Avoiding Broken Home, Statistically
by Dr. Harold Sala
“So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” -Matthew 19:6
Liberals and feminists definitely are not going to like today’s commentary. Should you find yourselves in their camp, save your blood pressure by changing stations or reading no further. Today’s commentary shares the findings of two researchers who have investigated the social and economic factors relating to making a marriage work or, inversely, its failure resulting in a broken home.
Sociology Professor Steven Nock of the University of Virginia and Economist-law professor Margaret BriÅ”ig from the University of Iowa conducted a study of some 3,592 couples surveyed at random. Their study analysis entitled, Divorce and the Division of Labor didn’t exactly fit the prevalent shibboleths of our culture.
They discovered that if you wanted your marriage to succeed, you should pursue the following:
Step #1: Choose your in-laws carefully. They gave the genetic code to the one who will become the one you live with for the rest of your life. Recognizing it’s too late for you to choose your parents, you can do something about the family background of the person you marry. If your parents or your mate’s parents are from a broken home, the chance of your marriage failing is doubled. No, you don’t have to be a statistic, but you need to be aware that it is very easy to take the same well-trod path of flight–the one taken by your parents or her parents a generation ago.
Step #2: Don’t rush the wedding. Professors Nock and Brinig found there is a correlation between age and marriage. Marriage isn’t for kids, or immature adults. “For each year of delay, the risk that the marriage will collapse within five years drops about 7 percent” say Nock and Brinig.
Step #3: Don’t live with your intended before you marry. Why not? The statistics they gleaned—remember, based on over 3500 couples–is that those who live together apart from marriage have six times the marriage failures as those who wait and then marry. Talk about reality which overpowers the myth of our culture today–a factor of six!
Step #4: Pursue traditional roles in your marriage. One of the issues which they confronted was how you divide household chores and who does what in the home. A crucial factor, Nock and Brining found, is the traditional sex-based division of work around the home. Despite decades of demands for women’s equality, many types of chores remain “women’s work.” Only a few are “men’s work.”
Their research found that more broken homes result when roles are switched and men end up doing what is traditionally thought of as domestic chores–cooking, cleaning, and raising the kids. And what happens when women do what is thought of as “men’s work” such as mowing the lawn or carrying out the trash? Not much, as you may note with regret.
What’s the bottom line? Modern research has done it again. They have simply confirmed what an age-old book on marriage and the family, the Bible, outlined centuries ago. The sexual differences and roles which God–not culture or society–outlined in this book and the principles it advocates are there not to crimp your style but to give you purpose, fulfillment, and—yes–happiness in life.
They work because the architect and creator, God Himself, made you the way you are. And when we set those guidelines aside, thinking that we know better, it just doesn’t work, and the risk of a broken home increases dramatically. When everything else fails, read the directions and follow them. You’ll find that Biblical principles still work.
Though the report I read didn’t mention this, I can assure you there is another factor in making a marriage work: It is the God-factor, when two of you live on the same wavelength spiritually. This means attending church, praying, and living by the Book. It is never by chance that a marriage succeeds. (Source: “How to avoid divorce, statistically speaking,” The Orange County Register, October 24, 1999, Section Money, 2.)
