Can a Judge Deny a Divorce and Issue Marriage Counseling

Encouraging Marriage and Discouraging Divorce

Encouraging Spousal relationship and Discouraging Divorce

March 26, 2001 xl min read Download Written report

After four decades of rising government spending to treat the effects of broken families, a cultural shift in attitudes toward marriage is evident across America. Elected officials, social scientists, community leaders, and policymakers beyond the ideological spectrum are admitting that strong marriages--not regime intervention--are fundamental to improving social and personal well-existence. Increasingly, research is showing that children in married families are healthier, perform better in school, alive in poverty less frequently, and are involved in law-breaking or other destructive behaviors less oft. But as marriages neglect, social issues and social spending to bargain with those problems increase.

Although America has invested $8.4 trillion in social programs since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s,ⁱ welfare dependency, juvenile offense, child abuse, school underachievement, drug abuse, suicide among children, and many other issues have increased. At the aforementioned time, federal and state governments still spend about $150 billion each twelvemonth subsidizing single-parent families.^two This stands in stark contrast to the approximately $150 1000000 they spend each year in an effort to reduce out-of-wedlock births and divorce--the two primary causes of single-parent families in America.³

In other words, for every $1,000 that government spends providing services to broken families, it spends $1 trying to stop family unit breakup. All club receives in return for this lopsided "investment" is more than of what it subsidizes--cleaved families, troubled children, and social problems. An analysis of the data shows that:

• For every 100 children built-in in any recent yr, most 60 entered a broken family unit, and

• Out-of-wedlock childbearing has increased significantly, from seven per centum of all births in the mid-1960s to 33 percent today.⁴

Recognizing that federal welfare spending has played a perverse office past giving poor parents an incentive not to marry subsequently having a child, Congress took unprecedented action in 1996. It passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, historic legislation reforming the welfare system. Under P.Fifty. 104-193, states are able to employ a portion of their federal Temporary Help for Needy Families (TANF) surplus funds--which accumulate nether the formula grant as they reduce their welfare rolls--on programs that strengthen matrimony and reduce divorce among the poor.

However, only a few states have begun to discover ways to implement this mandate or to have steps of their ain to strengthen marriage. For case,

• In March 2000, the governor of Oklahoma earmarked 10 percentage of the state's TANF surplus funds for an initiative to reduce divorce by i-3rd past 2010.

• In April 2000, the governor of Arizona signed a marriage initiative authorizing the country to spend $ane million to develop community-based union skills courses.

• In 1998, the governor of Florida signed the Wedlock Preparation and Preservation Deed, making the educational activity of marriage skills a part of the high school curriculum. The act also encourages premarital training by reducing the marriage license fee by 50 per centum for those who consummate a wedlock preparation course.

The try to strengthen wedlock is growing at the grassroots level, and several privately run programs are already showing profound furnishings. The communities and congregations that have adopted them are reporting fewer divorces and stronger marriages, as well equally more teenagers pledging to abstain from sexual relations before union. These programs offer federal and state policymakers clear guideposts for reforming public policy in means that will increment spousal relationship and subtract divorce and out-of-wedlock births. For case,

• Union Savers, a set of church-based programs to assist engaged couples, stepfamilies, and marriages in problem, is helping to reduce divorce rates by upwardly to 30 percentage at the urban center level and well-nigh eliminating divorce at the parish level.

• In over 135 cities around the land where Community Marriage Covenants have been signed by clergy, congregations, and borough leaders, divorce rates are falling dramatically. In Modesto, California, for case, the divorce rate has plummeted 47.6 percent since 1986, when 95 pastors signed America's get-go Community Matrimony Policy.⁵

• In Washington, D.C., the Best Friends program has led to reductions of upwards to 90 pct in the number of out-of-wedlock births among its teenage members.⁶

Rather than throwing more funds at government programs that deal with the effects of family breakup, federal and state officials should take steps to prevent family disintegration in the first identify. The federal regime tin continue to offer incentives, flexibility, mandates, and money to urge the states to human activity; but as Representative Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT), former chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, wrote in a letter to country governors,

Although nosotros have provided $twenty million bonuses to five states that reduced their illegitimacy rates, nosotros need to learn much more about actions which government tin can take to reduce births outside union or, equally important, to promote matrimony. ⁷

For its role, Congress should build on its historic reform of the welfare arrangement and piece of work with the executive branch to reduce the marriage penalization in the tax code and adjust the earned income tax credit (EITC) then that married low-income couples with children receive a somewhat larger benefit than the 1 given single parents.

U.s. also have a large function to play. They are the natural laboratories in which the best practices for increasing union and decreasing divorce are already emerging.

Increasing the incidence of spousal relationship and reducing the incidence of divorce are reasonable and necessary policy goals. The future of millions of American children volition depend on policymakers' success in achieving them.

Why Emphasizing Marriage is Good Public Policy

Social scientific discipline literature is replete with robust findings on the harmful effects of cleaved families, particularly for children. Juvenile crime,⁸ corruption and violence,^nine and lowered income are frequently associated in the research with single-parent families (see Charts one-5).¹⁰ Children born out of marriage have an increased take chances of expiry in infancy, college incidence of retarded cerebral and verbal development, and college rates of drug addiction and out-of-wedlock pregnancy as teens.^eleven As adults, they have higher rates of divorce, piece of work at lower-wage jobs, and abuse their children more than often.¹²

Divorce also has particularly troubling consequences. Studies testify that household income for women and children is more than likely to drib below the poverty level immediately following a divorce,¹³ declining by as much as 50 percent and causing substantial reductions in earnings adequacy and long-term wealth.^xiv Compared with children in intact families, children of divorced parents:

• Have college rates of crime, drug employ, child corruption, and child neglect;

• Perform poorly on reading, spelling, and math tests, and repeat grades and drop out of high school and higher more frequently;

• Have higher incidences of behavioral, emotional, physical, and psychiatric problems, including depression and suicide; and

• Accept an increased probability of divorce as adults and cohabit more frequently.^xv

Such effects are non isolated; they set in motion a downwards bicycle of dysfunctional behavior and despair that compounds the problems for their own children and future generations of children. In economic terms, divorce reduces both the capital and the rate of return at an accelerating rate. The price to society is exorbitant: Ane social scientist has estimated that "the "aggregate burden of criminal offence" alone on American club approaches $ane trillion annually.¹⁶ Policymakers who promise to terminate this societal fall must look instead at ways to reduce divorce and out-of-spousal relationship birth past strengthening marriage.

