Divorce rates have fallen from their peak in the early ’80s, the deep pain often felt by children of divorce is openly acknowledged, and young Americans typically express both fear and a moral horror at divorce. They are determined not to repeat the mistakes of previous generations; avoiding divorce is a constant anxiety, even obsession.

But as with most purely reactionary cultural movements, the revolt against divorce has been much better at targeting what it rejects than figuring out what it’s for. In a strange, sad twist, the divorce counterrevolution has only weakened our marriage culture more.

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As a society, we are confused. Motherhood is detested. Motherhood is seen as an independent woman being stripped of her individuality and forced to breed, barefoot and pregnant trapped in a kitchen. How wrong is that image! Motherhood happens when an independent woman lovingly serves her fellow beings by raising the generations of people who will raise the banner of goodness and liberty in our nation.

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When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

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The answer lies in norms fundamental to the nature of marriage. Ideally, marriage is characterized by permanence and fidelity, which foster a uniquely strong and enduring relationship. Marriage is not merely a union of hearts and minds, nor is it only a romantic or sexual partnership. It is a comprehensive union that unites a husband and wife across all dimensions of the person.

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An increasing number of young Americans who have completed high school but not college are having children in fragile cohabiting relationships instead of within marriage. Even those who are married face a high divorce rate, being more than twice as likely to divorce in the first ten years of marriage as their college-educated peers. As Wilcox and Cherlin state in their paper, “The nation’s retreat from marriage, which started in low-income communities in the 1960s and 1970s, has now moved into Middle America”.

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Share A claim recently made in a premier family science journal raised a question that likely would have shocked previous generations: “Does having a mother really matter?” The claim was based on the premise that mothers do not provide anything particularly unique to children’s development. Rather, all that children need for healthy development is two [...]

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