Newspaper Skews Marriage Facts

by Wendy Cloyd
citizenlink.org

The New York Times compared apples to oranges in pronouncing that marriage is headed for extinction.

An article in The New York Times Monday reported that married women are now a minority, but marriage and family experts say that’s a distortion of U.S. Census data.

According to the Times report, 51 percent of American women are single, compared to 35 percent of women in 1950.

But included in that number were girls as young as 15 and women whose husbands work out of town, are in the military or are institutionalized.

"This is simply another brazen attempt by The New York Times to advance an ultra-liberal social agenda," said Dr. Bill Maier, psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family.

Dr. Scott Stanley, co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, said women are marrying at a later age -- the median is now 26 -- which can radically skew marriage statistics.

"You can look at how many are married by age 40 in any particular era and you get a little more precise way to do it," he said. Marriage is less common than it used to be, “but the number of people who want to be married and have it work out well is still extraordinarily high.”

Maier said the Times article also failed to mention that married women have better physical and emotional health than unmarried women.

“They live longer, enjoy a much higher standard of living, report higher levels of sexual satisfaction and are less likely to be victims of violence," he said.

The New York Times seems intent on disparaging marriage and discouraging young women from even considering it, Maier said.

"Marriage as an institution is suffering in our country," he added. "We should do everything we can to promote healthy, stable marital relationships, because those relationships remain the bedrock of our society."