Missed Opportunities

The revolution that began with the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 has succeeded in reducing the numbers of people on the welfare rolls. The linguistic communication of the act stipulates that states receiving federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money must implement welfare-to-piece of work programs that limit benefits to v years while helping recipients make the difficult transition to piece of work. In addition, to eliminate the incentive to maximize welfare benefits by fugitive marriage, Congress strengthened funding for abstinence programs and instructed the states to use some of their TANF surplus funds to strengthen spousal relationship among their recipients. Three of the four statements of purpose in the legislation specify equally goals the formation of union and the reduction of out-of-wedlock births (meet box on page seven).

Fifty-fifty though the intent and spirit of the welfare reform law are clear, only a few states have taken legislative action since 1996 to strengthen spousal relationship, and only the governor of Oklahoma has used his office to ensure that TANF coin is beingness spent on programs that strengthen union. The corporeality of public money dedicated to these state-based projects, however, is small.

• Arizona has authorized spending $1 meg per year, while Oklahoma has authorized that $ten million of its TANF surplus funds be spent every bit seed money to develop ongoing marriage promotion programs that will later be funded annually.

• This $xi million is only 0.16 percent of the $six.nine billion in surplus TANF money that accumulated nationally in 2000.¹⁷

These funds are available because us continue to receive their formula grant money from Washington even every bit their welfare reforms are working to reduce their rolls. Some of this surplus is earmarked for other new welfare initiatives, simply at least $2.2 billion of the $half dozen.9 billion total is available for initiatives that promote marriage and reduce divorce among the poor.¹⁸

To reduce the harmful furnishings of out-of-matrimony births and divorce and encourage marriage, Washington should establish an oversight mechanism for evaluating how united states are using their TANF surplus funds. Accountability is key to improving service. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure that "all-time practices" are beingness followed.

How the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 Encourages Union

Public Law 104-193, which cake grants Temporary Assist for Needy Families funds to the states, encourages the states to strengthen marriage and reduce out-of-matrimony births by stipulating that:

The purpose [of this legislation]…is to increment the flexibility of States in operating a program designed to:

• provide aid to needy families and then that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives;

• terminate the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;

• prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish almanac numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and

• encourage the germination and maintenance of two-parent families. ¹

---

1. Public Police force 104-193, Section 103, Cake Grants to States for Temporary Assist for Needy Families (accent added).

How the States are Implementing Marriage-Based Policies

The various ways by which states have begun to implement marriage-based policies to reduce out-of-union births and divorce are showing promise. They offer other states and the federal government clear models on which to base policies that strengthen marriage and reduce the costly and damaging effects of family breakup.

Arizona
In April 2000, Governor Jane Dee Hull (R) signed into law a marriage initiative authorizing the state to spend $1 1000000 of Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) funds each year to devleop community-based marriage skills courses each twelvemonth to develop community-based marriage skills courses for low-income couples and a media entrada promoting marriage.¹⁹ The state Covenant Marriage legislation was signed into law on May 21, 1998.

Arkansas
Governor Mike Huckabee (R) hopes to reduce the divorce charge per unit past 50 percent by 2010 and is a proponent of a state Spousal relationship Covenant police.²⁰ His strategy is based on his belief that all decision-making should be fabricated at the lowest level of government possible; in the instance of welfare policy, this should be the county level. It is a strategy that relies heavily on churches, since pastors officiate at 75 pct of the weddings in Arkansas.

The governor'south efforts to promote marriage range from posting information on Community Marriage policies on his official Spider web site²¹ to urging pastors, congregations, and borough leaders to class Community Marriage Covenants as a way to encourage couples to participate in spousal relationship preparation programs and find assist if their marriages are troubled.²² Huckabee has considered pursuing a $100 tax credit for those taking pre-marriage courses; information technology is estimated that the almanac cost to the state if every marrying couple took such a grade and applied for the credit would exist near $4 million.²³

Chesterfield County, Virginia, and Cobb County, Georgia, already offer such programs. Chesterfield County offers marriage teaching classes, and a county mental health worker has been trained in union skills. The seven-yr onetime program, which is subsidized past country, local, and federal funding, is offered to couples at any stage of their human relationship and is ever total. Cobb Canton offers marriage education courses through the county family court offices. The courses are funded by juror fee contributions and volunteers.

Huckabee likewise is urging county officials who oversee the disbursement of TANF funds and surplus TANF revenue to develop initiatives that encourage marriage and reduce divorce. The charitable option provisions in federal welfare law²⁴ for example, would permit religious organizations to compete without prejudice for contracts to serve the poor in their areas of expertise, be it job seeking, job training, child intendance, drug counseling, or any service that helps welfare recipients become self-sufficient.

Florida
In 1998, Florida became the starting time state to brand learning marriage skills a part of the high school curriculum when Governor Lawton Chiles (D) signed the Florida Matrimony Preparation and Preservation Human action. The human action encourages premarital training by reducing the marriage license fee past 50 percent for those who take a wedlock preparation course before they wednesday. In Leon Canton, 32 per centum of couples are now taking pre-union courses,²⁵ mainly within their churches. Otherwise, the 1998 initiative has borne niggling fruit because loopholes in the law make information technology easy to avoid changing the education curriculum.

Louisiana. The early leader in the state pro-marriage movement, Louisiana set up off a national debate in August 1997 past enacting a law that permits "covenant marriages,"²⁶ whereby couples promise to stay married for life and renounce their legal right to a no-mistake divorce. The state'south no-fault divorce requirement is to wait 180 days before filing for a no-fault divorce. Covenant marriage couples hold instead that, should they have bug, they will separate for a minimum of two years and seek marital counseling before applying for a divorce.

The covenant marriage police has not been implemented effectively. Considering canton clerks rarely propose couples applying for a license nigh the police, few people in Louisiana are enlightened of it, and a very low proportion of couples have elected it. Not surprisingly, those who have done so were already at depression risk for divorce.²⁷

In early 2000, the legislature passed a resolution urging the governor to appoint a council on marriage that would develop, monitor, and evaluate marriage policy, programs, curricula, publicity, and the delivery of services to families to ensure that the state is not undermining or discouraging matrimony in whatever way.

