Can a couple enjoy and even happily endure a marriage in the 21st century? Just 100 years ago the average divorce rate was about 10% according to Audrey Jones who is a current divorce attorney. Today in 2016, the divorce rate has jumped to an almost staggering 50%. Not only is the divorce rate high, the amount of people who decide to marry is dropping each year. More couples are choosing to cohabit, have children out of wedlock or are choosing to live single. 

According to State of Our Unions: Marriage 2012 “As a culture we seem fixated on marriage, from the extravagant $50 billion we spend annually on weddings to our active debate about same-sex marriage, especially among high school but not college educated young people, for whom raising children amid unstable cohabiting relationships and serial partnerships is in danger of becoming the new norm. This rapid decline of marriage among the almost 60 percent of the nation who are high school educated but not college educated, those whom we might call “Middle America,” has been dramatic. As recently as the 1980s, only 13 percent of the children of moderately- educated mothers were born outside of marriage. By the late 2000s, this figure rose to a striking 44 percent. And in marked contrast to past calls for attention to changing trends in family structure, today almost none of our political and social leaders are talking about this dramatic change.” 

I believe it’s safe to say that we can all agree that there has been an evolutional change from the thousands of years of traditional marriage. Usually we see that history repeats itself. However, when it comes to marriage, history is not repeating itself. Our so called "normal" marriages have changed and now we see a greater abundance of cohabiting couples, single mothers and same sex marriage is now legalized in our society. Is the decline in our society and the American economy due in part to the lack of traditional family unions? 

“Marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution. Marriage fosters small cooperative unions—also known as stable families—that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times. Researchers are finding that the disappearance of marriage in Middle America is tracking with the disappearance of the middle class in the same communities, a change that strikes at the heart of the American Dream.” Stated by State of Unions; Marriage 2012.  

Marriage is necessary for an economy to thrive and from The Family: A Proclamation to the the World we learn that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” Both spiritually and temporally, marriage and the family are necessary for the success of any civilization and is a commandment of God. We have both an obligation and duty to support and sustain this sacred institution.