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Many people have named the decreasing importance of the institution of marriage as the cause of society's ills. I may be inclined to agree.
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In previous generations, if a boy impregnated a girl, they got married. Period. If they ended up not really liking each other, tough. They raised their child to the best of their abilities (and had several more). The marriage would probably degrade into a bickering spiteful relationship, but the kids would get jobs, and the fabric of society would stay intact. This was simply the duty of the parents.
This system worked for many of my relatives. Fast forward through the 60's and 70's. There was some "sexual revolution." I don't quite understand it. Many of my relatives in my parents' generation got pregnant, got married, and divorced approximately a decade later. Now the children of my generation have reached fertility. These are the children of the broken homes of the 80's. Now my family looks like somewhat boring episode of Jerry Springer. We wait to see if the young woman's child is white, son of my cousin, and a member of our family, or if the father is actually the black boyfriend. The boomer grandparents give sage advice like "you don't want to marry him, he's a loser" or "there's no point in raising a child in a home where parents fight."
You can't possibly tell me that the current state of society is better than the days when young parents were forced to marry and stay together. |