The Demise of the Family

Congressional report shows decline in "happy, two-parent homes"

Earlier this year, a group of Republicans on the U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee produced a report called “The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home.” It provided an overview of how the American family has changed over the past 50 years—especially related to marriage. The changes have not been positive.

Those of you who know me outside these articles know that I am passionate about marriage. I have devoted much of my life and ministry to helping couples build strong, godly marriages. So these kinds of reports always get my attention. This report is incredibly discouraging and shows that the moral state of our society is worse than ever before.

“Perilous Times”

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul writes to Timothy about the end times. “In the last days, perilous times will come,” he predicts. He then goes on to describe the type of moral decay that will mark those last days. He warns about “despisers of good” and “lovers of pleasure,” as well as a rise in men and women who are unthankful, unholy, and unloving.

The Greek word we translate “unloving” in that passage is the word astorgos. It refers to the lack of family love. “Unloving” men or women are those who aren’t experiencing or producing the love of family.

When I see the state of marriage and family today, I recognize many of those warning signs. I see a world in which more adults are “unloving”—or disconnected to marriage and family—than ever before.

The report opens with these powerful words:

Family relationships are the first a person experiences in life. Children are nurtured, taught, and socialized in the family, and from there learn to relate to others and participate in the broader society. A stable family offers the emotional security a child needs for healthy development…

As sources of valuable social capital, few relationships are as important as the family ties between parents and children. However, as with other features of our associational life, family ties have been weakening for several decades.

The Weakening American Family

Consider some of the findings of the report:

• By late adolescence, 45% of today’s American children will spend significant periods of time during which a biological parent is absent. In the 1950s, this was true of only one-fifth to one-quarter of children.

• Between 1962 and 2019, the percentage of married women under the age of 44 dropped from 71% to 42%.

• Individuals are getting married later in life. In 1960, the median age for marriage was 20 (women) and 23 (men). Today, that median age is 28 for women and 30 for men.

• Today, 35% of women ages 30 to 34 have never married at all. In 1962, this number was only 7%.

• In the 1960s, only 1% of couples living together were unmarried. Today, that number is much higher. Around 13% of couples currently living in the same household are unmarried.

• For the past two decades, two-thirds of new marriages have been preceded by cohabitation of some kind, even though this practice makes marriages less likely to succeed. (Society once frowned on cohabitation, but not anymore.)

• In 1960, 5% of births were to unmarried mothers. Today, unwed childbearing is nearly eight times as common as it once was: 40% of births last year were to unmarried mothers.

• Today, only 70 percent of children live with two parents. 10% live with a divorced single parent. Around 15% live with a parent who has never married.

• The decline in family stability happens more rapidly in minority groups. Around 46% of non-Hispanic white women under the age of 44 are married. But only 24% of Black women in the same age group are married.

• African-American women are also more likely to have a marriage end in divorce. A total of 63% of first marriages among Black women end in divorce within 20 years. For non-Hispanic white women, that number is 47%, and it is 46% among Hispanic women.

• 80% of Black children grow up with single parents.

These numbers are, of course, very discouraging. I continue to believe that every marriage can find success if we follow God’s plan for marriage. In fact, I released a book about this early in 2020.

These numbers provide evidence, however, that men and women in our society are not following that plan. No society can thrive without strong marriages and strong families—which is becoming ever more clear in our deteriorating culture.

A Devastating Future?

That’s bad news for today’s youth, who are the adults of tomorrow. The lack of strong marriages and intact families can hurt a society for generations, the report says:

Researchers have well established that children raised by married parents do better on a wide array of outcomes. They have stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers. They are also much less likely to experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. They have better health, exhibit less aggression, are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, have greater educational attainment, and earn more as adults. They are also far less likely to live in poverty.

Of course, I’m not sure humanity will ever see those negative generational results come to pass, because I believe this is the final human generation before the Rapture and the return of Christ. One reason I believe this is due to the ways Jesus described the last days in Luke 17:

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”—Luke 17:26-30

Noah lived in a very immoral culture. Lot lived in a very immoral culture. Jesus said the Rapture would come during a time that was similar to the days of Noah and of Lot. Noah and Lot were righteous men who proclaimed the truth, but the societies they lived in refused to listen to the voices of truth. Their worlds were hardened to the truth and filled with violence and sexual immorality.

Genesis 6 describes the world of Noah this way:

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”—Genesis 6:11-12

The Hebrew word we translate “corrupt” is the word shachath. It means evil, filthy and immoral. Does that sound like the world we live in right now? God looked down at that world, a world filled with immorality, and pronounced judgment on it. The cities in Lot’s world were so bad that the phrase “Sodom and Gomorrah” has come to refer to a place of licentiousness and insatiable desire for sexual pleasure.

The Coming Cataclysm

God punished those societies with cataclysm. A devastating flood hit Noah’s culture. Fire and brimstone fell from the sky to destroy Lot’s contemporaries.

Jesus spoke of a direct parallel between those worlds and society at the end. What is our immoral society facing? The Tribulation, the wrath of Almighty God poured out on the earth.

Our society is becoming more and more “unloving” as it disconnects from the traditional ideals of marriage and family. We are becoming more and more immoral in the process. This proves to me that ours is the last generation, and just like in the days of Noah and Lot, judgment is coming.