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02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 13 Marriage as a Public Issue Steven L. Nock Summary Over the past fifty years, powerful cultural and social forces have made marriage less central to Americans’ family lives. In reaction, the United States is now engaged in a wide-ranging debate about the place of marriage in contemporary society. In this article, Steven Nock examines the national marriage debate. He begins by reviewing the social and demographic trends that have changed the role of marriage and the family: the weakening link between marriage and parenthood caused by the contraceptive revolution, the declining significance of marriage as an organizing principle of adult life, and the increasingly accepted view that marriage and parenthood are private matters, relevant only to the individuals directly involved. He then considers the abundant scientific evidence on the positive consequences of marriage for both the economic well-being and the health of American adults. He notes that based partly on the evidence that marriage is good for adults and children, numerous public and private groups, including religious activists, therapeutic professionals, family practitioners, educators, and federal and state government officials, have initiated programs to strengthen marriage, lower divorce rates, reduce out-of-wedlock births, and encourage responsible fatherhood. He then reviews some of those programs. Nock observes that although large cultural and social forces are driving the decline in marriage, most of the new programs attempting to restore or strengthen marriage in the United States focus on changing individuals, not their culture or society. He argues that the problem cannot be addressed solely at the individual level and cautions that given how little researchers and professionals know about how to help couples get or stay married, expectations of policies in these areas should be modest. But despite the shortage of effective strategies to promote marriage, he notes, a political, cultural, and scientific consensus appears to be emerging that the best arrangement for children is to live in a family with two loving parents. He believes that the contemporary marriage debate is an acknowledgment of the cultural nature of the problem, and views it as a crucial national conversation among Americans struggling to interpret and make sense of the place of marriage and family in today’s society. www.futureofchildren.org Steven L. Nock is a professor of sociology and director of the Marriage Matters project at the University of Virginia. VOL. 15 / NO. 2 / FALL 2005 13 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 14 Steven L. Nock F ollowing several decades of cally focused on such matters as reducing di- sweeping demographic, social, vorce. What is new—and remarkable—about and legal changes that have the current marriage movement is that its minimized the importance of purpose is to promote matrimony. marriage in U.S. society, a wide- ranging assortment of Americans—religious In certain respects, today’s marriage move- activists, family practitioners, therapeutic ment may seem surprising. After all, most professionals, educators, and state and fed- Americans value marriage highly, and the eral officials—is now conspicuously promot- overwhelming majority marry at some point ing marriage. Public discussions of family for- in their lives.2 Indeed, by international stan- mation often support the goal of having all dards they marry at high rates and divorce at children raised in healthy, married families. lower rates than they did two decades ago. Social science research offers evidence that But the institution of marriage has recently marriage, unlike other family structures, con- undergone dramatic transformation. Rapid fers special benefits on both adults and chil- demographic and social changes in the dren. Public policymakers promote stable United States over the past four or five marriages and discourage unmarried births. decades have fundamentally disrupted tradi- Congress has declared out-of-wedlock births, tional marriage and family patterns. What reliance on welfare assistance for raising chil- once forcefully organized American life no dren, and single-mother families contrary to longer does so. In many respects, the current the national interest. This article reviews this debate about marriage represents the na- renewed national interest in marriage, focus- tion’s attempt to interpret and make sense of ing first on the demographic trends behind these wrenching social changes. the debate and then on the scientific evidence about the consequences of marriage Demographic Trends for the economic well-being and health of The chief demographic and cultural trends Americans. It next identifies the primary ac- driving the marriage debate have been the tors and activities involved in the marriage- weakening link between marriage and parent- promotion effort, and concludes by consider- hood, the declining significance of marriage ing the significance of this renewed national as an organizing principle of adult life, and focus on marriage. the increasingly accepted view that marriage and parenthood are private matters, relevant Marriage as a Public Issue only to the individuals directly involved. Marriage is no stranger to national debate in the United States. It has been at the center of In his article in this volume, Andrew Cherlin a variety of American social, religious, and provides a full discussion of the demographic political movements over the nation’s history. shifts over the past half-century in the way Past political activists, most at the state level, Americans organize their households and