4 out of 10 Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete

The Pew Research Center recently conducted a survey of Americans’ view of marriage, and the results should be seriously troubling for anyone who believes that marriage is more than just a social construct that grows and fades with passing fads. According to the results released today, 39% of Americans believe that the institution of marriage has become obsolete, thinking that cohabitation and single parenting are perfectly acceptable equivalents. Only 43% surveyed are concerned about the increase in cohabitation and unmarried couples raising children, as well as the rise in gay couples raising children. Likewise, large percentages no longer see marriage as essential for establishing a family, as 80% say that an unmarried couple living together with children is a family, and 63% say that a gay or lesbian couple living together with children make up a family.

As Catholics, these trends should seriously concern us. We do not believe that marriage can be made obsolete over time. Instead, we believe that marriage is the fulfillment of God’s creation of humanity as male and female. As Jesus said to the Pharisees, “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk 10:6-9) Marriage is not merely a social construct that can be dispensed with when inconvenient or unpopular, but the fulfillment “of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man.” (CCC 1604)

As the Second Vatican Council put it in Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws…. God himself is the author of marriage.” (GS 48, as quoted in CCC 1603) Look at that last sentence again: “God himself is the author of marriage.” Marriage is not something granted by the government to be changed according to legislative whims. Marriage is not something grounded in an outmoded cultural context that can be disposed without concern. Marriage was established by God for our good and the good of society: “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.” (GS 47, as quoted in CCC 1603)

What does all this mean for us as Christians in general, and Catholics specifically? First, those who are called to the married state need to live their marriages according to God’s will and out of true concern for the well-being and salvation of their spouse. Second, those of us who are not called to married life need to support and defend the marriages of our parishioners, family members, and friends. Finally, all Christians need to stand up and defend the divine institution of marriage against cultural attacks, including the ready availability of divorce, so-called gay “marriage”, and high levels of cohabitation, among other threats. I strongly encourage all Catholics to read, reflect, and pray over the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s section on the Sacrament of Matrimony, starting with paragraph 1601, and continuing through to paragraph 1666.

Looking at the results of the Pew survey, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the United States is in serious trouble.