement, I tell you man to man, for you own good, this will poison all your relationships.

Edited February 23, 2014 by arfink

[Norseman82]

It's not a sin to be without sexual relations. Being without them does not assure you will fall into mortal sin and thus be damned, and in fact the Church expects a great many people to do completely without them, including many people who do not particularly have a charism for celibacy, and even some married people depending on circumstances. Your analogy is very weak.

 

Being married is not a requirement for salvation. Even for the non-religious. You will not automatically go to hell without being married.

 

Look, I know you've been jilted and feel gipped as a result. You talk about it frequently on Phatmass. You need to let go. Nobody is entitled to this stuff. As a guy who has been filled with bitterness and entitlement, I tell you man to man, for you own good, this will poison all your relationships.

 

For some - actually, many, if not most - being single is a major obstacle to holiness.  As Christ mentioned, not everyone can handle lifelong celibacy, be it the physical or the emotional demands. 

 

Dobra noc.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Norseman82

[the171]

If celibacy is an obstacle to holiness, teenagers will never be holy.




Oh wait Frassati, Chiara, Maria Goretti, and mooooooore

[Deus te Amat]

saying that you have the right to a wife is like saying you have a right to 72 virgins after you die.

 

God gave us free will, after all. The woman has a choice, too.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Deus_te_Amat

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I'm serious, i truely believe t.v, movies and top 40 radio is a big part in this problem, switch on t.v - switch off wife, switch on game - switch off parents, etc. And pre t.v, movies and radio the divorce rate outside of the church was possibly relatively high anyway,i don't really know may be a good thing to search, and contrary to popular belief in general probably 30-40% of the population of the Christianised nations where still pagan, i don't think it was ever 100% or even over 60%  Christians for most nations, there was the rare few that got up to like 80%, i don't know honestly but that is my inkling. And what is the divorce rate and annulment rate in the holy catholic church ? And there is a difference between both I'm told but I'm unsure what the difference is. Perhaps with in the walls of holy mother church you may find the divorce rate and or annulment rate no where near as high as outside of her mantle of protection.

 

All ye lay chaste saints, martyrs and heroes pray for us. :)

 

God iz GOOD.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye

[Maggyie]

I'm enjoying that you're chiming in on the op's side Norse... It's rich I tell you, rich!

OP, The marriage rate is in decline but also the divorce rate. If the wife is over 26 on her wedding day, has the same religion as the groom and is college educated, the likelihood of divorce becomes much much smaller , indeed. The same holds true in other countries like the UK. Double digit declines in the divorce rate etc.

So there's not so much a risk of divorce as a risk that you won't find someone willing to marry you. (If you are poor, that is. Among the upper middle class the women are still eager to marry). It also helps if you are a Catholic man because there is a thick layer of single Catholic women looking to get married with ticking biological clocks. This is absolutely true and can be confirmed by examining the volunteer list of any parish or comparing the membership rolls of dating organizations like Catholic Match, Ave Maria etc. I think on Ave Maria they admitted it was a 70/30 split I think? Anyway men have their pick... And I'm sure you can select one with a low risk of divorce.

[blazeingstar]

For some - actually, many, if not most - being single is a major obstacle to holiness.  As Christ mentioned, not everyone can handle lifelong celibacy, be it the physical or the emotional demands. 

 

Dobra noc.

 

Again, Norse you make this very clear on not only Phatmass, but on other boards (i suspect by the similarity in posting) how very bitter you are about your lack of spouse.

 

In some respects I find it strange that you even remain Catholic and dedicated to it's teachings when you so blatantly seem to not be open to either the understanding of God's will and aligning yourself with that or making whatever physical, psychological and emotional changes need to happen.

 

Before I met my fi, I was somewhat bitter, especially since I'd been played like a fiddle by an abusive man who managed to hide the fact he was married.  I went on several bad dates and had given up.  But I really shouldn't say I "gave up" I gave it to God's will.

 

I know plenty of people, both men and women, who are Catholic and yearn to  be married or have at one point.  Some have grave psychological issues that probably prevent them from ever entering in a valid marriage (or again in one woman's case).

Some didn't understand God's will because God somehow wanted them to wait until they were in their 50's.

Some in their 20's and 30's were overwhelmed with the desire for a spouse and family but then received the call.  In fact one of the most holy priests I knew tried to date for many years before in his 50's realizing that his desire was not Gods will and things weren't "working" because God wanted him to Himself.

 

My closest friend is in her mid-30's with a daughter.  She was invalidly married to a jerk, in the eyes of the church she's free to marry.  But both her physical appearance and the fact she has a daughter keeps good, holy men away. She has learned SO much about God and works to be holy every day. Yet that is the desire of her heart to truly have a spouse that God gives.

 

Yet, she is not bitter.  She waits on the Lord.

 

Her first marriage, on paper, ended in a divorce.  But the church doesn't even recognize her as having been married at all.    When counting the "divorce rate" I don't think it's fair to count her.  If she had been educated in the faith, been given the proper resources when her dad walked out in her childhood, she never would of made the decisions she did.

