Dobson, James C.

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Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public PolicyVolume 18Issue 1 Symposium on Marriage and the Law Article 11-1-2012Marriage is the Foundation of the FamilyJames C. DobsonFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjleppThis Introduction is brought to you for free and open access by the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy at NDLScholarship. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information,please contact lawdr@nd.edu.Recommended CitationJames C. Dobson, Marriage is the Foundation of the Family, 18 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 1 (2004).Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp/vol18/iss1/1FOREWORDMARRIAGE IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE FAMILYJAMES C. DoBsON*Those of us who are endeavoring to strengthen society'smost vital and primary institution-the family, founded uponand nurtured by marriage-owe the editors of the respectedNotre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy a substantial debtof gratitude. Here they have commissioned a timely and impor-tant volume addressing the myriad reasons why law must be acareful custodian of marriage. And they have delivered it to us ata moment when the battle rages red-hot.Without a doubt, the institution of marriage is under severelegal and social assault. Fueled by an ugly and dangerous hubris,the courts have moved from being one of marriage's historicalprimary caretakers, to being its molder and master and, if someget their wish, its destroyer. Although the U.S. Supreme Court,less than thirty years ago, recognized that marriage transcendslaw as a "sacred" institution "older than the Bill of Rights,"' theMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, late last fall, declared civilmarriage to be a mere creation of the State.2 If we are willing toentertain the idea that marriage is a human creation, then we* Ph.D., University of Southern California. James Dobson is the founderand chairman of the board of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organizationthat produces his internationally syndicated radio programs heard daily onmore than 3,000 radio facilities in North America and in fifteen languages onapproximately 3,300 facilities in over 116 other countries. His commentariesare heard by more than 200 million people every day, including a programtranslation carried on all state-owned radio stations in the People's Republic ofChina. He is seen on eighty television stations daily in the U.S. For fourteenyears Dr. Dobson taught as an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at theUniversity of Southern California School of Medicine, and served for seventeenyears on the Attending Staff of Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Divi-sion of Child Development and Medical Genetics. He is a clinical member ofthe American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a licensed psychol-ogist in California, and is listed in Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare.1. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965).2. See Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941, 954 (Mass.2003).2 NOTRE DAME JOURNAL OF LAW, ETHICS & PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 18must also accept the notion that it is subservient to and pliable bythe State.And so the State disfigures marriage, as it did in Lawrence v.Texas' (which extended constitutional protection to not onlysodomy, but to all non-marital sexual activity). Likewise, in Good-ridge v. Department of Public Health, Massachusetts' highest courtcharacterized the age-old and humanly universal definition ofmarriage as a union between male and female not as an impor-tant social function, but rather as a sign of animus toward homo-sexuals that is unconstitutional.4 These decisions are verydisturbing cultural indicators. When a society can find no reasonwhatever to praise one expression of sexual activity or domesticrelationship as legally and morally superior to another-due toits ability to provide necessary and good things for society-it haslost its ability to maintain a productive and humane culture.But the serious threats to marriage and the family did notstart with these radical court decisions. Our society has beenredefining marriage for decades. Each change has systematicallydevolved marriage into an autonomous, self-expressive, self-satis-fying relationship, rather than an institution that encourages ser-vice to the good of the family and society.One of the most significant efforts to redefine marriage andfamily, although driven by the legal profession, came not fromthe courts, but from the legislature. The world's first no-faultdivorce law, developed by leading radical family law theorists,moved through the California legislature and was signed into lawby Governor Ronald Reagan in 1969.' With the wisp of a pen,the "until death do us part" idea of marriage became optional.At that point, it was legally easier for a spouse to leave a thirty-year marriage than it was to break an annual pool-maintenancecontract. In the years that followed, every state in the Unionadopted some form of no-fault divorce. Suddenly, marriage wasno longer marriage, because its understanding as a permanentsocial and spiritual contract no longer had any backing in law.Social science investigations over the intervening thirty years tellus conclusively that the fall-out from this fundamental tinkeringwith marriage, particularly in terms of declining human wellbeing for adults and children, was far more severe than anyoneimagined. It isn't difficult to see how heterosexuals' dismissal ofthe essential "as long as we both shall live" component of mar-3. Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003).4. See 798 N.E.2d at 958.5. Family Law Act of 1969, ch. 1608, 1969 Cal. Stat. 3312 (repealed 1994).MARRIAGE IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE FAMILYriage makes it easier for homosexuals to dismiss the fundamental"husband and wife" part.While not a threat to marriage in and of itself, the birth con-trol pill must also be considered for its role in shaping society'sview of the institution. Although Protestants have generally beenmore accepting of the use of contraception among marriedcouples than our Catholic brothers and sisters, few Christians oneither side of the Reformation can deny oral contraception'ssocial impact upon sexuality and marriage.Another blow to marriage came with the humanly tragic Roev. Wade6 decision, which was founded on Griswold's expansive"right to privacy."' This decision turned not only the family, buttraditional moral understandings, on its head, giving parents theconstitutionally guaranteed right to kill their own pre-born child,thereby obliterating the very nature of parenthood and thehuman social contract. But Roe did more than simply corrupt theparent/child relationship; it created a rift between spouses aswell. As Professor Gerard Bradley observes in his essay, "theabortion liberty means that one spouse-the wife-may unilater-ally decide to destroy the unborn issue of the marriage, the childof the father/husband.... Roe is bad enough for giving our landlegal abortion. But its destruction of the mutuality proper tospouses is monstrous, too."' While Griswold helped make mar-riage an expressive couple's relationship, Roe made marriage'sreproductive imperative a matter of individual (and unilateral)expressiveness. Again, this development paves the way for same-sex unions that legitimize children not by the fact of their crea-tion through biology, but through an act of will. Abortion andsame-sex marriage both proclaim that "children are ours becausewe want them to be ours, regardless of what biology dictates."The growth and normalization of cohabitation-which ourparents and past generations of parents referred to as "living insin"-is also contributing to the relativization of all intimatedomestic relationships. While divorced and single-parent fami-lies have leveled off after two decades of rocketing growth,cohabiting unions have emerged as America's fastest growingfamily form. The incidence grew 850% from 1960 to 1990.96. 410 U.S. 179 (1973).7. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 485 (1965).8. Gerard Bradley, Law and the Culture of Marriage, 18 NOTRE DAME J.L.ETHICS & PUB. POL'Y 189, 208 (2004).9. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead & David Popenoe, The National MarriageProject, The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America (2003), athttp://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2003.htm (onfile with the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy).200414 NOTRE DAME JOURNAL OF LAW, ETHICS & PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 18Consequently, there is a strong movement among some powerfuland influential legal advocates to make socially and personallyambiguous cohabiting relationships equal with marriage. TheLaw Commission of Canada, in its 2001 report, Beyond Conjugal-ity: Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Relationships, advo-cates elevating all close personal relationships to the legal statusof marriage, while at the same time eliminating marriage as alegal and domestic category altogether.' Leading legal theoristsat the world's most prestigious universities propose the same.American University Professor of Law Nancy Polikoff encouragesgay and lesbian advocates to work toward "abolishing the legalstatus of marriage for everyone."" Writing in the Family LawQuarterly, Harry Krause says marriage "should be seen for what ithas become: one lifestyle choice among many."2 Thus,"[m]arried and unmarried couples who are in the same factualposition should be treated alike." 3 There are many others whostrongly advocate marriage's legal redefinition. 4Such a radical move will without question result in increasedharm to women and children, as evidenced by the conclusivesocial science data indicating that domestic violence againstwomen and children skyrockets in the absence of marriage."This literature also informs us that all of the important measuresof well being for adults and children decline when family rela-10. LAW COMMISSION OF CANADA, BEYOND CONJUGALITY: RECOGNIZING ANDSUPPORTING CLOSE PERSONAL ADULT RELATIONSHIPS 7, 123-24 (2001). See alsoPRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF FAMILY DISSOLUTION: ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDA-TIONS §§ 6.01-6.06 (2002) (creating a domestic partner category designed toprovide a set of default rules to govern economic rights and responsibilities atthe end of a nonmarital, cohabitating relationship).11. Nancy D. Polikoff, An End to All Marriage, WASH. BLADE, July 25, 2003,at 39, available at http://www.washblade.com/2003/7-25/view/columns/endmarrige.cfm (on file with the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & PublicPolicy).12. Harry D. Krause, Marriage for the New Millennium: Hetereosexual, SameSex-or Not at All?, 34 FAM. L.Q. 271, 276 (2000).13. Id. at 278.14. See Stanley Kurtz, Beyond Gay Marriage, THE WKLY. STANDARD, Aug. 4,2003, at 26.15. See, e.g., GLENN T. STANTON, WHY MARRIAGE MATrERS: REASONS TOBELIEVE IN MARRIAGE IN POSTMODERN SOCIETY, 61-64 (Colorado Springs: Nay-Press, 1997); Jan Stets, Cohabiting and Marital Aggression: The Role of Social Isola-tion, 53 J. MARRIAGE & FAM., 669 (1991); Michael Stiffman, et al., HouseholdComposition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment, 109 PEDIATRICS 615 (2002);Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Victimizationin the United States, 2002, Statistical Tables, NCJ 200561, tbl. 31 (2003), availa-ble at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus02.pdf (on file with theNotre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy).MARRIAGE IS THE FOUNDA77ON OF THE FAMILYtionships are not grounded by marriage. 