have worked to deny access to marriage to families. The most significant for my discus- certain groups—slaves, people of certain sion are the following.First, people now post- races, certain categories of immigrants, or pone marriage to later ages. They often live homosexuals—or to grant married women in their parents’ homes, with friends, or with greater legal rights or to liberalize divorce unmarried partners, thus increasing the time laws.1 Social and religious activists have typi- adults spend unmarried. Second, more cou- 14 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 15 Marriage as a Public Issue ples now live together without getting mar- able to reduce births of children for whom no ried, either as a precursor or an alternative to male kin were obviously and legitimately re- marriage or as an alternative to living alone. sponsible. The availability of such alternatives naturally makes marriage less central to domestic life. Children born outside marriage were denied Third, high divorce rates and births to un- certain legal rights, such as inheritance and married mothers leave more households claims on paternal assets. These children— headed by single parents, increasing the time and their mothers—were also stigmatized in both adults and children spend outside mar- the eyes of the community. By such means, ried-couple families. Fourth, because more communities effectively limited the number women, especially more married women, are of births outside marriage. But once effective in the labor force, the prevalence of one- wage-earner, two-parent families—what has By restricting sex to been called the “traditional” family—has de- clined. Finally, delayed and declining fertility marriage, communities were and increasing longevity result in fewer chil- able to reduce births of dren, smaller families, and longer lives, adding to the time parents spend “post- children for whom no male children” and to the number of married couples without children.3 kin were obviously and legitimately responsible. These five demographic trends reflect other important social and economic changes, including increasing equality between the sexes, the legalization of abortion, increasing contraception uncoupled sex from fertility, tolerance for diverse lifestyles, and liberal- this social justification for marriage became ized laws governing divorce. Perhaps the irrelevant. The convention of “shotgun” wed- most important change, however, has been dings, for example, gradually disappeared.5 the development of effective birth control. Before the advent of effective contraception and legal abortion, a wedding to avoid the Gaining Control of Fertility stigma of an illegitimate birth typically fol- The centrality of marriage in American cul- lowed a premarital pregnancy. That it no ture and law during the nineteenth and twen- longer does so illustrates the changing under- tieth centuries can be understood, in part, as standing of the importance of marriage for a consequence of poorly controlled fertility.4 births. As long as sexual intercourse naturally re- sulted in births, marriage (or engagement) The birth control pill was introduced in was the only permissible venue for sex. Mar- 1960. Within a decade, more than a third of riage was an institutional and societal all married women in America were using arrangement that allocated responsibility for oral contraception. There was also a note- children. No alternative civil or religious worthy increase in voluntary sterilization arrangement could accomplish that task, ex- among women older than age thirty. Indeed, cept in extraordinary circumstances. By re- by 1970, six in ten American married women stricting sex to marriage, communities were were using medical, effective, non-coitus- VOL. 15 / NO. 2 / FALL 2005 15 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 16 Steven L. Nock related methods of birth control. Ten years Sexual intercourse was long the legal sym- earlier, wives had extremely limited access to bolic core of marriage; consummation de- contraception, and much of what existed was fined its de facto creation. Sexual exclusivity ineffective.6 These technological innovations was the basis for a range of legal restrictions in birth control have been described as a surrounding marriage. Adultery, for example, “contraceptive revolution” or a “reproduc- provided grounds for lawsuits by the ag- tive technology shock” because of their pro- grieved spouse. A married person’s consor- found implications for social customs and tium,the legally protected emotional stakes a norms. spouse has in his or her marriage, was protected in family law. Those who damaged a Sex Becomes a Private Matter marriage by adultery or by luring a married The contraceptive revolution made sex a partner into an extramarital relationship (en- private matter legally and essentially re- ticement) were subject to tortuous legal ac- moved it from state control. A series of U.S. tions for damages to consortium. Supreme Court decisions during the 1960s had major implications for the legal and cul- Such “heart balm” claims are now more a cu- tural meaning of sex and childbearing. In the riosity than a conspicuous feature of domes- most important case, Griswold v. Connecti- tic relations law, except when physical injury cut (1965), the Court declared unconstitu- is involved. Most jurisdictions have abolished tional a state law forbidding the use of con- or limited such suits. That such actions are traceptive devices, even by married couples. now pursued so infrequently (in the few re- Writing for the Court majority, Justice maining states where they are still permitted) William O. Douglas explained that various attests to the declining legal significance of guarantees