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On the Future of Marriage
David
Popenoe No one accurately can predict the future. Yet it is useful to speculate about what policies and events might help reverse the present direction of family change and rebuild a marriage-based society. The problem in thinking about such efforts is that the "post-nuclear" family trend of our time is closely linked to such well-known and seemingly entrenched phenomena of the modern era as affluence, secularism, and a strong emphasis on individualism. In other words, to reverse the family trend would require a massive shift in cultural values. A partial restoration of the married, nuclear family might be expected to flow from either economic decline, which could force families into a situation of greater self-sufficiency and economic struggle, or increased religiosity, which could generate a greater concern for social responsibility and the continuity of life. The effects of economic decline would probably be relatively short lived, however. And increased religiosity could well take the form of a new-age, privatized, personal wellbeing form of religious thought that would be antithetical to family life. In addition, it is certainly possible for positive effects to come from national campaigns to promote marriage and family life. Such campaigns are now underway in several countries, including Australia, Great Britain, and to a lessor extent the United States. But only time will tell how successful they can be. Probably the best hope for the future of marriage rests in the natural turn of events. One thing that is reasonably certain about much social and cultural change is that it is dialectical in nature. Political change, for example, alternates back and forth over time between the conservative and liberal poles; after liberal policies and attitudes have been in the ascendancy for a time, conservative dispositions begin to look more appealing, and vice-versa. It may be the same with some aspects of family change. If the consequences of going too far down the path of unencumbered individualism and self-fulfillment come to be seen in a negative enough light, the way lies open to a social reversal. In other words, the rational calculation on the part of individuals that excessive individualism fosters social corrosion for both children and adults could lead to a cultural shift. This shift could be triggered by the generation of children who are growing up in today's fractured families. When they reach adulthood, they may decide that they want something better for their own children. And they may realize that the best path to self-fulfillment lies within long-term marriage and the nuclear family, not outside of them. Such decisions could flow from a new understanding that the negative consequences of further family decline--especially for children--are not to be taken lightly. A shift toward the reestablishment of marriage and the nuclear family could only take place, however, if individuals in modern societies remain highly child-centered. My deepest concern is that with our extremely low birth rate and rapid decrease in the number of childrearing households, an ever-longer life-stage of unmarried and childless young adulthood, the growing segregation of age groups, and a popular culture persuasively encouraging youthful self-indulgence apart from children, the needs and concerns of children are quietly being downgraded and displaced in our collective consciousness. The reversal of this trend poses one of the greatest challenges in our time.
© copyright National Marriage Project
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