Oklahoma
Oklahoma has taken the legislative lead in country-based efforts to strengthen matrimony. In June 1999, Governor Frank Keating (R) convened the Governor's and First Lady's Conference on Matrimony, bringing together leaders from the concern customs, religious congregations, education, and government, as well equally service providers and the media, to forge the nation's first state activeness plan for reducing divorce. In March 2000, Keating announced an innovative $10 million spousal relationship initiative earmarking ten percentage of the land's TANF surplus funds for efforts to strengthen spousal relationship and reduce divorce.

Governor Keating also announced the goal of reducing the state's divorce rate by one-tertiary by 2010. In 1999, the land took steps to eliminate the disadvantage in the way income is calculated for married stepparents compared with cohabiting partners. Similar changes were fabricated in the mode the state calculates eligibility for child-intendance benefits. There are now fewer incentives for low-income or welfare couples to live together outside of matrimony in lodge to collect college benefits.

Other elements of the Oklahoma initiative include:

• The establishment of a marriage resource centre to provide information on spousal relationship and mentors to couples;

• A public education campaign on the importance of matrimony;

• An outreach program to change the attitudes of youth about marriage;

• An effort to promote Community Marriage Policies and develop customs-based marriage-strengthening programs with pastors;

• Funding a i-yr scholar-in-residence chair at Oklahoma Land University, to be filled by a nationally respected expert on marriage;

• Regular statewide spousal relationship conferences;

• Training for state workers, such equally agricultural extension service workers and public health nurses, to aid them teach union skills courses at the community level;

• An improved data-gathering organisation to document marriages and divorces in the country; and

• Partnerships with faith-based and charity groups on programs that strengthen families.

Utah
Under the leadership of Governor Michael Leavitt, efforts to rebuild marriage within the state are mounting. In 1998, Governor Leavitt organized a Governor'south Commission on Wedlock to identify programs and tools that could strengthen marriage. In late February 2001, the country followed Oklahoma'south lead and earmarked $600,000 of its TANF surplus funds for the promotion of matrimony education over the adjacent two years. The legislature also formed a Spousal relationship Committee two years ago and raised the minimum matrimony historic period from 14 to 16. Governor Leavitt presides over an annual Marriage Week each Feb, and regional matrimony conferences featuring the governor and his wife are hosted effectually the state.

Utah promotes marriage education in its 105 high schools, adding a marriage component to the civics class, "Adult Roles and Responsibilities." It as well conducts instructor education in marriage problems through continuing education conferences featuring top marriage experts, such every bit David Olson of the University of Minnesota, who adult the first and near widely used pre-spousal relationship cess instruments.

Wisconsin
The Wisconsin legislature has designated $210,000 in unspent TANF funds in 2001-2002 for a Community Wedlock Policy projection, which will piece of work with members of the clergy to develop clear community-wide "standards" for marriage. Wisconsin is the first state to fund a full-fourth dimension worker whose job is to create Community Wedlock Policies. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged an earlier legislative attempt that focused on church initiatives to restore union. The reworded legislation now includes judges and magistrates, who also officiate at marriages, and it should withstand a court claiming.

Other States
Summits similar to Utah'south that involve stakeholders in business concern, health care, education, counseling, clergy, social work, media, and wedlock didactics have been held in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

In 2000, the Maryland and Minnesota legislatures passed laws that would establish programs to encourage union instruction, but these bills were vetoed by us' respective governors--Parris Glendening (D) and Jesse Ventura (Ind.).

In Maryland, Governor Glendening praised the intent of a pre-marriage counseling beak that would take reduced the union license fee, saying that "educating individuals nigh the demands and realities of union and parenthood is a laudable and worthwhile goal,"²⁸ but still vetoed it. The original sponsors, Delegates John R. Leopold (R-Anne Arundel)²⁹ and Kenneth Montague (D-Baltimore),³⁰ revised the neb to specify the qualifications of those who tin can teach the class--social workers, psychologists, and specially trained religious leaders--thereby satisfying the key special interests affected.

Ironically, though the data show that domestic violence is much lower amongst married couples, advocates against domestic violence have already captured most of the marriage license coin. Of the $55 fee for a matrimony license, $45 now goes toward reducing domestic violence; only $10 is left for a discount on the price of the pre-marriage course.

In Minnesota, Senator Steve Dille (R) has re-introduced a nib³¹ under which couples who accept a 12-hour course of premarital didactics would exist granted a $55 waiver on their matrimony license fees. In reshaping and resubmitting the bill, the sponsors have consulted widely with county clerks in an effort to avert the governor'due south veto.

Private Spousal relationship-Based Initiatives

Increasingly, liberal and conservative policy analysts hold that divorce and out-of-spousal relationship births have long-lasting detrimental effects on women, children, and society; but evidence is growing in the private sector that regime tin help to reverse this pattern. By studying and applying what is already working in the states and local communities--the laboratories of effective public policy--it should be possible to reduce the divorce charge per unit past as much as one-third to one-half in a few brusk years. The most important elements of such an effort are (1) skilful program outcome information with which to place the best practices in the different fields and (2) the will to apply the findings to federal, state, and local policies and programs.

Several not-governmental programs appear to reduce divorce significantly and to bulldoze downwardly the numbers of out-of-wedlock births while increasing union. Communities that have established Marriage Savers congregations and Community Marriage Covenants are demonstrating the most success in decreasing divorce.³² The strategy: Help churches train mentors for engaged couples who tin help them set up for a life-long marriage commitment and help counsel marriages in problem. Congregations with such mentors have helped upwardly to ninety percentage of troubled married couples who have come forward.

Marriage Savers started its first Community Marriage Covenant in Modesto, California, in 1986. A full-service programme should incorporate seven fundamental church activities:

1. A minimum of four months' preparation earlier union;

2. A pre-marriage cess of the couple's individual opinions on significant issues, such as finances and kid-rearing, using such inventories every bit Fix³³ and FOCCUS.³⁴ Answers to the surveys become the basis for give-and-take during the marriage training classes.³⁵

3. Training for mentoring couples in how to use inventory results to facilitate discussion about problems on which the couple agrees and disagrees.

