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From the Kitchen Table

Happily Ever After

by Peg Luksik

Every fairy tale worth its salt ends with the princess marrying her Prince Charming and living "happily ever after." And while no one actually lives in the perfect land of fairy tale endings, marriage is indeed a happy state for those living within its embrace.

The lifelong committed union between one man and one woman has proven itself beneficial to the man and the woman, their children, and the larger society over thousands of years and myriads of cultures. That family structure has outlived empires, survived devastating disease, and spanned the oceans. It has been studied from every possible angle, and compared to every imaginable permutation – and it has outperformed them all in every measure.

Married men and women live longer than their non-married peers, perhaps because another is looking after them. This benefit is particularly noticeable for men, who do not fare as well when widowed as women. Married men and women are generally physically healthier throughout their longer lives, again possibly due to the care of the spouse. Married men and women are also generally mentally healthier, with fewer incidents of depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, or substance abuse. They are less likely to be involved in incidents of domestic violence. They are less likely to live below the poverty line. In short, they generally do come closer to the "happily ever after" ideal than any other adult relationship.

The biological children of married men and women also outperform their peers in every measurement. They show higher levels of academic achievement, self-esteem, self-discipline, and successful peer relationships. They are the least likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, become involved in a teenage pregnancy, drop out, suffer from abuse or neglect, become involved in crime, exhibit mental distress such as depression or suicide, or live below the poverty line. They are most likely to become successful adults who themselves are capable of creating and sustaining a stable family for the next generation of little ones.

Societies in which the marriages between one man and one woman are respected and protected reflect this health and stability. They have lower crime rates, fewer people living in poverty, fewer substance abuse problems. The children in these societies are more likely to finish high school and continue their educations, and then get and hold jobs.

A microcosmic evaluation of this situation can be conducted by examining a high crime and a low crime area of the same city or town. In the high crime neighborhoods, the two-married-parent family structure is virtually non-existent, while in the low crime neighborhoods, that married structure is still functional. The neighborhoods reflect the benefits of marriage, or the devastation caused by its disintegration.

But amazingly, that very structure is under attack in America today. Some activists are working hard to mask the benefits of traditional marriage with invalid research, to portray alternate structures as equally positive through the media, and to force acceptance of these alternates through the courts.

In Pennsylvania, a constitutional amendment has been introduced in the Senate to protect the institution of marriage – an institution that can actually make "happily ever after" true not just in our fairy tales, but in our homes and therefore in our communities. We told our children the fairy tale. Let us not, through our inaction, deny them the reality.