Emperor Claudius didn’t believe
in marriage; marriage impeded his ambition. Claudius needed men for his army.
But Roman law forbade conscripting married men. So Claudius forbade new
marriages.
A Roman priest believed in
marriage. He continued marrying young couples, often secretly. His defiance discovered, he was beheaded on
14 February 278. The priest’s name? Valentine
Historians disagree over the
details of St. Valentine’s story, but clearly he believed in marriage when
influential people held marriage in disdain.
Since 1980 we’ve heard half of
new marriages will end in divorce. That statistic is no longer true, and it is
widely disputed; in fact, Sarah Jacoby suggests, “if [the] current trend continues, the vast
majority (about two-thirds) of marriages will never divorce.” (http://www.refinery29.com/2017/01/137440/divorce-rate-in-america-statistics.
Accessed 3 February 2018.) That’s still a lot of divorces but it’s clear a lot
of us believe in marriage, maybe more than in 1980.
If you believe in marriage, how
can you make that marriage last? A
tricky question.
Back in the day (my high school
days, at least), any lessons on making marriage last began with a warning about
“unrealistic expectations.” I think they were trying to tell us happily ever
after wasn’t what we imagined.
After my father died, my mother
used to say, “In forty-six years of marriage we never had a cross word.”
One doesn’t call one’s mother a
liar but I wonder if her memory might have been a bit blurred. No arguments?
Ever?
Doesn’t seem realistic. I suppose most people hearing her realized
she was looking at a past existing only in her dreams. They forgave her because of her grief.
Still, I wonder if some young
couple heard her and feared for the future of their marriage because they had
had such a battle just that morning over the empty toilet paper roll.
I don’t have a formula for a
conflict free marriage. But I will
comment on some of the ingredients seemingly associated with successful
marriages. As you will see, some of
these factors are more important than others.
Maturity
Under this heading, I am
including two factors usually mentioned as characterizing those whose marriages
have survived.
Age. Couples older than 25 when marrying for the
first time are less likely to see their marriages end in divorce. The optimum age for avoiding divorce is 28 to
32, according to one recent study. Of
course, if you married at age nineteen, you don’t need to worry; as with all
such statistics, these are generalities.
Still, if you know a twenty-one-year-old who can’t wait to get married
(to anyone), you might urge patience.
By the way, the claim that living
together before marriage increases the likelihood of divorce is still
valid. A Washington-state based family
law firm says it can increase the chances of divorce as much as 40%. Perhaps living together before marriage betrays
the absence of a fundamental element of maturity: the ability to postpone
gratification.
Education. For some
reason, still not fully explained, those with a college or university education
divorce less frequently than those without degrees.
Wendy Wang, writing for Pew
Research, breaks down the figures by gender.
She first explains how college-educated women have an almost 80% chance for
their marriages lasting over twenty years, compared to the national average of
about 50% and then adds:
While more-educated women have the highest
chances for a long-term marriage, college-educated men also stand out. Roughly
two-thirds (65%) of men with a bachelor’s degree could expect that, if they
marry, their first marriage will last 20 years or longer, compared with 50% of
men with a high school diploma or less. (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/04/education-and-marriage/.
Accessed 6 February 2018.)
Wang’s use of the questionable 50% national rate does not
diminish the fact the marriages of college-educated people last longer.
Of course, we may assume young
men and women who’ve had four years of college will know their needs and goals better
than will the high-school sweethearts who marry while the echoes of
pomp-and-circumstance are still bouncing around the auditorium. But it is not as easy to explain why a
twenty-five year old with a college degree is more likely to have a stable
marriage than a twenty-five year old who doesn’t. One reason Wang suggests
concerns financial stability: college graduates are more likely to have secure
jobs than less-educated members of the workforce. Increasingly, however, Wang’s suggestion will
carry less weight as becomes clearer a traditional college education is no
longer required if a young person wants a well-paying career; jobs in newer
technologies, for example, do not always demands a degree.
There are, doubtless, reasons unrelated
to preparation for a career that explain why an education should help
strengthen marriages. But this is not a
place to explore them.
Location
I love visiting Austin, Texas. It’s a lively, interesting
city. Though not as famous for its food as, say, New Orleans, Austin has some
great restaurants and you can eat at many of the best without taking a bank
loan. Some of the best BBQ in the nation
is available in Austin—I enjoy a place where I can also buy gasoline. Being the capital of Texas, you can satisfy
your steak cravings as well. Of course,
you can get fajitas and tacos everywhere. Looking for simpler meals? One street has so many independent,
non-franchise burger joints it would take two weeks to eat lunch at each of
them.
Even though Austin has a restaurant where servers wear shirts
saying, “I didn’t get to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian,” the
city also has many vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Bouldin Creek Café is my
favorite—no kidding.
Don’t make assumptions about places on the map.
Still, some surveys link the likelihood of divorce to your
location.
Here are some statistics from a 2013 survey cited by Jacoby,
“States have widely varying rates of divorce. Nevada and Maine have the highest
rates (around 14%)…. Other states with higher rates include Oklahoma, Florida,
Oregon, and Kentucky. On the other end, New York, New Jersey, Utah, California,
and North Dakota have some of the lowest rates (between 8.7% and 9.7%).” That’s right; California has a low divorce
rate.
I’m not sure everything those figures mean. They certainly
don’t mean if you live in Oregon, you should start packing to move across the
country to New York to save your marriage.
They do suggest living in a “red” state doesn’t protect you from divorce
and living in a “blue” state doesn’t mean you are likely to divorce. In fact,
George Barna found marriages in red states are more likely to end in divorce
than those in blue states.