4. A program to strengthen existing marriages, such as Union Meet,³⁶ Marriage Live,³⁷ or Family Builders. ³⁸

5. A program to assistance troubled marriages, whether an established one such every bit Retrouvaille³⁹ or ane that uses couples in the congregation who have undergone marriage counseling successfully. In Rockford, Illinois, the Kickoff Assembly of God trained 14 "back-from-the-brink" couples in their church to work with troubled marriages. Local therapists learned about this "Union Ministry building" and sent dozens of their toughest cases to the Get-go Assembly. In iii years, First Associates's mentors have met with more than 100 married couples headed for divorce and have saved all merely four of them.^twoscore

6. Mentoring for stepfamilies. According to federal survey information, 20 percent of American children were living with stepparents in 1995.⁴¹ Rev. Dick Dunn of Roswell United Methodist Church near Atlanta created a Stepfamily Support Grouping led by stepfamily couples who had learned to brand a truly blended family. Four out of v participating couples have kept their marriages intact over the study period--a result almost twice the normal outcome for stepfamilies.

7. Ministry to separated couples. At that place are many means to improve the chances of reconciliation for separated couples, as the piece of work of Joe and Michele Williams in a program called Reconciling God'south Way shows. The couple study that the program has helped over 70 percent of those who were separated to come up together over again in union.⁴²

A few pastors and congregations take implemented all seven of these elements in their parishes.⁴³

Over 135 cities have signed Community Marriage Covenants to motivate Wedlock Saver congregations and civic leaders to rally communities behind efforts to strengthen wedlock. In the fall of 1999 alone, Charleston, Due west Virginia; Baton Rouge and Alexandria, Louisiana; Fairfield, Connecticut; Wausau, Wisconsin; Flower Mound, Texas; and Harrisonburg, Virginia, all became Community Matrimony Covenant cities. Earlier that year, Jamestown, New York, and Toms River, New Jersey, became their states' start cities to organize such networks.

Many cities with Community Union Covenants written report reductions of upwardly to 47 per centum in their divorce rates.⁴⁴ For example, a covenant was signed by 95 pastors in Modesto, California, in 1986. Since so, the divorce rate has plunged 47.6 percent, while marriages have climbed 9.viii percent.⁴⁵ In some cities, the divorce rates accept declined 20 times faster than the national rate of 1.3 percent charge per unit.⁴⁶

The dramatic difference in divorce rates between Kansas City, Kansas, which has a Marriage Saver program, and Kansas City, Missouri, which does not, demonstrates the furnishings of wedlock-based strategies.

• In Kansas City, Kansas, and its suburbs, the number of divorces has plunged 32.5 percentage--from 1,530 to 1,001--in simply two years, while the number of marriages has remained virtually unchanged. Only 40 pastors--a small fraction of the number of clergy in the 2-canton expanse--had signed the Customs Marriage Policy, but The Kansas City Star had published a number of stories about the initiative.

• Meanwhile, but across the river, the number of divorces really rose over the same two years for the metropolitan area that includes Kansas City, Missouri, and its suburbs--from 3,586 to 3,725.

The difference: All of the clergy participating in the Community Wedlock Covenant and all of the stories written almost the initiative were in Kansas, not Missouri. One state developed a visibly pro-marriage climate; the other plodded along without changing attitudes or expectations.⁴⁷ This is powerful show of the effectiveness of pro-marriage policies. Officials in every state should encourage community leaders to found and aggrandize Marriage Savers programs.

Focused Thinking Mediation, a program that in South Africa has helped as many every bit 50 percent of couples seeking divorce make up one's mind to remain married,⁴⁸ is now operating in Southern Michigan'due south family courts. The courts have used Focused Thinking Mediation for their most acrimonious post-divorce cases, which represent an average of 20 court dockets per couple per yr and on average stayed earlier the court for 2.25 years. Of the 26 couples who have participated in the class, all but two take reached amicable agreements and take non returned to the courts.⁴⁹ The results are so impressive that the courts may soon begin using the program in pre-divorce cases.

Lawyer and social worker Stan Posthumus,⁵⁰ who developed and refined Focused Thinking Mediation during the 1990s, is hoping to assistance couples who accept filed for divorce come to terms with less disharmonize and antagonism. Trained mediators, who could exist lawyers, social workers, or other mediators, would piece of work with a couple to assistance them begin to communicate more than effectively, usually for the get-go fourth dimension in years. If the experience in Due south Africa is whatsoever indication, many couples will reconsider their decision to divorce and decide instead to rebuild their marriages based on clear communication and understanding.

State and local officials should consider sponsoring Focused Thinking Arbitration institutes to train and credential private- and public-sector mediators. The direct benefits to the states would include fewer divorces and lower demand for services; reduced court costs; and fewer women and children falling into poverty.

A program run past the Best Friends Foundation ⁵¹ in Washington, D.C., has reduced out-of-wedlock births amidst its members past as much every bit 90 percentage and has led nearly the same percentage of teenage participants to pledge that they will remain sexually abstinent until union. Early initiation of sexual intercourse in teens reduces the likelihood of stable spousal relationship later on and increases the likelihood of multiple sexual partners and sexually transmitted diseases, out-of-wedlock births, and abortions.

This schoolhouse-based voluntary and volunteer-run mentoring program for girls begins in the 5th grade. It encourages the girls to articulate their goals and to support each other every bit they try to reach those goals. Considering out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth can derail a girl's best intentions, especially among girls in poor communities where married family life is non the norm, such support is vital.

The results are impressive: Only 1 percent of plan participants became pregnant during a period of virtually eight years (from the inception of the program to the year of its evaluation), and 90 pct have remained sexually abstinent. For teenagers in an inner-city environment in which the overall teen pregnancy charge per unit tin can range from lxxx per centum to 90 percent, this is a remarkable achievement.⁵²

The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) is a seven-year-former program that is proving to be very constructive in motivating fathers to go more active in their families. Over a iv-yr menstruum starting in May 1996, the NFI spent $800,000 on a television campaign encouraging fathers to exist more involved with their children and families. The campaign garnered 187 times that amount ($130 million) in donated Television air time. In Virginia, the entrada spent $200,000 over an 18-calendar month period, and with impressive results: One in three people recalled the ads; 40,000 fathers changed their activities to spend more time with their children; and 100,000 people became more than supportive of the role of fathers or agreed to take a begetter's place when he was not bachelor.⁵³

Marriage Preparation Courses
Research-based inventories of compatibility for matrimony, such as PREP,⁵⁴ FOCCUS, and REFOCCUS, take been used extensively in union training and revitalization programs at the parish level for many years. These assessments assist couples improve their relationships past getting them to hash out potential areas of conflict--similar managing finances and having children--and actions that could create acrimony or breach. These courses and tools, besides as programs like PAIRS,⁵⁵ Relationship Enhancement,⁵⁶ and others,⁵⁷ aid couples larn such skills as trouble solving, listening, and effective forms of communicating that can strengthen their relationship.