of the Bill of Rights “create zones sexual exclusivity in marriage.8 Similarly, the of privacy,” making “the very idea of pro- rapid spread of no-fault divorce laws since hibiting the practice of birth control . . . re- 1970 has effectively eliminated adultery as a pulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding condition for divorce. Culturally, once sexual the marriage relationship.” Griswold and relations came to be viewed as private deci- subsequent Court decisions established a sions unrelated to marriage, so did reproduc- constitutional right to privacy in matters of tion choices. In other words, once sex and sexual behavior among consenting adults, procreation could be separated, so could sex married or single, and, most recently, het- and marriage. But so, too, of course, could erosexual or homosexual.7 reproduction and marriage, as they increasingly have been. Before Griswold, sexual matters had never been completely private because of their po- Both the social stigma and the legal conse- tential public consequences. Communities quences of having an “illegitimate” child have prohibited sexual freedoms because adultery virtually vanished in recent years. In a series and illegitimacy disrupted family lines, some- of decisions between 1968 and 1978, the U.S. times creating collective obligations for the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the care of offspring. Premarital and extramarital legal distinctions associated with the marital sexual intercourse were illegal. The ability to status of a child’s parents.9 In this as in most separate intercourse from reproduction re- areas of domestic relations, American family moved the rationale for such regulations. law has shifted its primary focus from the 16 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 17 Marriage as a Public Issue married couple to the individual.10The mari- entists. One key line of research, which finds tal status of parents is legally irrelevant from consistent correlation between various health the perspective of either generation. and economic outcomes and marriage (or divorce), suggests that children and adults ben- In short, now that fertility can be controlled, efit from satisfying and stable marriages. An- parenthood and marriage are less institution- other line of research, especially the province alized and much less predictably connected. of psychologists, has spurred the develop- A once near-universal insistence on an adult ment of strategies to improve problematic re- social script governing marriage has given lationships through marriage or family ther- way to an expanding range of acceptable, apy and, more recently, to prevent such though less traditional, life course options, problems through marriage or couples edu- such as cohabitation. Living together in a sex- cation. Robin Dion reviews the latter strategy ual relationship, once taboo, is now so ac- in her article in this volume. Here, I consider ceptable that a majority of Americans cohabit the research on health and economic out- before they marry.11 And yet the practice is comes, focusing on how marriage affects still so novel that it lacks a vernacular name. adults. The articles by Paul Amato and by Nor, importantly, is it yet governed by norms Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill in this vol- or explicit laws. Like many social changes fos- ume survey the effects of marriage and di- tered by sexual freedom, cohabitation is not vorce on children. yet institutionalized, not yet integrated fully into the nation’s culture or law.12 The Consequences of Marriage For well over a century, researchers have The old rules have changed, but new stan- known that married people are generally bet- dards have yet to emerge. The new living ter off than their unmarried counterparts. As arrangements are often incompatible with old early as 1897, sociologist Emile Durkheim customs and conventions. Even more vexing, was theorizing about why married adults the new arrangements offer fewer traditional have lower suicide rates than unmarried solutions when problems arise, because many adults. In a recent survey David Ribar notes of the problems themselves are the result of that links between marriage and better health nontraditional arrangements. Cohabiting cou- in children and adults “have been docu- ples, for example, have little tradition to fol- mented in hundreds of quantitative studies low when dealing with the informal equiva- covering different time periods and different lent of their “in-laws.” Relations with the countries.”15 older generation are strained as a result.13 The accumulated research shows that mar- Predictably, when a stable system of social ried people are typically healthier, live longer, conventions is so quickly altered, some will earn more, have better mental health, have react by seeking to restore it.14 Today’s mar- better sex lives, and are happier than their un- riage movement is one such reaction. married counterparts. They have lower rates of suicide, fatal accidents, acute and chronic Scientific Evidence about the illness, alcoholism, and depression. In 1995 Consequences of Marriage Linda Waite reviewed and highlighted the en- Participants in the marriage movement draw tire range of such benefits in her presidential heavily on the research findings of social sci- address to the Population Association of VOL. 15 / NO. 2 / FALL 2005 17 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 18 Steven L. Nock America, “Does Marriage Matter?” And she, one point in a long-term data series) that sim- together with coauthor Maggie Gallagher, an- ply compared the married with the unmar- swered her own question emphatically in ried on various outcomes.17 But cross- their subsequent book, The Case for Mar- sectional associations do not make a riage: Why Married People Are Happier, convincing case that marriage has beneficial Healthier, and Better Off Financially.16 effects. They may be confounded by omitted variables that influence both the likelihood of Despite abundant evidence documenting being married and of enjoying better out- such correlation, however, a question recurs: comes, or by reverse causation (for example, is marriage the cause of the health and happi- better health leading to marriage rather than ness enjoyed by married people, or are vice versa). Since the 1970s marriage researchers have Is marriage the cause of been using long-term data that follow the same group of people as they move into and the health and happiness out of marriage. If changes in marital status enjoyed by married people, (marrying, divorcing, remarrying) are consistently correlated with comparable changes in or are healthier and happier health or economic well-being, this is strong people the ones most likely evidence for the plausibility of a causal con- nection. Such a long-term data design is as to marry? close to a true experiment as researchers can hope to get. These studies have provided evi- healthier and happier people the ones most dence for both causal and selection argu- likely to marry? If people who are less ments, with the causal argument sometimes healthy, happy, or successful are also less at- seeming stronger and sometimes weaker in tractive as potential spouses, then they will its effects.18 be less likely to be selected into marriage. The ranks of the unmarried will thus contain Theoretical Underpinnings a disproportionate number of such people. Before I review the research findings, it is On the other hand, if marriage actually worth considering why married adults might causes people to have better health, happi- differ (especially in beneficial ways) from ness, or success, then the unmarried would, their unmarried counterparts. What theory again, be less happy, healthy, or successful. would predict or explain such differences? A Because both the “selection” and the “causal” variety of such explanations exist and can be arguments lead to the same empirical results, grouped under three broad themes: marriage debate has continued for many years. as a social institution, specialization, and the domesticating role of marriage. It is impossible to settle the issue definitively through a rigorous scientific experiment: The institutional perspective argues that people cannot be randomly assigned to marry marriage changes individuals in positive or remain single, divorce or remain together. ways, both to the extent that others treat Before the 1970s, researchers relied on them differently and to the extent that they cross-sectional data (either a single survey or come to view themselves differently.19 The 18 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 19 Marriage as a Public Issue marital relationship carries with it legal, men earn less than married men, even when moral, and conventional assumptions about other aspects of their relationships are simi- what is right and proper. It is, in other words, lar.22 Regardless of what marriage may mean institutionalized and defined by social norms. to an individual in a relationship, it has It is culturally patterned and integrated into broader implications in what it means to oth- other basic social institutions like education, ers. This is a core assumption of the institu- the economy, and politics. In this sense, mar- tional argument about marriage. ried individuals have a tradition of solutions to rely on when they confront problems. For The institution of marriage also involves what many matters in domestic life, marriage sup- Andrew Cherlin calls “enforceable trust.” plies a template. “Marriage still requires a public commitment to a long-term, possibly lifelong relationship. Moreover, the institutional nature of mar- . . . Cohabitation, in contrast, requires only a riage implies that others will treat married private commitment which is easier to break. people differently because of the cultural as- Therefore, marriage, more so than cohabita- sumptions made about husbands and wives. tion, lowers the risk that one’s partner will re- Employers may prefer married to unmarried nege on agreements that have been made.” workers, for example, or may reward married Many observers now believe that this aspect employees with greater opportunities and of marriage has become less central as the benefits. Insurers may discount policies for private, individualized view of marriage has married people. And the law gives married become increasingly dominant.23 partners legal rights vis-à-vis each other that are not granted to unmarried people.20Econ- The second theory about why married people omists refer to this aspect of marriage as its might differ from unmarried people is spe- “signaling” function. Economic signals are cialization. When two people marry and activities or attributes of a person that convey merge households, they not only gain obvious information to others. The most effective economies of scale but also tend to develop economic signals are those that involve sig- an efficient division of labor. To the extent nificant cost to the sender. A classic example that spouses have different skills, prefer- is a college degree, which transmits, for ex- ences, or abilities, marriage allows each to ample to an employer, valuable information concentrate on those in which he or she has a about the sender. Because marriage, like a relative advantage. Such efficiencies have tra- college degree, has significant costs attached, ditionally implied that wives would focus on it serves as an economic signal