After four decades of rising government spending to
treat the effects of broken families, a cultural shift in attitudes
toward marriage is evident across America. Elected officials,
social scientists, community leaders, and policymakers across the
ideological spectrum are admitting that strong marriages--not
government intervention--are key to improving social and personal
well-being. Increasingly, research is showing that children in
married families are healthier, perform better in school, live in
poverty less frequently, and are involved in crime or other
destructive behaviors less often. But as marriages fail, social
problems and social spending to deal with those problems
increase.
However, lawmakers and private groups
around the country are working to make marriages better, more
stable, and more frequent, and are working effectively to reduce
the incidence of divorce. For example Oklahoma has set aside $10
million of its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds
for its marriage initiative and Arizona has passed legislation
setting aside $1 million annually for the same. Florida and Utah
have passed legislation to include marriage education in the high
school curriculum. Louisiana introduced "covenant marriage" laws
increasing the time couples voluntarily remain separated before
divorcing, and Arizona followed suit. Covenant marriage legislation
has been passed by one house in Georgia, and Oklahoma, Oregon, and
Texas. Governors Mike Huckabee (R) of Arkansas and Michael Leavitt
(R) of Utah are promoting creative policies that encourage and
reinforce marriage; and Utah is sponsoring annual marriage summits
to focus attention on ways to strengthen marriage.
In
addition, the following programs in various communities around the
country are having especially good results in encouraging marriage
and discouraging divorce:
-
Marriage Savers, a set of
church-based programs, is helping to reduce divorce rates by up to
30 percent at the city level and is virtually eliminating divorce
at the church level. A full-service program would include seven key
activities: a minimum four-month preparation course before
marriage; a pre-marriage assessment of the couple's individual
opinions on significant issues; training for mentoring couples in
how to use inventory results to facilitate discussion about areas
on which the couple disagrees; a program to strengthen existing
marriages, such as Marriage Encounter, Marriage Alive, or Family
Builders; a program to help troubled marriages; mentoring for
stepfamilies; and a ministry for separated couples.
-
Community Marriage Covenants in
cities across America are networks of congregations and civic
leaders who rally communities to focus on efforts to increase
marriage and decrease divorce. In Modesto, California, the divorce
rate has plunged 47.6 percent since 95 pastors signed the covenant
in 1986. In Kansas City, Kansas, the number of divorces has dropped
by 32.5 percent in just two years after 40 pastors signed the
covenant. Across the river, in Kansas City, Missouri, which has no
such covenant, the number of divorces increased over the same
period.
- The Best Friends program in
Washington, D.C., has reduced out-of-wedlock births among its
members by as much as 90 percent and has led about the same
percentage to pledge to remain sexually abstinent until
marriage.
Despite such mounting evidence that
focusing attention on the importance of marriage can decrease
divorce as well as the wide-ranging and costly effects of family
breakdown, state spending to try to reduce divorce has been
limited. In the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, Congress made clear
that it wanted states to use TANF funds to strengthen marriages.
Specifically, Congress stated that the money should be used to "end
the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting
job preparation, work, and marriage"; "prevent and reduce the
incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual
numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these
pregnancies"; and "encourage the formation and maintenance of
two-parent families." However, only Oklahoma has done so thus
far.
Objections to government spending on
marriage promotion and divorce prevention are based on a
misunderstanding of the connection between the breakdown of
marriage and the demand for welfare and social services, as well as
the government's responsibility for the destruction of marriage
among the poor through regulations that penalize marriage.
Washington and the state governments can
do more to try to increase the incidence of marriage and reduce the
rate of divorce. First, they should set clear, attainable goals.
Congress should establish a goal, for example, of reducing divorce
and out-of-wedlock births by 33 percent by 2010 and mandate that
surplus TANF funds be spent to evaluate and promote the relative
strengths of different programs in the state "laboratories of
reform." States should not wait for Congress, however, to get
behind the programs that are already achieving significant results.
They can begin using their surplus TANF funds today to meet their
unique needs. With clear goals, clear spending targets, and good
evaluation studies, government can play a constructive role in
rebuilding a family culture based on marriage.
--Patrick F. Fagan is
the William H. G. FitzGerald Senior Fellow in Family and Cultural
Issues at The Heritage Foundation.