How to Encourage Marriage and Discourage Divorce

Though cultural attitudes, social science findings, and social policies accept begun to recognize the importance of supporting marriage and decreasing the incidence of divorce, the policies and activities of state governments are all the same biased against marriage. This bias amplifies the harm caused by decades of misguided federal welfare policy that has virtually eliminated marriage among the poor and federal revenue enhancement policy that is penalizing marriage. Regardless of whether additional welfare reform is passed at the federal level, states can alter the way they spend their revenue, administer their programs, collect data and bear inquiry, select high school curricula, enact laws, and even talk most union.

Promoting Wedlock

Like Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the other states that are implementing marriage-based policies, the remaining states should begin to focus their efforts on reducing divorce and out-of-matrimony births and increasing marriage. Among the specific steps they can take are the following:

1. Set a goal of reducing out-of-wedlock births and divorce past 33 percent in each state by 2010
   Based on the success of various initiatives already in identify around the state, such a goal is both realistic and accessible. All that is needed is to harness each land's unique resource to design programs that would all-time address their needs.

2. Brand a concerted attempt to use TANF surplus revenues on programs that increment union and subtract divorce among the poor
   As noted, there are many resource and much expertise around the country that, if harnessed, could better couples' prospects of entering a solid wedlock. A strong instance can exist made for creating a state Part of Matrimony Initiatives to encourage marriage and discourage divorce, particularly among the poor or near poor, and reduce the brunt on taxpayers.⁵⁸ Such an office should identify effective marriage-based policies and programs and clinch that the state is using its TANF surplus funds in ways that really decrease divorce and out-of-wedlock nativity among the poor. The charitable choice provision in the TANF legislation would use to such spending. Charitable choice would permit faith-based organizations to compete with other non-religion based groups for funding support without prejudice and be judged on the basis of effectiveness solitary.

3. Allocate state welfare funds to reward counties that reduce out-of-spousal relationship births and divorce
   Just as the federal government rewards states that perform well in reducing out-of-marriage nascency rates,⁵⁹ usa should reward counties that achieve a meaning decrease in the number of out-of-spousal relationship births and divorces. All the same, the states should larn from the federal government's experience and brand sure that the counties being rewarded are those that accept shown the ability to devise a workable plan, not just those that randomly accomplish a reduction in out-of-wedlock births. The more generous the rewards, the more energetically counties will compete for them.

4. Make state tax laws more than marriage-friendly
   Many states take a spousal relationship penalty in their taxation code. At a minimum, every state should eliminate this penalty. States should have a realistic judge of the actress cost that cleaved family life puts on the public purse, and those who save the land such costs should receive amend treatment in the tax lawmaking. A simple mode to do this would be to make the personal exemption higher for married couples with dependent children nether age 19 or in college.

5. Eliminate perverse incentives in country laws that advantage single parents for having more children
   To subtract the anti-marriage bias that proved so destructive in the old welfare organization, states should consider new benefits or an expansion of current benefits for married couples on welfare. At the time their child is built-in, 82 percent of single mothers and fathers are romantically involved, 44 percentage are living together, and over 70 pct of the mothers say their chances of marrying the begetter are "50-50."^lx The long-term costs to society are immense for not making clear the reasons these couples should marry.

6. Support initiatives to assistance troubled marriages become back on track
   Divorce is the primary reason women and children fall into poverty.⁶¹ Many organizations have established programs to strengthen troubled marriages, such as Retrouvaille,⁶² Marriage Encounter,⁶³ Marriage Savers, and Focused Thinking Arbitration. Making these programs accessible to the poor or the about poor would exist a key task for a state Office of Marriage Initiatives.

7. Encourage the work of churches and faith-based organizations in poor areas
   Few Americans realize the extent to which marriage has disappeared among the poor: In the lowest income quintile, 74 percent of families with children were headed by a unmarried parent in 1996.⁶⁴ In big part, this is the effect of such regime programs as welfare, with incentives that penalize matrimony, and family planning programs that support sexual activity and childbearing without regard to marital status.⁶⁵ Because of the effectiveness of churches in strengthening marriages, churches in poor areas are probably regime's nigh effective allies in efforts to decrease divorce and increase marriage in communities beleaguered past the effects of family unit breakdown. Public officials cannot do the work of churches and the private sector in rebuilding the institutions of marriage and family unit, simply they can encourage their efforts to increase marriage. They besides tin can focus public attention on the need to back up two-parent families. This arroyo would assistance to change the cultural discourse and climate in their states.

8. Ensure that government personnel support a marriage initiative
   For public policy to increase the incidence of marriage and decrease the incidence of divorce, officials at all levels of government must fully support the effort. Governors and state legislators should utilize county clerks who process wedlock licenses, besides as welfare workers, school counselors, and public health and school nurses who interact with young mothers, to encourage participation in marriage preparation and skills classes. Workers in such programs every bit agriculture extension services and mental health units can exist trained to teach effective skills at the local level. Personnel who ignore or block good policy should be educated about the problem or replaced.

9. Create incentives for couples to participate in pre-marriage preparation classes before receiving a wedlock license
   For example, Florida offers a discount on a wedlock license if the couple takes a four-hr union training class with a segment on the effects of divorce likewise every bit how to become a divorce. Minnesota, Maryland, and other states have legislation pending that would similarly encourage pre-marital grooming courses.

Authorities activeness in this area needs to be prudent because issues of personal freedom in making intimate decisions, also equally the protection of the common practiced, are at stake.

Answering Objections to
Having the Government Promote Wedlock

Objection: Critics similar Don Bloch, past president of the American Family Therapy Academy, object to using welfare funds to promote marriage: "It is really taking money abroad from those at the thin border, people who have a whole range of needs, health, nutrition, housing…." Others say it is unfair to use TANF coin in ways that would help people who are non welfare recipients.

