Satisfaction

There was an interesting blurb in last Thursday’s USA Today’s “Snapshots” (Life Section, p. D1).

The Pew Research Center asked the following question:

Who is most satisfied with family life?

Married people reported the highest degree of satisfaction, followed by the widowed. Next came those who live with a partner.

In other words, those who are cohabitating are less happy than those who have lost a spouse to death.

Why?

There is a power and beauty (and satisfaction) in the act of commitment.

Living together outside the bounds of matrimony is not only unbiblical, but less satisfying than marriage. In addition, statistics indicate that the risk of domestic violence increases outside of marriage as does the risk of physical and sexual abuse of children.

This increase in out-of-wedlock births signals serious trouble for future generations. Children raised in single-parent homes are six times more likely to experience poverty than children raised in stable, married households. The rise in comparatively unstable cohabitation and the increasingly common fatherless home are endangering the traditional family and subjecting children to unnecessary socioeconomic challenges.

If you have a son or daughter (or grandson/granddaughter) threatening to move-in with their significant other (or who is already in such a relationship), why don’t you send them the link to this blog? Popular culture is bombarding them with the lie that cohabitation is a quick and carefree route to happiness.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, kids, marriage, parenting January 12, 2011 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura