February 7-14, the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, is designated as National Marriage Week USA. This week provides a wonderful opportunity for families and churches to celebrate God-honoring marriages and God’s wonderful design for marriage and family.
Throughout the past several decades, study upon study has demonstrated the benefits of marriage: increased health, lifespan, and personal happiness.[1] Beyond personal benefits, marriage is also proven to be good for society by providing the best environment to raise children[2] and encouraging wise financial choices[3] which are good for the economy. It should come as no surprise to us that following God’s design for marriage is a win for everyone: spouses, children, and society.
It should come as no surprise to us that following God’s design for marriage is a win for everyone: spouses, children, and society.
Yet, despite the overwhelmingly positive consensus of scientific studies, young adults today are still delaying marriage—or choosing not to get married at all. Currently, only 53% of U.S. adults are married. This number has dropped from 58% in 1995 while the number of cohabitating couples has risen from 3% to 7%.[4]
Our society, so scientifically driven in other areas, rejects the scientific findings on marriage. Why? While adults may choose to avoid marriage for a variety of reasons, author and speaker on marriage, family, and sexuality Katy Faust offers insight into one reason today’s adults may be avoiding marriage: lack of positive examples.
“My husband and I came of age during the no-fault divorce epidemic, where we had a front-row seat to the dissolution of our parents’ unions. But many kids today never knew their parents as being married at all. Their mother or father may instead have had a revolving door of partners or live-ins or opted for the single-mother-or-father-by-choice route. Some were created through artificial technologies and ‘third parties,’ where one or both parents were cut out of their lives at the moment of conception. Many children don’t even know what wholeness looks like. And we scratch our heads at why the next generation is failing to have children, get married, or even have sex.”[5]
Perhaps the reason today’s adults find marriage unthinkable is that they’ve never seen or experienced a healthy marriage. As more and more children are raised by single parents, the only marriages some people may have experienced are the dysfunctional unions in TV shows and movies. No wonder they aren’t attracted to marriage.
We may tout the science, but, until people actually see happy and healthy marriages lived out before them, they may never be convinced that marriage is good.
We may tout the science, but, until people actually see happy and healthy marriages lived out before them, they may never be convinced that marriage is good.
One great way to share living examples of healthy marriages is through Wisconsin Family Council’s Marriage Hall of Fame. The Marriage Hall of Fame seeks to honor couples who have followed God’s design for marriage. We know that healthy marriages are the foundation of a healthy society, and we wish to celebrate and promote God’s design for marriage in our state.
Applying to the Hall of Fame is open to any married couple in Wisconsin who has been married for sixty or more years. Marriage Hall of Fame Inductees will be published on our website by March. By filling out the application, couples consent to have their names, stories, and photos published on our website. Applications for 2025 are now open. Applications close Feb. 22. Nominate a couple HERE.
Changing our culture’s view of marriage begins by living out God’s design for the world to see. While our culture screams that marriage is outdated and oppressive, we can demonstrate God’s loving and perfect design by faithfully living out His design one day at a time. As we love our spouses faithfully and honor God in our marriages, may God’s design become attractive to the world watching us.
