Stacy Long

AFA Journal staff writer

September 2013 – As legal decisions in past months have made painfully obvious, marriage is under assault. And even within the traditional marriage model, there are warnings that marriage is in critical condition. 

Marriage rates are declining, as described in a comprehensive study from the National Marriage Project at University of Virginia, the Relate Institute and the National Campaign to End Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Titled “Knot Yet: the Benefits and Costs of Delaying Marriage in America,” (twentysomethingmarriage.org). the study examines trends among young people age 20-29 and discovers that they are delaying marriage longer than any prior generation. The report centers on one simple statistic: the average age for first marriage is at a historic high of 27 for women and 29 for men, and the delay in marriage has escalated rapidly in a short time. (See chart below.) 

Capstone or cornerstone
Delving deeper, Knot Yet evaluates the reasons that today’s young people increasingly delay marriage. Career advancement and fear of divorce are two primary considerations. Interestingly, the study reveals that young singles do not necessarily delay marriage because they devalue it. Instead, when surveyed, the majority rated marriage as “important” or “very important.”

In light of this discovery, Knot Yet uncovers another cause beyond obvious economic and personal factors. It determines that the underlying motivation for delaying marriage is a “capstone” approach to marriage, meaning that marriage is regarded as the crowning achievement after accomplishing all other personal goals. 

“Culturally, young adults have increasingly come to see marriage as a ‘capstone’ rather than a ‘cornerstone’ – that is, something they do after they have all their other ducks in a row, rather than a foundation for launching into adulthood and parenthood,” Knot Yet reports.

Delayed marriage has been a growing trend in every socio-economic group. However, while it may benefit college graduates, the study finds that delaying marriage has had severe and costly consequences for those in other spheres. For those whom Knot Yet identifies as Middle Americans (with a high school but not a college degree), reaching an economic ideal before marriage is an almost unattainable goal.

Crossing over
This perspective leads to the second trend highlighted in Knot Yet. Singles choose to cohabit as they wait to achieve desired qualifications for marriage. The study reports that young adults begin to cohabit at about the same age that they married in the past, and fewer wait until marriage to begin parenthood. 

“In fact, at the age of 25, 44% of women have had a baby, while only 38% have married; by the time they turn 30, about two-thirds of American women have had a baby, typically out of wedlock,” Knot Yet records. Overall, 48% of all first births in America are to unmarried women; among Middle American women, the figure is 58%. 

On average, women give birth one year before marrying, earning this trend the name “Great Crossover.” Searching for a cause for this second trend, Knot Yet examines evidence that single adults are more prone to experience depression and dissatisfaction with their lives than are their married peers. 

“Compared to married twenty-something men, their single and cohabiting peers are less satisfied with their lives and markedly more likely to drink too much,” the researchers state.

Thus, singles discouraged over fulfilling career or marriage aspirations may seek to derive purpose through parenting. As Knot Yet postulates, “For a woman whose nine-to-five is spent filling out insurance forms in a doctor’s office or even overseeing a sales staff at Staples, a baby might seem more enriching than a dollar-an-hour raise.”

Unfortunately, this situation means children are subject to the emotional instability of a transitory family life, with all of the associated harmful consequences. As the study points out, “Nearly 40% of cohabiting twenty-something parents who had a baby between 2000 and 2005 split up by the time their child was five; that’s three times higher than the rate for twenty-something parents who were married when they had a child.” 

The Great Crossover also negatively affects women. As Knot Yet points out, premarital births to women in their 20s were an exception to the norm in 1970, but now they are a majority. “Today’s unmarried twenty-something moms are the new teen mothers,” the report reads. “These women are not spending their twenties finding themselves or ‘getting their ducks in a row;’ they are providing for and raising young children, often without a husband – a path that has long been associated primarily with more disadvantaged women.”

Considering purpose
So, why is it that these Americans seek to emulate a model that does not benefit them? As suggested in an article for The Atlantic written by Karen Swallow Prior, writer and professor at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, the issue is one of worldview, a cultural mentality that defines the way Americans view marriage. 