 

The decline of marriage is generational.  I think the single greatest way to reverse the trend is for single men to step back into the church and be men for all the children who are suffering now.  Single woman, especially older women seem to run the church.  Men need to get involved.

[Nihil Obstat]

It is true that simply being single is not a vocation in and of itself though.

 

Communio (summer 2010, "Living and Thinking Reality in its Integrity", David L. Schindler). 

16: "There is much that needs to be sorted out here. A state of life, properly understood, gives objective form to an "existential" as distinct from "office-bearing" participation in Christ's eucharistic love. Each of the baptized participates in Christ's Eucharist both existentially and "officially", in the sense that ordained priests are always first members of the Church, and that all members of the Church, by virtue of their Baptism, exercise a priestly office, manifest, for example, in the capacity themselves to baptize in certain circumstances. This emphatically need not, and does not, imply attenuation of the clear and profound difference between the laity and the ordained priesthood. What I mean to emphasize here is simply that a state of life, for example, consecrated virginity, is as such not a clerical state. It seems to me that an awareness that this is so opens the way to a deepened appreciation for the state of consecrated virginity as a distinctly lay state, recognized already officially by the Church in Pius XII's Provida Mater, and indeed in Vatican II's renewed teaching regarding the laity and their "wordly" vocation. My statement is also meant to carry the implication that the vowed life of the three evangelical counsels, which expresses the gift of one's whole self- possessions, body and mind- indicate the most objectively fitting existential form for the priest's office-bearing participation in the Eucharist and the sacramental life of the Church. But again, all of this needs more sustained development that can be offered in the present forum. For a reflection on the relation of the life of the evangelical counsels and the vocation of the laity, see Balthasar, Laity and the Life of the Counsels (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003).
17: The suggestion here that there are only two states of life [consecrated virginity or sacramental marriage] raises many questions within the Church today. On the one hand, there is the common perception that the priesthood as such is a state of life, which in the proper sense it is not. On the contrary, it has its sacramental-ontological reality as an office, indeed as an office that, as I have suggested, bears an objective fittingness for a vowed life of the three evangelical counsels. On the other hand, there is also an increasing tendency today to affirm that singleness as such can qualify as a state of life. But neither is this properly so, because a state of life requires saying forever to God in a vowed form. And the character of this vow that constitutes a state of life has its ultimate foundation in the dual character of the human being's original experience, in original solitude and original unity, or filiality and nuptiality, both of which have their center in God. A state of life, properly speaking, is the mature person's recuperation in freedom of one's call to fidelity to God forever, which occurs either through consecrated virginity, and thus remaining "alone" with God; or through marriage, and thus promising fidelity to God forever, through another human being. But it is nevertheless crucial to see here that the single life, if not (yet) actualized by either of these vows, does not thereby remain merely in a kind of neutral place where one remains suspended in a mode of inaction and unfulfillment. On the contrary, as we have indicated, there is a call for the gift of one's whole self implicit already in the act of being created: and this call is immeasurably deepened in the act of being baptized. The point, then, is that this call is actualized in the tacit and mostly unconscious fiat which, in receiving creation, and in turn the new creation in Christ, already begins one's participation in a promise of the gift of one's self to God. The call to be faithful to God forever with the wholeness of one's life is implied, and is already initially realized, in a natural form, at one's conception, and again, in a supernatural form, at one's Baptism. As long as one remains single, then, the relevant point is that one can already begin living the fiat of total availability to God, and, in this sense, realize the fundament of what becomes a state of life when recuperated in the maturity of one's freedom in the form of a vow of consecrated virginity or marriage. What one is meant to do as long as one is single, in other words, is to live one's total availability: to wait with active availability for God's will. Of course, it has to be recognized that humanity, and the cosmos as a whole, exists in a deeply disordered condition by virtue of sin. And therefore it has to be recognized as well that the call objectively to a consecrated state of celibacy or to marriage may never be historically realized- as is the case that everything in the cosmos exists in a broken condition, sometimes a seriously disordered condition that must be accepted, even with much suffering.

[NotreDame]

so this is a really important topic, but I don't think polskie guy started it well and the problems snowballed from there.  I'm going to chime in and probably piss a lot of you off, but with your comments you all have it coming.

 

Everyone at some point has probably heard that marriage is declining.  Fewer people, males especially, are rushing to get married because we live in a very different world and the forces that drove people to marry either no longer exist or have been significantly diminished.  Several decades ago, the playing field was very different.