Response: The duty of government is to protect and foster the common good. For the by 35 years, regime has played a major role in the destruction of marriage among the poor by subsidizing out-of-wedlock nascence. To redress the effects of this policy, future spending should target programs to restore marriage amid the poor. In the process, families in the middle- and upper-income brackets may be persuaded to avoid out-of-wedlock births and to set more diligently for marriage. Preventing divorces in low- and heart-income families is preventing poverty, and that is practiced public policy.

Objection: Government has no business concern promoting union.

Response: Every bit Governor Keating of Oklahoma has said, "[West]hen y'all look at the consequences of divorce, the amend question is: 'What business organization practice we have not getting involved?'" Good government has a disquisitional interest in stable marriages. The upshot of decades of misguided policy is a culture of ambivalence toward commitment, with devastating effects on children. The mutual practiced relies on the stability of family unit life, which is premised on the stability of union. To the extent that spousal relationship breaks down, public order decreases, public costs increase, and the need for government controls to contain the resulting problems increases. Restoration of marriage is the about cost-effective manner to reduce the taxation burden for social programs and improve the welfare of children and the poor.

Educating the Public

Just every bit the law can serve a didactics function, the communication of traditional universal values in the public forum can uplift public opinion and pop culture. In this respect, state officials can pursue strategies that would accelerate the importance of marriage every bit an establishment. Specifically:

1. Ready definite goals for decreasing divorce
   States tin follow the lead of Oklahoma and Arkansas by setting a goal for reducing divorce and out-of-wedlock births by 2010. This would send a clear message to the citizens of the state as well as the state bureaucracy that increasing wedlock is a priority at all levels of government.

2. Launch public information campaigns in print and on television and radio
   I of the advantages of being a public leader is the ability to alter ideas and motivate people to go involved in a worthwhile campaign. Speeches go tools for advancing public policy and changing a culture of rejection to a culture of delivery. Idiot box campaigns have a similar issue, as such public-individual sector initiatives as the one between the National Fatherhood Initiative and the Commonwealth of Virginia have shown.

3. Create brochures that summarize the authoritative enquiry on the furnishings of divorce and out-of-union births and on the benefits of marriage,⁶⁶ sexual forbearance before marriage, and adoption. These brochures should besides bespeak out the legal and financial consequences for those who father a kid out of wedlock. Such pamphlets could be distributed in schools, welfare offices, parole offices, public wellness facilities, parishes, and private organizations to generate a healthy contend on these serious issues. Experts in family research should be tasked with creating these brochures, which could become the basis for a pre-matrimony test as suggested above.

States should make every effort to inform women of the consequences of out-of-wedlock births. This should exist targeted to women between the ages of 20 and 35. Women betwixt the ages of 20 and 40 are responsible for roughly 75 percentage of all out-of-wedlock births and 82 per centum of those who take a second child out of wedlock, which is almost likely to lock a woman into long-term poverty. A public awareness entrada on the effects of out-of-spousal relationship births on the mother and her kid would be a effective use of TANF surplus funds.

4. Convene a state conference on marriage and the family
   Governor Keating'due south conference on marriage brought together key players from the media, medicine, constabulary, education, government, and the clergy to focus on the effects of out-of-matrimony births and divorce on the state. As a result, many participants became stakeholders in the endeavour to reduce divorce and increase marriage. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, State Senator Mark Boitano (R) was instrumental in convening a marriage briefing in Oct 2000.⁶⁷ Such conferences focus attending on the bug and motivate people in all sectors of society to opposite the furnishings of broken families and rebuild a culture of family love and delivery.

5. Create a marriage inquiry eye
   Proficient statistics are needed for effective planning, education, and evaluation of state initiatives. A inquiry heart that provides reliable upward-to-date data should track marriages, divorces, and out-of-union births in the state. State officials should be able to use these data to sympathize where the problems and needs are the greatest. The center should as well track how the state compares with other states in increasing wedlock and decreasing divorce.

In addition, the center should analyze and provide data on the relationship between family structure and juvenile criminal offence, homicide, suicide, out-of-wedlock births, abortions, poverty, drug use among juveniles, educational attainment, employment, and unemployment in the state. Quantifying these problems would help lawmakers target policy and funds to efforts to reduce such plush social bug.

6. Foster scholar-in-residence positions at state universities
   These scholars in psychology, sociology, economics, or the law should be tasked with tracking what is working best to increase stable wedlock and subtract divorce in the country. The legislature could assistance to increase scholarship in the areas of marriage and the family by awarding prizes to undergraduate seniors for the best review in the folklore or psychology literature on marriage or divorce. The value need not exist high: A $20,000 grant would generate needed work in this area besides as interest in this field among social science students.

Changing Country Police

Today, laws and government policies provide nearly no protection for the establishment of spousal relationship. The damaging furnishings of "no fault" divorces accept get so clear that today there are only 17 pure "no error" states.⁶⁸

Legislators because changing their divorce laws should consider the total range of legal options available to them, such as those compiled by Americans for Divorce Reform and posted on their Internet "Divorce Reform Folio"⁶⁹ This site presents arguments for and confronting the initiatives as well equally model legislation.

Several proposals could help to ho-hum state divorce rates. Specifically:

• Require agreement before filing for divorce. Married couples who have minor children should exist required to complete divorce didactics and a mediated co-parenting programme before they can file for divorce. Divorce instruction could help some of these couples resolve their problems and save their marriages. It is about effective early in the divorce process. Requiring a co-parenting program would enable the couple to develop a more realistic film of what life volition be like later divorce, and this could lead some couples to renew their efforts to save their marriage.

• Require mediation earlier divorce. Married couples with minor children should be required to participate in mediation classes before their case is brought before the court. The Office of Child Support Enforcement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services likewise reports skillful results from mediation.⁷⁰

• End "no-fault" divorce for parents with children under age eighteen. ⁷¹ No-fault divorce is a meaningless term for the children whose parents divorce. Lawmakers in Arizona, California, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Montana, Virginia, Texas, and Washington take introduced legislation to require common consent for a no-fault divorce. In the absence of such consent, the spouse petitioning for divorce has to bear witness the other spouse's "fault." This may make sense for childless couples, but the welfare of children under 18 should be the threshold for all other couples, who should have to evidence that grave harm would exist visited upon the children past the continuance of the marriage.