While such snippets of information might be useful for
restarting stalled conversations at a wedding reception, where you live might
not be relevant to safeguarding your marriage from divorce.
Perhaps the best location is a place where you have friends
and a reliable support system.
Shared Religious Life
Just how religion helps in making
a good marriage is debated. I found
statistics claiming Southern Baptists are slightly more likely to divorce than
atheists. That’s disturbing but the
claim may require a little honest tweaking.
And, since I am a former Southern Baptist pastor, I think I have the
right to do that tweaking.
First, claiming to be a Southern
Baptist does not necessarily imply a deep commitment to the church. With some sixteen million members nationwide,
the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant group in
America. Yet, on any Sunday only half
those members are in any church. When I came
to the first church I served, it was proudly pointed out that the prosperous
businessman who lived across the street from the church was a member. In his forties, married and the father of two
children, he had joined the church when he was fifteen. Since the day he
joined, he had never again come to a service.
Southern Baptists spend millions
producing some of the finest Sunday school literature. Southern Baptist pastors spend many hours
each week preparing to preach on Sunday morning. That literature and those sermons will have
no impact on those not present to hear the lessons or the sermons.
This points up a second issue. We
Southern Baptists have not always been careful in spiritually vetting those
coming for membership. Some studies show
the average age of those baptized in our churches has been steadily dropping;
some of our churches have even reported baptizing four-year-olds. Phebe
Bartlett, converted under Jonathan Edwards’ preaching, is probably the most
famous child convert in the annals of American revivalism; her conversion
seemed genuine but may have also been exceptional. While I believe we should
remain hesitant about declaring who is and isn’t a believer, we need to admit
that sometimes those “making a profession of faith” in response to invitations
are doing little more than concurring, “This Jesus seems to be a pretty nice
guy.”
Though a greater percentage of
Southern Baptists may divorce than atheists, religion is not necessarily
ineffective in supporting and encouraging healthy marriages. As Jacoby says, “having a stronger connection
to religion tends to keep a
marriage more stable.”
In fact, important studies
suggest the likelihood of divorce decreases among those who regularly attend
church. The greater the commitment shown
to the local church, the greater the security manifested the marriage.
While I’d like to believe my
preaching on the nuances of the parousia or
the implications of Greek verbs helped keep marriages strong, I suspect it was
something else. A healthy church provides
a support system (koinonia) where
couples find encouragement and guidance from other, often older, couples who’ve
faced and overcome challenges in their marriages.
Children
Having children also seems to be a safeguard against divorce.
While “staying together for the kids” is sometimes maligned as a reason to
eschew divorce, studies seem to suggest divorce is less likely when a couple
has children.
The most doctrinaire Darwinist and the most unrepentant
young-earth creationist understand the presence of children in the home says, “Not
everything is about you.”
The common wisdom of centuries says a child needs a stable
home and two parents, a mom and a dad. This doesn’t mean a single parent can’t
raise a child successfully; it does mean an already tough job will be tougher.
Try as they might, moderns sociologists cannot escape this
reality. Some are more honest about it than others.
We might expect groups like Focus on the Family to defend the
“traditional family,” but sometimes support comes from unexpected sources. In 2008, the UK Daily Mail reported on a study made by researchers at Uppsala
University in Sweden. The study concluded not only that children need their
fathers but also “… found that children
who lived with both a mother and father figure had fewer behavioural problems
than those who lived with their mother only.” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-513962/Dads-DO-matter-Why-children-brought-BOTH-parents-happier-successful.html#ixzz56GiEA5q8. Accessed 5 February 2018.) Both
boys and girls fared better if they had a positive relationship with both
parents. The duration the study (20 years) is important since it predates the
propagandistic furor surrounding the debate over same-sex marriage coloring
many recent proclamations about the superfluous role of the father in
child-rearing.
Couples staying together for the sake of their children are keeping
the future in view. If the mother and father can maintain a fundamentally civil
atmosphere in the home and demonstrate the give-and-take necessary to do the
job of parenting, they will likely bless the coming generation. Christian
couples who might have been considering divorce will inevitably realize their
need for God’s help in accomplishing the goal of raising spiritually and
emotionally healthy children.
At the same time, they may discover the issues feeding the
impulse to divorce will recede and they will genuinely want to stay together.
Before moving on, let me offer two cautionary notes.
First, nothing I have said should imply a troubled couple
should have children to forestall divorce.
That’s too risky and too unfair.
Second, several studies suggest couples with children are
often unhappier after children arrive in the home. As I read the remarks of young parents on
Facebook, remarks suggesting their children are the brightest and cutest who
ever toddled across the floor, those studies seem questionable to say the
least. Still, their findings are
continually quoted.
To be honest, children bring changes, sometimes stressful,
changes. The wife who accuses her
husband of being infantile never really has to change his diaper. That’s not true of the little bundle just
home from the hospital. Toddlerhood,
childhood, and adolescence bring new stresses. But with time parents find those
stresses diminishing or, perhaps, their skills in handling the stresses
increasing. Consequently, older parents
generally can’t imagine ever feeling unhappy about having their children.
Of course, children can sometimes limit both the mother’s and
the father’s opportunities for career advancement, though—to be honest—the
mother is most often impacted. But
dealing with this disappointment challenges parents to carefully assess their
priorities, to determine what is important.
Charles Swindoll has said, “Each day we are making deposits
in the memory banks of our children.” I
certainly think that’s true. It may also
be that modeling a good marriage before our children will be the best safeguard
against their own marriages ending in divorce.
This Valentine’s Day, as you gush
over the candy, the flowers, or the cards, say a good word for marriage. Let people know you believe in marriage.