 

-Cohabitation was culturally unacceptable

-Premarital sex was less common

-Virgins of both sexes were easier to find

-Divorce wasn't as rampant as it is now

-Family court was not ultra-biased against males like it is today

-The culture was friendlier towards marriage and family values

-Guys wanted to get married because they felt like they actually gaining something from it

 

Nowadays, take every point I just typed and reverse it.  Those are exactly the reasons why marriage is declining in the Western world.  In some western countries that are more culturally liberal in the US, you basically have a glimpse of what the US will be like relatively soon.  Many religious groups, including the Catholic Church, have spoken out against this trend and the destabilizing effect it’s having on society.  Politicians like Bush have tried to throw some money at the issue by encouraging marriage amongst lower class people.  But so far the trend has shown no signs of reversing itself.  Not enough people are talking about the lack of incentives that young people have to get married.  Pretty much the only groups of people who are talking about the lack of incentives to get married are

 

1) men who have sworn off marriage under all circumstances

2) men who have just gone through a divorce and realized how anti-male the family court system really is

 

This was an interesting video I came across a few weeks ago that touches on the topic.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D33L4zxjpH0

 

I wanted to see what other Catholics have to say about the matter.  Do you agree that the only way to reverse the trend is by offering practical legal and economic incentives?  Or do you see another solution to the problem?

 

So there are 3 separate cultural problems here, not necessarily interrelated.  The rise in illegitimacy, the decline in the marriage rate, and the delay in marriage and decline in birth rate among those not affected by the prior two issues.  I think - based on the fact that I've followed her husband's blog for over 10 years - Dr Helen Smith (the woman in the video) would to some extent agree with this characterization. 

 

Also, you are bringing Catholicism into it and then you sort of back out here and later in the thread and say "I'm interested in legal solutions", so catholicism doesn't really play a role at all in what you are looking for.  I'll be honest that I'm kind of upset with you because this is a really important topic and yet the it became incredibly derailed and stupid and the blame for that lies first with your confused post, so own it.

 

I don't think 'incentives' are reasons why people get married (at least, for women), but I think disincentives certainly turn people away from getting married. People usually don't need any more incentive to get married other than them being in love. Get rid of the reasons why people choose to postpone marriage, and you'll have more people getting married.  I know plenty of people who would be married now if they could afford it - something to do with having lots of (student) debt and our culture's obsession with having a big expensive wedding. 

 

You say you don't see a lot of "incentives" playing a role beyond "love" and I'd say that's fair since there aren't a lot of obvious positive secular incentives to get married among people your age.  As you get older you'll see that women will absolutely start to get baby-fever in their early 30's and men will absolutely get lonely and want to "settle down".  However it's true that there are a lot more negative incentives in one's 20's, but those don't always go away and this increase in negative incentives is what's partially causing the decline in marriage. 

 

There's also this idea in society that you need "all of your ducks in a row" before getting married. You need to establish a good-paying and solid career, have money in the bank, and be able to afford an expensive ring and even more expensive wedding. In this era of student debt, none of these things usually happens until people are in their late 30's. Add onto the fact that people also won't have children until after a few years of marriage, because again, they need these mythical pesky ducks in a row. This actually reminds me of what one Catholic apologist said when someone asked him if it was okay to wait to have children after marriage until he had the money: "It depends on your economic situation, but I'll tell you, I have five children, and if I waited to have them until I had the money, I wouldn't have ever had them."

It's really sad in a thread on marriage when a 17yo with limited life experience makes the most sense, but this post and your next are closer to the mark than any other post on this thread.  When you go on to say that these are cultural/secular issues that aren't going to change because society's going to become increasingly immoral per B16... well, you nailed it. 

 

Premarital sex was common in bygone eras. It just wasn't talked about unless a problem came up. As to divorce courts being against men, actually in the old days custody in divorce courts wasn't given to either party. My mom didn't go through with divorcing her first husband until she had my Dad lined up for fear she'd lose my two older brothers to foster care. Kids would go to relatives or orphanages until one of the parents remarried.

CM - normally you make a ton of sense, but it sounds like you got annoyed by the poster (as did I) and are trying to make him feel dumb and - in the process - you are being a bit less than genuine.

 

Premarital sex was common before the 60's, yes, but promiscuity was not common nor did it exist on any scale that it does now.  There was not as much premarital sex, not by as many people and not with as many partners.  To try to equivocate like you are doing is disingenuous or dumb and you aren't dumb.

 

At the same time, it was wrong for people back then to shame people who had premarital sex and conceived children out of wedlock and turn them into outcasts. Those people need love and pastoral care and correction, not to be shunned.

I'm not saying you were saying differently, but just clarifying.

First, "the scarlet letter" was not representative of society at large, so don't get the idea that people were literally turned into "outcasts"...

 

But this "cultural shaming" was a big part of the reason the illegitimacy rate was so low before.  You knew if you got somebody pregnant you needed to marry them.  There was no abortion mill... there was no St Anne's.. you couldn't blame it on the girl lying about being on the pill... and the woman couldn't just go to school, get a career, and support herself and the kid like she might be able to do today. 

 

You knocked a girl up, you were on the hook for it and families (especially the girl's) family wasn't going to let you get away with it (hence the term shotgun wedding.) 

 

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Wow, and this was just the first page and it gets worse from there, so this probably where I'll stop.