Is Marriage Becoming Obsolete?

A new study by the Pew Research Center indicates that 39 percent of Americans believe that marriage is becoming obsolete.

As noted in the “Executive Summary” of the study:

The transformative trends of the past 50 years that have led to a sharp decline in marriage and a rise of new family forms have been shaped by attitudes and behaviors that differ by class, age and race, according to a new Pew Research Center nationwide survey, done in association with TIME, complemented by an analysis of demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A new “marriage gap” in the United States is increasingly aligned with a growing income gap. Marriage, while declining among all groups, remains the norm for adults with a college education and good income but is now markedly less prevalent among those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The survey finds that those in this less-advantaged group are as likely as others to want to marry, but they place a higher premium on economic security as a condition for marriage. This is a bar that many may not meet.

On the face of it, such an assertion—that economic security and marriage could be competing values—ought to be unthinkable in a culture worthy of the name. The marital union stands as the fundamental social unit as the bedrock of human civilization, and marriage is the normal context of the next most important level of community: the bond between parents and children. The bonds of husband and wife, father and mother and children, are the fundamental context of human existence, from which economic security is often a secondary benefit. When economics are placed in competition with marriage, the economic situation has gone dangerously awry.

I believe there are many reasons why this is happening, but fundamentally, a growing number of Americans simply do not believe in the authority of Scripture. They do not believe the Bible is true or relevant today. This is directly responsible for the breakdown in biblical values. For a hundred years liberal scholars have undermined Scripture and the Living God by first casting subtle doubt on the historicity of the Bible, beginning with Genesis. This is key in understanding where we are today. 

After decades of liberals mocking foundational truths, such as the God-instituted “one-man for one-woman” concept, we no longer know who we are.  God designed men and women to complement each other in every way and thus produce children and inhabit the earth. This was His mandate.

But the Genesis accounts of origins and early human history have been rendered unbelievable (which I find unbelievable) by God-hating critics, who present themselves as earnest, sincere truth seekers. In fact, they are God-haters who want everyone else to share their diabolical worldview. Many other examples could be cited of these competing worldviews. Look at Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it…”

If our culture believed that the Bible is true, you would see healthy marriages everywhere, instead of the train wrecks that are commonplace in our homes.