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Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society

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The results of over 100 years of scientific research are gathered together in one place, spanning studies from the 1890s to the present day. The data cover multiple cultures and deal with all stages and ages of life. Literally hundreds of individual studies are represented, many of which were done by researchers at some of the most "liberated" universities in Europe and America. Yet the results of all these studies uniformly support a consistent set of notions: that human beings fare best when they are reared in intact nuclear families; that they prosper best in adult life when joined, male and female, in lifelong monogamous relationships sanctioned and supported by the community; that both adults and children suffer enormously when divorce breaks up a family.

The implications are clear. The post modern mantras that "children are resilient," and that "we're better off apart if we don't agree" are just plain wrong.

The lessons to be learned are not just for those facing marital difficulties. I think the message is especially important for re-establishing in our children the expectation that marriage is forever, so choose well and work hard. This book may be a little dry for your teenager and addresses a difficult subject for many parents to discuss with their own children, so you might wnat to extract some nuggets for small group discussion at key places like church youth gatherings. In the process, you will probably discover some reasons of your own for "keeping at it."

My husband and I read this book at a critical point in our marriage, and found it a life-saver. Many of the author's points are based on research and statistics, but when he writes from the heart, it touches your heart. It truly was an eye-opener and beneficial to us.

You simply cannot argue with statistics like these. Marriage DOES matter, and there is no substitute for it.

This book brought up some very interesting and little mentioned facts about the positive effects marriage in all aspects of your life. I found it enlightening that marriage has a positive effect one one's health!

On the heels of just having read a book on why America needs "gay marriage", reading Glenn Stanton was a breath of fresh air. Stanton starts off talking about how bad our situation is with broken homes. However, unlike my last read, Stanton shows himself to be well-read and capable of backing his case. Having heard him through the MacLaurin institute online, I am impressed with his width of knowledge on some of the most obscure facts about marriage.

Stanton speaks about all factors of marriage including for a great start, how married life is more sexually fulfilling, a fact which I haven't got to try yet as a single guy, but Stanton paints a great picture of how it should be. It is quite amusing when he talks about how a daughter had her question answered on safe sex by saying sex shouldn't at all be safe, and he's absolutely right! No man wants to go on his honeymoon and think "Well, I hope we'll just keep it safe." No. He wants it to be as wild and dangerous and care-free as possible. Stanton knows this.

He also writes of the danger of cohabitation and how it doesn't help marriage and in fact makes it more likely that divorce will occur. His statistics are strong and convincing, the same when he speaks about the benefits for men and women when they get married and the problems of divorce and remarriage.

Not only that, at the end, he gives several suggestions that he thinks should be implemented to improve marriage. Some ideas you'll love. Some you'll think have some merit. Some you might want to avoid like the plague. They're not all his and he does state that and he does state that he holds varying degrees of loyalty to them, but the main point is that he has ideas and they should be implemented.

In the chapter on sex, Stanton says we need another sexual revolution. This one will be talking about the joy of sexuality in the context of marriage. The 60's have brought us to the brink of death, especially with "gay marriage" being an issue now. We need to reclaim our country with a new revolution, the true sexual revolution. This time, sex won't set us free, which it sadly set us free from happiness of marriage, but we will instead set it free from its captors and return it to its rightful place, the marriage relationship between a man and a woman.

This was a good reference for my daughter writing a school paper on marriage.

READER SHOULD BE AWARE THIS IS A "FOCUS ON THE FAMILY" BOOK AND THE MORALISTIC DRUM BEAT IS CONSTANT.