of those things nonmarket labor, such as child care and culturally associated with marriage: commit- homemaking, because women’s wages were ment, stability, and maturity, among other so much lower than men’s. But even in con- things. Friends, relatives, and employers will temporary marriages, efficiencies from a divi- be inclined to assume such things about mar- sion of labor still arise. For example, married ried people. To the extent they do, married parents with young children sometimes stag- people will benefit.21Because cohabitation is ger their work hours to permit one to deliver relatively costless (in signaling theory, cohab- the children to school and the other to be itation is “cheap talk”), it does not convey the home when school is out. This simple strat- same positive signal marriage does. Thus, for egy reduces the demand for expensive day example, it is not surprising that cohabiting care.24 As couples refine their division of VOL. 15 / NO. 2 / FALL 2005 19 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 20 Steven L. Nock tasks, the household benefits to the extent riage integrates men into social groups of that each partner’s productivity increases. like-minded others and, by doing so, estab- Such specialization produces greater interde- lishes acceptable boundaries around their be- pendencies and lowers divorce rates.25 The haviors. Others have made similar arguments interdependencies also have economic value about how marriage “domesticates” men by (“marriage-specific capital”) and have been fostering a sense of responsibility for their protected in tort law as consortium.26 Such families, orienting them toward the future specialization diminishes the wife’s earning and making them sensitive to the long-term potential in the market to the extent that her consequences of their actions, and providing skills or credentials, or both, decay. Still, even someone to offer advice, schedule medical in contemporary marriages, in which the appointments, or encourage pro-social behaviors (the so-called nagging factor). And both partners’ mental health appears to ben- Researchers found that efit from the support and understanding they share (more in marriage than in cohabiting married men had higher relationships).27 performance ratings than Economic Changes Associated with unmarried men and that Marriage their higher productivity was As noted, the correlation between marriage and economic outcomes involves both selec- largely responsible for their tion and causal factors. Men with favorable higher earnings. expected earnings are more likely to marry and less prone to divorce. But research has found that marriage also improves earnings, large majority of wives are employed, couples at least for men. The so-called marriage pre- continue to divide household tasks. Cohabit- mium is the additional income that men gen- ing couples are less likely to do so. erate once they marry. Men’s earnings, not only in America but in other developed coun- The third theory about differences between tries, increase once they marry (over and married and unmarried people involves mar- above any change associated with age or ex- riage’s domesticating role. Men are thought perience), and their earnings increase faster to change more when they marry than than those of comparable unmarried men. women do because unmarried men live less And the marriage premium is lost when men healthy lives than unmarried women do and divorce. The generally accepted explanation therefore have more room in their lives for is that men’s productivity increases after mar- positive change. Specifically, once men are riage, largely because of specialization.28 married, they are much less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as drinking heavily, After replicating, and thus validating, earlier drivingly dangerously, or using drugs. They findings of a marriage premium for men, es- are also more likely to work regularly, help pecially in the first years of marriage, econo- others more, volunteer more, and attend reli- mists Sanders Korenman and David Neu- gious services more frequently. Durkheim ar- mark examined employment records that gued that such changes occur because mar- included performance evaluations and other 20 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 21 Marriage as a Public Issue indicators of productivity. They found that when ill, having regular checkups, and visit- married men had higher performance ratings ing the dentist. And marital interactions typi- than unmarried men and that their higher cally reduce stress, thereby contributing to productivity was largely responsible for their better health.33 higher earnings. There is some, albeit limited, evidence of se- Women’s earnings consistently fail to increase lectivity with respect to health. For example, as a result of marriage. But they do not con- good health appears to make unemployed sistently drop, either. Rather, marriage-linked women—but not working women—more changes in women’s earnings are probably likely to get married. Research in the Nether- due more to fertility. Both married and un- lands found that poor health increased the married women who have children earn less, chances of divorce, though it did not affect as a result.29 entry into marriage. Such a line of research offers minimal support for the “selection” ar- Research that controls for selectivity typically gument.34 finds somewhat smaller marriage earnings premiums for men, but it nevertheless finds a Overall, both causal and selection arguments premium. (For women, the situation is less are probably true in matters of health. clear.) Such findings, as well as new evidence Healthier people are more likely both to that marriage is increasingly viewed