Why Are Married Parents Better for Families?

Strong families begin with parents who marry and stay together. Such individuals understand that marriage is not always smooth sailing but “winds and rough waters” will make daily life difficult. That being said, there are marriages that are not good for either spouse or their children, and such marriages should be improved or ended. However, children do better in school and society when they live with their married biological parents.

Most of us have heard the statistic that 50% of marriages end in divorce. The statistic was once probably true, but times are changing with divorce rates falling. BlazeTV Staff reported the following in their article on this topic. 

“The good news about all of this is that that stat is ancient and it doesn’t really apply to society any more. This is a really good thing,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says, before pulling up a chart that shows that divorce rates have steadily gone down since their peak in the 1970s.

“The only decade where marriages have stayed together at a better rate than the 2010s is the 1950s,” Stu says.

“Consider the culture around us and all the negatives that we talk about on a day-to-day basis. That’s a really positive development. And there are some of those in our society that we shouldn’t just look past,” he adds.

Married-parent families also steadily dropped since the 1970s, but the trend reversed in 2012, going from 64% to 66%.

“Now, that’s just a slight uptick. It’s not a massive one, but the fact that the falling has stopped is really positive. And a little bit of an upturn makes you think, ‘Hey, maybe there’s something positive going on there as well,’” Stu says.

“When you have a kid who was raised in a two-parent family instead of a one-parent family, they’re much less likely to commit crimes. They’re much more likely to finish high school. They’re much more likely to get through college. They’re much more likely to hold down a job. They’re much more likely to get married,” he continues.

“All these outcomes wind up being positive for society,” he adds.

As I worked towards a bachelor’s degree in marriage and family studies over the past ten years, I studied many articles that agreed with the statements made by Burguiere about marriage and its affect on children. I have read studies with statistics showing that two-parent families provide a stronger foundation for their children. I have also seen articles stating that children from two-parent families have an unfair advantage over children of a one-parent family, a situation that demands social adjustments.

The best thing that society can do for children – no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, or any other marker – is to encourage marriage and to support marriages. Marriage is good for spouses and children. Married people do better financially and socially, and their children do better in every other way. Married parents create stronger families, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations.