Covenant marriage a victory for families

Sen. Jim Bryson's, R-Franklin, covenant marriage proposal is a proactive step toward strengthening the institution of marriage.

The covenant marriage option would require premarital counseling, limit grounds of divorce and require a longer period of waiting for a divorce. Tennessee has consistently had a higher divorce rate than most of the other states.

The provisions in the bill are common sense and much needed. Perhaps the strongest part of the bill is the pre-marital counseling.

My wife Bethany and I underwent counseling a few months before we were married with our pastor and church psychologist, and I cannot tell you how eye-opening it was. A war on marriage is being fiercely waged in the United States, and it is much easier to understand the need for covenant marriages when one examines the two biggest opponents of the institution and their destructive consequences: homosexual marriage and divorce.

"Marriage is slowly dying in Scandinavia," said Weekly Standard reporter Stanley Kurtz in February 2004. "A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood."

Kurtz explains that the only reason why divorce rates seem to be falling in Scandinavia is because far fewer people are actually getting married. After all, it's hard to get a divorce if you aren't married in the first place.

In February 2004, Southern Seminary President Al Mohler wrote: "A recent study published by Harvard University Press indicates that some young married couples in Scandinavian countries are reluctant even to admit that they are married. Since the cultural expectation is cohabitation, marriage has become something of an embarrassment."

It is a dark day for the family when men and women feel shamed by society for vowing to weather every storm of life together, faithfully, till death do they part. And yet, the United States is long overdue in confronting the other, more entrenched enemy of marriage: divorce.

Some of the best research on divorce has been conducted by psychologist James Dobson and Focus on the Family. Dobson wrote in 2000, "One landmark study revealed that 90 percent of children from divorced homes suffered from an acute sense of shock when the separation occurred, including profound grieving and irrational fears."

Dobson also stated that half of the children felt "rejected and abandoned" and half of the dads never visited their kids three years after breaking up.

According to Dobson, "Most significant[ly], 37 percent of the children were even more unhappy and dissatisfied five years after the divorce than they had been at 18 months. In other words, time did not heal their wounds."

Also writing for Focus on the Family, Amy Desai relayed more dismal results:

"Research comparing children of divorced parents to children with married parents shows [that] children from divorced homes suffer academically. They experience high levels of behavior problems. Their grades suffer, and they are less likely to graduate from high school. Kids whose parents divorce are substantially more likely to be incarcerated for committing a crime as a juvenile. Because the custodial parent's income drops substantially after a divorce, children in divorced homes are almost five times more likely to live in poverty than are children with married parents. Teens from divorced homes are much more likely to engage in drug and alcohol use, as well as sexual intercourse than are those from intact families."

These findings make it clear that kids need a mom and dad and a stable home environment. Divorce and homosexual marriage are leaving indelible scars on society. It is imperative to do everything possible to protect families and win the war on marriage.

Covenant marriages require more time for couples to work out their differences before getting a divorce. The goal behind this is for couples to strengthen their marriage and decide to stay together. If more couples decide to weather the storms, matrimony will see clear skies ahead and perhaps America will have a lasting, pro-family movement develop across the nation.

Thousands of battles won in homes across the country - in which divorce emerges as the loser - will translate into decisive victory for the family in the war on marriage.

Justin Wax is a sophomore history major and can be reached at jtw2n@mtsu.edu.