In an interview with AFA Journal, Prior explained how a person’s worldview influences one’s approach to marriage and reviewed some significant views on marriage through history: the economic, companionate and hedonistic.

“In ancient biblical times and through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was pretty clear that marriage had an economic basis,” she said. “It was all connected to material realities, and when people thought about marriage, it really was dictated by economics.

“It was the evangelical movement in England in the early 18th century and the emphasis on individual faith that put importance on the role of marriage in faith. Basically, the evangelicals emphasized finding someone who was a good companion in your faith and could help you fulfill a faithful life of ministry. That idea of marriage, the companionate marriage, has continued to this day.”

But Prior said the prevalent view today is hedonistic, a view that interprets marriage as being all about self-fulfillment, which in turn makes pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, divorce and same sex marriage permissible – anything that promotes the greatest measure of self-fulfillment. 

“The hedonistic marriage – epitomized by the capstone approach – is about what will give most pleasure, and I don’t necessarily mean sexual pleasure, but just self-fulfillment,” Prior said. “As soon as marriage becomes something that’s not fulfilling, then that marriage can be ended because marriage exists only to be self-fulfilling. That’s why it’s seen as an option today to have different models of marriage. Gay marriage also becomes acceptable if the purpose of marriage is nothing more than to be self-fulfilling. In the hedonistic view, marriage doesn’t have any other social benefit or purpose.”

Cornerstone experience
Because this view is so pervasive in modern culture, as seen by the delayed marriage of the capstone approach, it may pass undetected even by Christians committed to a healthy, biblical marriage. Thus, it is very important for Christians to be aware of what worldview may be influencing their approach to marriage and to evaluate the implications of the Christian concept of marriage. 

In some ways, this can best be done through experience, as Prior testified in her article for The Atlantic:

As a college-educated, doctorate-holding woman, I can attest that marrying young (at age 19) was most beneficial: to me, to my husband and to the longevity of our marriage. Our achievements have come, I am convinced, not despite our young marriage, but because of it. Our marriage was, to use Knot Yet’s terminology, a “cornerstone” not a “capstone.”

We were poor in those early years. Not food stamps poor, but poor enough to be given groceries by our church without having asked. … It was not the days of ease that made our marriage stronger and happier: it was working through the difficult parts. We learned to luxuriate in the quotidian, to take wonder in the mundane, skills that have become even more valuable in our prosperous years. We invested the vigor of our youth not in things to bring into the marriage, but in each other and our marriage.

In light of her experiences, Prior offered a reminder that marriage is a field for God to work, even in humble ways or difficult times, and understanding that helps in fulfilling marriage’s true purpose. 

“When we learn to take the greatest joy in the ordinary, everyday things, that’s when life is richest, and marriage is richest,” Prior shared. “Marriage is a mystery, and God makes that clear all the time. We have to leave room for God to surprise us in mysterious ways.” 

Committed witness
Prior’s approach to marriage is ultimately based on the view that the purpose of marriage is greater than self-fulfillment or her and her husband’s relationship: 

“I believe that entering into marriage was entering into a commitment bigger than myself or my husband. Marriage is an entity bigger than myself that I need to remain committed to, even if I don’t feel particularly committed to my husband on a certain day or even to my beliefs and values. The purpose of marriage is to reflect the relationship of Christ and the church.”

Thus, a healthy view of marriage recognizes marriage as an institution, not formed only by each couple, but an existing entity entered into as a foundational priority for life and fulfilling Christian witness in a metaphor that lives out the reality of the union of Christ and the Church.

This is the view of marriage that Christians should articulate to children, friends and neighbors – a view that goes beyond labels of capstone, cornerstone, companionate, hedonistic or traditional. While non-Christians may not embrace or even understand it, the Christian model should demonstrate the sanctified nature of marriage, and Christians should never depart from that divine standard. 

Recommended resources
• Boundless.org
• Nationalmarriageproject.org
Sex and Money, Paul David Tripp. Go here to purchase the book or view the free podcast series by the same name.