For Catholics, marriage is a sacrament. A loving, faithful, permanent union of husband and wife mirrors Christ's sacrificial love for us; through marriage we also experience his Grace.
The Catholic tradition has always understood marriage as a natural relation as well. People of all faiths can get married and their marriages matter to God, children, each other, and the community. Marriage helps create and care for the next generation, helping to satisfy men and women's deep human longings for connection with each other, and children's longing to know and be known by their own mother and father. Marriage works by fostering commitment, trust, fidelity and cooperation between the sexes.
A large body of social science research now affirms the importance or marriage for the common good.
For example:
Marriage reduces the risk of poverty for children and communities. The majority of children whose parents don't get or stay married experience at least one year of poverty.
Fatherless households increase crime. Boys whose parents divorced or never married, for example, are two to three times more likely to end up in jail as adults.
Marriage protects children's physical and mental health. Children whose parents get and stay married are healthier and also much less likely to suffer mental illness, including depression and teen s
Both men and women who marry live longer, healthier, and happier lives. On virtually every measure of health and well-being, married people are better off than otherwise similar singles, on average.
Just living together is not the same as marriage. Married couples who cohabit first are thirty to fifty percent more likely to divorce. People who just live together do not get the same boost to health, welfare, and happiness, on average, as spouses. Neither do their children. Children whose parents cohabit are at increased risk for domestic violence and child abuse and neglect. Children born to parents who were just living together are also three times more likely to experience their parents' breakup by age 5.
Parents who don't get or stay married put children's education at risk. Children whose parents divorced or never married have lower grade point averages, are more likely to be held back a grade, and to drop out of school. They are also less likely to end up college graduates.
When marriages fail, ties between parents and children typically weaken, too. Adult children whose parents divorced are only half as likely to have warm, close ties to both their mothers and their fathers. For example, in one large national survey, 65 percent of adult children of divorce reported they were not close to their fathers (compared to 29 percent of adults from intact marriages).
Caring about marriage is thus part of our shared Catholic concern for children, the common good and social justice.
[Source; W. Bradford Wilcox et al. 2005. Why Marriage Matters: 26 Conclusions from the Social Sciences (NY: Institute for American Values) www.americanvalues.org]
Contact Us:
Office of Family Life/Respect Life
Diocesan Pastoral Center
PO Box 5147
701 Lawrenceville Road
Trenton, NJ 08638-0147 Phone: 609-406-7400 ext. 5558 Fax: 609-406-7403
E-mail: family@dioceseoftrenton.org
Director: Linda Richardson
