Recently, a published letter in my local newspaper stated that our understanding about marriage was based on nothing more than the idea of a woman being the property of a man! Hardly an inspiring thought!

Marriage continues to be attacked from a number of quarters as outdated and is constantly under pressure “to move with the times”, so this issue I think it would be good to consider the following under-stated yet enormous benefits that come from the marriage relationship.

Living together is not the same as being married

One study revealed that people who live together are more like single people than married when it came to issues such as physical and mental health, emotional health and what they earn. It also found that people who live together are more prone to violence and are less happy than married couples. Overall, the article I read stated that people who live together “are less committed to a lifelong relationship.”

Children of divorced parents are more likely to divorce in later life

In fact, the statistics say that the likelihood of children of divorced parents becoming divorced themselves in later life actually double and the chances of them becoming unmarried parents or being in an unhappy relationship also significantly increase.

Married men earn more than single men!

This may surprise many of you but studies have shown that “married men earn between 10 and 40 percent more than do single men with similar education and job histories”. Staggering! Some of the causes suggested are that married men have healthier lifestyles and gain an enormous amount from the support offered to them by their wives.

Children of traditional married couples do better at school

A survey of Aussie primary school children from a variety of different types of couples/partners showed that children from the traditional, married Mum and Dad relationship did better than others in every area of their education! The report stated, “Married couples seem to offer the best environment for a child’s social and educational development.”

Divorce negatively impacts a child’s health

In one study, conducted over a 70 year period, the life expectancy of a child from a divorced family, decreased by four years. In another study, 40 year old men whose parents had divorced were three times more likely to die than 40 year old men whose parents had stayed married. The writers of the report went on to say that “parental divorce sets off a negative chain of events” for children from divorced homes.

Divorced people are more likely to commit suicide than married people

A variety of studies and statistics show that suicide rates among divorced people are three times higher than those of married people and that they were “more than twice as likely” to attempt suicide than married people. Separated men are particularly at risk as they are “six times more likely to commit suicide than married men”. Divorced men between the ages of 35 — 44 are the most likely group of people in Australia to commit suicide.

The National Marriage Coalition has produced an excellent resource called “Why Marriage Matters” and it can be downloaded from their website at www.marriage.org.au. This paper makes a compelling case for the traditional understanding of marriage as being one man committed to one woman for life. And this is the order that God established for marriage in Genesis where we are told that “a man shall leave his mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

The authors of “Why Marriage Matters” state:
“Here is our fundamental conclusion: Marriage is an important social good, associated with an impressively broad array of positive outcomes for children and adults alike.”

Why does our society so stubbornly persist in seeking to undermine and destroy an institution that brings so much benefit to it? It truly does defy all logic! The ancient playwright, Euripides, coined the phrase “whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” He was describing his character, Medea, who murdered her own children to exact revenge upon her ex-lover. When sound thinking and logic are abandoned, we descend into madness and we ultimately destroy ourselves. As a society, we stand on the brink of a precipice and if we are not careful we will fall to our destruction.

Our community benefits as a whole from married Mums and Dads who are committed in love to each other, their children and to God — lets do all we can to get this positive message out into the mainstream in the coming year!