‘Marriage Works’ Campaign Promotes Marriage with False Hopes

The Campaign For Our Children (CFOC) organization boasts a series of bold and unique campaigns, the most recent being that aimed at lowering teen pregnancy rates by promoting the institution of marriage. “Marriage Works USA” basically places the emphasis on an idyllic scenario without taking into account all the factors that may build or, contrarily, shatter a marriage. Because of this, the campaign is selling false hopes and half truths, which means it might actually do more harm than good, a new piece on LiveScience says.

Marriage can be, in more ways than one, the ideal solution for a couple, that much is for certain. However, promoting the institution of marriage on such grounds as those claiming married people earn more, are far healthier and considerably much happier might be nothing short of a (not so little) white lie, because it fails to take into account all the factors that come with such a life-altering decision as that of getting married is. Marriage can and does work in most cases, but idealized marriage never has and never will, which is why LiveScience considers the recent campaign more detrimental than helpful.

“Facts are drawn from the 1999 article ‘The Gender Gap in the Economic Well Being of Nonresident Fathers and Custodial Mothers’ in the journal Demography. But here the authors found that 20 percent of their female subjects actually experience a better standard of living after divorce. Factors depend on how much of a physical, emotional and financial drain the former husband was, implying that ‘marriage works’ only sometimes.” LiveScience says of the “facts” used by the “Marriage Works USA” campaign, which are, in reality, only half truths.

Moreover, the same authors later learned that single mothers who had the same education and background as married moms actually spent the same amount of time with their children, which meant their status influenced that to almost no extent. LiveScience also mentions a series of articles, studies and books that the “Marriage Works” campaign completely ignores and that would have shown that, just like with the pieces mentioned, the conclusion is but one: marriage can and does work, but only depending on certain given factors.

“The 2009 book ‘The Marriage-Go-Round’ by sociologist Andrew Cherlin delves in to [sic] some of these issues. Marriage can work, but the sole message should not be to get married, Cherlin says. […] The ‘marriage works’ facts hold up only if you replace with [sic] word ‘married’ with ‘people who don’t go through one or more nasty divorces or have a series of unstable relationships.’ I’m all for simplifying messages. But forcing young people into marriage with false hopes can cause more harm than good.” the LiveScience piece concludes by saying.