• Make Covenant Marriages a legal option. Couples should be able to commit to lifelong marriages if they so desire by agreeing to strict requirements for separation or divorce. The effect of such a delivery would exist salutary, and the accent information technology places on the seriousness of the marriage commitment would strengthen the ideal of wedlock in gild. Couples should undergo serious grooming earlier making such a commitment, however, since it would carry the strength of law. Too many individuals ally with the intention of staying married until death, only to detect out that their spouse had no such intention. In Covenant Marriages, couples sign a spousal relationship contract that lengthens the process for obtaining a divorce by two years. Louisiana and Arizona have enacted Covenant Marriage laws, and Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas have considered them. (In at least 25 other states, such legislation has been introduced and is moving through the system. Some of the states are considering ways to improve the concept.)

Changing School Curricula

School curricula reflect what the state wishes children to know for the mutual proficient. Emphasizing marriage clearly should fall within this area, since the decline of marriage imposes great costs on society, and marriage has many benefits for individual family unit members.⁷² To that extent, public school curricula should:

• Include marriage grooming courses at the loftier school level. Utah and Florida have passed legislation to include marriage curricula in high school coursework. By taking courses on bones marriage skills, adolescents will be better prepared to make some of the biggest decisions in their lives. The success of such a course obviously will depend on both content and teacher, of class. To prevent it from beingness co-opted to support another calendar, legislators should mandate in law that the content of the curriculum supports traditional marriage. They can build the content of the course on research already conducted by such experts as Professors Scott 1000. Stanley and Howard Markman of the University of Denver⁷³ and David Olson of the University of Minnesota.

• Promote and expand teen guiltlessness programs. Federal coin for chastity educational activity can be supplemented by TANF funds. Reducing the number of teens who are sexually active has a dramatic effect on the out-of-wedlock birth rate. The All-time Friends program in Washington, D.C., has institute this to be the case.⁷⁴

Conclusion

A cultural shift is occurring that bodes well for America'southward children. Later four decades of treating lodge's ills with more than government spending, elected officials, social scientists, community leaders, and policymakers beyond the ideological spectrum admit that strong marriages--not authorities largesse--are key to improving both personal and social well-being. Social science research is showing that children in married families are healthier, perform better in school, and are involved less frequently in offense or other destructive behaviors.

Much has been done over the by few decades to understand the benefits of spousal relationship, and good programs be to help couples prepare for marriage. Land and local officials should accept advantage of what the social scientific discipline inquiry and the records of "best practices" programs teach. Divorce at community levels tin can be reduced by 30 percent through community programs to strengthen spousal relationship. Forbearance earlier union will increase with the right programs, and proper attending on matrimony in the media tin help to change cultural attitudes.

Together, public- and private-sector leadership can bring together with the clergy begin this process, increasing the incidence of marriage and strengthening families while reducing the social problems that accompany family unit breakdown and out-of-union births. The goal is not small-scale, but it is increasingly more than achievable.

--Patrick F. Fagan is the William H. G. FitzGerald Senior Boyfriend in Family unit and Cultural Issues at The Heritage Foundation.

PDF March 26, 2001 | Executive Summary |  |

Endnotes

1. This is the sum of all means-tested spending from 1965 to 2000, expressed in abiding 1999 dollars, not including Social Security and most Medicare spending.

2. $150 billion is approximately the corporeality spent each yr past federal, land, and local governments on means-tested welfare programs. Because well-nigh all welfare programs are ways-tested, this arrangement of estimating eligibility for welfare finer penalizes marriage and promotes single parenthood among the poor. According to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, if a single father with one child who works for the minimum wage marries a single mother with i kid who too works at the minimum wage, they will lose $8,000 in income transfers, or roughly 33 percent to 40 percent of their combined income. An equivalent penalization in loss of income for a centre-form couple, each earning $30,000 per annum, who decide to marry would exist in the range of $20,000 per year.

iii. This is primarily federal teen abstinence money, with some land matching monies and federal rewards for reduction in out-of-wedlock births at the state level.

4. Run into Patrick F. Fagan, "The American Family," in Stuart G. Butler and Kim R. Holmes, eds., Bug 2000: The Candidate's Conference Book (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 2000).

five. Union Savers, at http://www.marriagesavers.org/
those_interested_in_creating_a_c.htm .

6. For more than information, contact the Best Friends Foundation at (202) 237-8156.

7. Accent added. At the same time, Representative Johnson warned against "supplementation," or the use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families surplus coin to defray program costs ordinarily paid by state taxation revenue. Doing and so, she warned, would invite Congress to reduce the level of TANF support to eliminate any surplus funds.

eight. For instance, a fairly recent U.Due south. longitudinal study tracking over 6,400 boys for over 20 years found that children who grew upwardly without their biological father in the home were roughly iii times more likely to commit a offense that led to incarceration than were children from intact families. Cynthia Harper and Sara Southward. McLanahan, "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration," findings presented at the 1998 meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco. Others have plant that children of divorced parents are upward to six times more likely to be delinquent than are children from intact families. See David B. Larson, James P. Swyers, and Susan S. Larson, The Plush Consequences of Divorce (Rockville, Md.: National Establish for Healthcare Research, 1995) p. 123.

9. Research has found that serious abuse is much higher among stepchildren than among children in intact families, and that adults who were sexually abused as children are more than likely to have been raised in stepfamilies than in intact married families. See, for example, David G. Gergusson, Michael T. Lynskey, and L. John Horwood, "Childhood Sexual Abuse and Psychiatric Disorders in Young Machismo," Journal of the American Academy of Kid and Boyish Psychiatry, Vol. 34 (1996), pp. 1355-1364.

10. For a comprehensive review of the literature on these and other effects, run into Patrick F. Fagan and Robert Rector, " The Effects of Divorce on Children," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1373, June v, 2000.

11. A single-parent family unit background and the poverty that can accompany it return children twice as probable to drop out of high school, 2.v times as likely to go out-of-wedlock teen parents, and ane.4 times as likely to be unemployed. See S. South. McLanahan, "The Consequences of Single Motherhood," The American Prospect, Vol. 18 (1994), pp. 48-58. See as well Patrick F. Fagan, " How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chances for Future Prosperity," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1283, June 11, 1999.

12. See Patrick F. Fagan, "Rising Illegitimacy: America'southward Social Catastrophe," Heritage Foundation F.Y.I. No. 14, June 29, 1994.

13. Encounter Fagan and Rector, "The Furnishings of Divorce on Children."

xiv. Meet Fagan, "How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chances for Time to come Prosperity."

15. Fagan and Rector, "The Effects of Divorce on Children," pp. 17ff.

xvi. David Anderson, "The Aggregate Burden of Criminal offense," Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 42 (Oct 1999), pp. 611-642.

17. For the basis of calculations, run across Ed Lazere, "Welfare Balances Afterwards Iii Years of TANF Block Grants: Unspent Temporary Help to Needy Families Funds at the End of Fiscal Year 1999," Center on Upkeep and Policy Priorities, January 2000, pp. xiv-fifteen.

18. Gene Falk, "Welfare Reform: Financing and Recent Spending Trends in the TANF Program," Congressional Research Service, RL30595, updated January four, 2001.

19. Arizona Statute 41-2031. Information on this statute can be obtained from its legislative sponsor, Hon. Mark Anderson, Arizona House of Representatives, at manderso@azleg.state.az.us.

20. Governor Mike Huckabee, Country of the State oral communication, January 9, 2001.

21. Run across http://world wide web.country.ar.us/governor/governor.html .

22. See http://www.state.ar.united states of america/governor/union/index.html .

23. Personal communication with Governor Huckabee'south function.

24. P.L. 104-193, Department 104.

25. Personal communication with Richard Albertson, Leon County, Florida.

26. Sponsored by State Representative Tony Perkins. Professor Katherine Spaht of Louisiana State University's Law Center provided legal expertise for the typhoon legislation and has consulted with 8 other states on similar bills.

27. Personal communication with Dr. Stephen Nock, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia, the chief author of the enquiry, and Dr. Alan Hawkins, Department of Family unit Studies, Brigham Young Academy, who was a consultant on the projection.

28. Christian Davenport, "Getting Aid Earlier the Honeymoon," The Washington Post, February 25, 2001, p. C1.

29. For more information, contact Delegate Leopold at (800) 492-7122, ext. 3217.

30. For more information, contact Delegate Montague at (800) 492-7122, ext. 3259, or email him at kenneth_montague@firm.country.doctor.us

31. Senate File (S.F.) No. 1021, at http://www.revisor.leg.land.mn.usa/cgi-bin/bldbill.pl?bill=S1021.0&session=ls82 .

32. See http://www.marriagesavers.org/ .

33. See http://www.lifeinnovation.com/ .

34. See http://www.foccusinc.com/ .

35. Marriage Savers reports that between 15 per centum and xx percent of couples who take this inventory decide not to ally. Others report entering spousal relationship with better understanding and communication skills.

36. Encounter http://www.wwme.org/ .

37. See http://www.marriagealive.org/ .

38. Meet http://www.familybuilders.internet/ .

39. See http://home.vicnet.net.au/~retro/abode.htm .

40. Michael J. McManus, "How Do You Create a Matrimony Savers Church?" at http://world wide web.marriagesavers.org/how_do_you_create_a_marriage_sav.htm .

41. Survey of Consumer Finance, 1995, Federal Reserve Board; Heritage Foundation calculations.

42. See http://www.marriagesavers.org/how_do_you_create_a_marriage_sav.htm .

43. See "Half dozen Churches That Have Virtually Eliminated Divorce," at http://www.marriagesavers.org/SixChurches .

44. In Modesto, California, co-ordinate to Mike McManus, president of Marriage Savers.

45. Information from Mike McManus, president of Marriage Savers.

46. Marriage Savers, at http://www.marriagesavers.org/divorcerates.htm .

47. Sources for this data, co-ordinate to Marriage Savers, are the county clerks of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in Kansas and Clay and Jackson Counties in Missouri.

48. Client tape follow-upward data from Southward Africa, provided by Stanley Posthumus.

49. From court tape data, provided by Stanley Posthumus.

50. For more than information, contact Stanley Posthumus, LLB, at stanp@bellatlantic.net.

51. For more information, contact the Best Friends Foundation at (202) 237-8156.

52. David R. Rowberry, "An Evaluation of the Washington DC Best Friends Plan," dissertation, Academy of Colorado, 1995.

53. For more than on the National Fatherhood Initiative, contact Wade Horn at nfi1995@aol.com.

54. See http://www.prepinc.com/ . PREP, the most enquiry-based program, is based on the work of Professors Howard Markman and Scott Stanley of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.

55. PAIRS Foundation due east-mail: epairs@aol.com.

56. Encounter http://www.nire.org .

57. Run across http://www.smartmarriages.com/directory_browse.html .

58. Encounter the following on a federal Office of Wedlock Initiatives: http://www.heritage.org/mandate/budget/
pdf/550/550marriageinitiatives.pdf ; http://www.heritage.org/mandate/budget/
pdf/550/550marriage.pdf; http://www.heritage.org/mandate/upkeep/
pdf/550/550childsupport.pdf; http://www.heritage.org/mandate/budget/
pdf/550/550familyplanning.pdf.

59. This bonus for decreasing out-of-wedlock births was part of the welfare reform legislation of 1996.

sixty. Benheim-Thoman Center for Research on Kid Wellbeing, Princeton Academy, and Social Indicators Survey Center, Columbia University, "Frail Families Research Brief" No. 1, May 2000.

61. For a review of the literature, run into Fagan, "How Broken Families Rob Children of Their Chances for Time to come Prosperity," pp. three-6.

62. Meet http://habitation.vicnet.net.au/~retro/dwelling.htm .

63. See http://world wide web.wwme.org/ .

64. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, 1997. Meet Fagan, "The American Family," Nautical chart half dozen.18.

65. See Patrick F. Fagan, "Family Planning, Family Failure," The Washington Times, July xiii, 2000, p. A22.

66. Encounter Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Instance for Marriage (New York: Doubleday, 2000), for authoritative research on this event.

67. Mark Boitano besides introduced legislation for a $100 revenue enhancement credit for taking marriage preparatory courses and appropriations for statewide distribution of a brochure to help couples prevent divorce.

68. Margaret Brinig of the College of Law, University of Iowa, at http://world wide web.uiowa.edu/~mfblaw/ .

69. John Crouch, Americans for Divorce Reform, "Divorce Reform Page," at http://adams.patriot.cyberspace/~crouch/divorce.html .

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Source: https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/encouraging-marriage-and-discouraging-divorce

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