as some- marry and to avoid divorce. At the same time, thing to postpone until one is already finan- marriage promotes healthier lifestyles and re- cially stable (that is, reverse causality), mean duces the chances of death. Research indi- that it is probably true that both causal and se- cates that the positive effects of marriage lection effects operate for both sexes in mat- seem stronger for men than for women. The ters of marriage and economic well-being.30 most likely explanation for such findings is that unmarried men lead more unhealthy Health Changes Associated with lives and take greater risks than unmarried Marriage women do. People who are involved with others typically enjoy better health than those who are so- The Marriage Movement: E cially isolated.31 Because marriage is a form Pluribus Unum of social integration, it is not surprising that Based in part on research showing that mar- married people are healthier. Almost without riage is good for adults and children, strength- exception, long-term studies of health find ening marriage has become a goal of both that marriage (especially when it is satisfying public and private initiatives in recent years. or long term, or both) is associated with better health and increased longevity. With re- Proponents of strengthening marriage form a spect to physical health and mortality, most diverse group. Many are in religious commu- people adopt a healthier lifestyle once mar- nities, especially conservative Protestant de- ried, thereby avoiding illness or death caused nominations. Their aim is to rebuild a tradi- by harmful behavior such as excessive drink- tional model of lifelong monogamous ing.32 A spouse is likely to encourage health- marriage. Others—practitioners and profes- ier behaviors in his or her partner, such as sionals in various fields—are motivated by smoking or drinking less, going to the doctor concerns about rising divorce rates or about VOL. 15 / NO. 2 / FALL 2005 21 02 FOC 15-2 fall05 Nock.qxp 8/4/2005 12:09 PM Page 22 Steven L. Nock the welfare of couples, individual adults, and communities, who saw most of these trends children. Many are therapy-oriented and as signs of decay. Feminism, the sexual revo- seek to educate or counsel people about lution, legalized abortion, divorce, cohabita- strategies and skills to build healthy relation- tion, homosexuality, and open challenges to ships, whether through marriage or other- authority energized the rise of a religiously wise. Others belong to fatherhood groups affiliated movement to restore the basic fea- concerned about absent fathers. Still others tures of 1950s familism. The new Christian are state government officials concerned Right, which included such groups as Jerry about the problems of the poor (see the arti- Falwell’s Moral Majority, Beverly LaHaye’s cle by Robin Dion in this volume). Most of Concerned Women for America, and James these latter are affiliated with programs tar- Dobson’s Focus on the Family (later the geting unmarried parents, many growing out Family Research Council), became a power- of changes in welfare law in the late 1990s. ful political force, mobilizing millions of vot- ers and establishing lobbying groups with Religious Mobilization close ties to Republican leaders and conser- The dramatic transformation of American vative members of Congress. More generally, households and families from the late 1960s conservative Protestantism has been, and re- through the late 1980s came on the heels of mains, an important force in matters of the one of the most homogeneous cultural peri- family because its adherents are very active, ods of U.S. history in matters of marriage and devoting more time and money to their living arrangements. The postwar era of the churches and affiliated organizations than 1950s featured historically high fertility rates, any other major religious group in America.36 low divorce rates, and youthful ages at marriage. The postwar economy and veterans’ With increased sexual freedom driving many programs significantly expanded the middle of the liberalizing trends of the later twenti- class. Attendance at religious services was eth century, it is not surprising that sexual high. Culturally, it was the most “familistic” matters were the focus of much of the reac- decade of the century: the family was under- tion. As Karen Armstrong notes in her histor- stood as thecrucial social institution, both for ical review of conservative religious move- the individual and for society as a whole. ments, the fundamentalists of the 1970s and Familism, an ideology that emerged during 1980s “associated the integrity and even the the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as- survival of their society with the traditional sociated the prevailing family principles of position of women.” Feminism, homosexual- marriage, childbearing, motherhood, com- ity, and abortion were central themes in a re- mitment, and sacrifice for family with a sense ligious movement to restore family values.37 of sacredness. It stressed sexual fidelity in marriage, chastity before marriage, intensive Professional Mobilization child-rearing, a commitment to a lifelong Others involved in the marriage debate in- marriage, and high levels of expressive inter- clude professionals, practitioners, and social action among family members.35 scientists with an interest in divorce and marital stability. Psychologists have analyzed Against this backdrop, the demographic and interpersonal behaviors and strategies asso- cultural trends of the 1960s and 1970s raised ciated with various outcomes of relation- grave concern among conservative religious ships and have identified styles of conflict 22 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN