A Better Story by Harrison Glynn;

Author:Harrison, Glynn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4787021
Publisher: IVP
Published: 2016-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Marriage: the preserve of the rich

One of the paradoxes of modern life is that while the culture of marriage has collapsed in poorer communities, it seems to have stabilized, and may even be strengthening, among the better off. Take a look at the data for the UK, where the Office for National Statistics divides workers into seven social categories, with occupations such as company directors and university lecturers at the top end, and cleaners and waiters at the bottom end. According to one study, back in 2001 there was already a pretty big marriage gap when those in the top category were 24 per cent more likely to marry than those at the bottom. Since then that figure has doubled to 48 per cent.

The journalist who commissioned these data comments,

So a marriage gap that barely existed a generation or two ago has managed to double in the last decade with a minimum of public debate. Somehow marriage, with all the advantages that it confers, is becoming the preserve of the rich.3

Even as they undermine its importance for everybody else, today’s liberal elites seem to know something about marriage that they are keeping for themselves. But it is the poor and less educated who pay the price. The last great experiment with the ideological dismantling of the traditional family happened almost exactly 100 years ago after the Russian Revolution, and the outcome for the poorest was the same. One commentator writes,

Men took to changing wives with the same zest which they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored forty-per-cent vodka . . . Peasant boys looked upon marriage as an exciting game and changed wives with the change of seasons. It was not an unusual occurrence for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions.4

It took Joseph Stalin to reverse the policies that wreaked such havoc among the poor.

In keeping with this overall pattern, the retreat from marriage in the US hits African-American and poor communities the hardest of all. And the story continues to unfold. In the States the collapse of marriage appears to be creeping up the income ladder and spreading to the middle class too. And with surprising speed, as W. Bradford Wilcox observes:

Wherever we look among the communities that make up the bedrock of the American middle class . . . the data tell the same story: Divorce is high, non-marital childbearing is spreading, and marital bliss is in increasingly short supply.5

This spread to middle-income groups does not augur well for the future either:

For if marriage is increasingly unachievable for our moderately educated citizens – 58% of the adult population (age 25–60) – then it is likely that we will witness the emergence of a new society . . . children’s life chances will diminish, and large numbers of young men will live apart from the civilizing power of married life.6

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