6 Simply put, marriagechanges us in ways that other close relationships don't. In hisclassic work, Men and Marriage, George Gilder reports that singlemen are more "disposed to criminality, drugs and violence" thanothers in the population at large.17 Furthermore, the single manis more likely to be irresponsible about debt, more prone to alco-holism, more likely to get into an accident, and is more suscepti-ble to disease. 8 Single men are 30% more likely than married16. For research on how marriage enhances adult well-being, see ROBERTT. MICHAEL ET AL., SEX IN AMERICA: A DEFINITIVE SURVEY, 124-29 (1994); STAN-TON, supra note 15; LINDA WAITE & MAGGIE GALLAGHER, THE CASE FOR MAR-RIAGE: WHY MARRIED PEOPLE ARE HAPPIER, HEALTHIER AND BET'ER OFFFINANCIALLY (2000); Robert Coombs, Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: ALiterature Review, 40 FAM. Rel. 97 (1991); James Goodwin, et al., The Effect ofMarital Status on Stage, Treatment, and Survival of Cancer Patients, 258 JAMA 3125(1987); I.M. Joung, et al., Differences in Self-Reported Morbidity by Marital Status andby Living Arrangement, 23 INT'L J. OF EPIDEMIOLOGY 91 (1994); BenjaminMalzberg, Marital Status in Relation to the Prevalence of Mental Disease, 10 PSYCH IAT-RIC Q. 245 (1936); Randy Page & Galen Cole, Demographic Predictors of Self-Reported Loneliness in Adults, 68 PSYCHOL. REP. 939 (1991); Steven Stack &J. RossEshleman, Marital Status and Happiness: A 17-Nation Study, 60 J. MARRIAGE &FAM., 527 (1998); Linda Waite, Does Marriage Matter? 32 DEMOGRAPHY 483(1995); David Williams et al., Marital Status and Psychiatric Disorders Among Blacksand Whites, 33J. OF HEALTH & SOC. BEHAV. 140 (1992); Richard Rogers, Mar-riage, Sex, and Mortality, 57J. OF MARRIAGE & FAM. 515 (1995).For research on how marriage enhances child well-being, see DAVID T. ELL-WOOD, POOR SUPPORT: POVERTY IN THE AMERICAN FAMILY 46 (1988); IRWIN GAR-FINKEL & SARA S. McLANAHAN, SINGLE MOTHERS AND THEIR CHILDREN: A NEWAMERICAN DILEMMA 30-31 (1986); MICHAEL GOTrFREDSON & TRAVIS HIRSCHI, AGeneral Theory of Crime 103 (1990); SARA McLANAHAN & GARY SANDEFUR,GROWING UP WITH A SINGLE PARENT: WHAT HURTS, WHAT HELPS (1994); DAVIDPOPENOE, LIFE WITHOUT FATHER: COMPELLING EVIDENCE THAT FATHERHOOD ANDMARRIAGE ARE INDISPENSIBLE FOR THE GOOD OF CHILDREN (1996); STANTON,supra note 15; JUDITH S. WALLERSTEIN & SANDRA BLAKESLEE, SECOND CHANCES:MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN A DECADE AFTER DIVORCE (1990);JUDITH WALLER-STEIN ET AL., THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF DIVORCE: A 25 YEAR LANDMARK STUDY(2000); Ronald Angel & Jacqueline Lowe Worobey, Single Motherhood and Chil-dren's Health, 29J. HEALTH & SOC. BEHAV. 38 (1988); Deborah Dawson, FamilyStructure and Children's Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National HealthInterview Survey on Child Health, 53 J. MARRIAGE & FAM. 573 (1991); E. MavisHetherington, Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in AdolescentDaughters, 7 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOL. 313 (1972); Richard Koestner, et al., TheFamily Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study, 58 J. OFPERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCH. 709 (1990); L. Remez, Children Who Don't Live withBoth Parents Face Behavioral Problems, 24 FAM. PLAN. PERSP. 41 (1992); Michael N.Stiffman et al., Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment, 109PEDIATRICS 615 (2002); Nicholas Zill et al., Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce onParent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood, 7 J.FAM. PSYCHOL. 91 (1993).17. GEORGE GILDER, MEN AND MARRIAGE 62 (1986).18. Id.2004]6 NOTRE DAME JOURNAL OF LAW, ETHICS & PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 18men or single women to be depressed, 30% more likely to have"phobic tendencies," nearly twice as likely to show "severe neu-rotic symptoms," and three times as prone to nervousbreakdowns.' 9Strong and stable marriages contribute significantly not onlyto the welfare of men, but to women and children as well. This isbecause, as Maggie Gallagher aptly concludes in her essay:Marriage is key to integrating men into family life and toreproducing not only children, but the family system itself.When parents do not get and stay married their childrenare less likely to confine childbearing to marriage and toavoid divorce, creating a downward intergenerational cycleof family fragmentation. Whole communities suffer whenmarriage is no longer the normal, usual, and generally reli-able way to raise children. 20The good news is that we can avoid further damage to ourown children and to the coming generations if we will only rec-ognize that our slow and systematic dismantling of marriage hasfailed to deliver on its promises of enhancing human well-beingand improving society. Given the undeniable and well-docu-mented detriments inherent to abolishing traditional marriage,it is foolish to entertain the idea that we can go any further downthat road. That is why the marriage preservation efforts that somany have been involved in over the years are so critical.In the final analysis, marriage is an institution ordained byour wise and loving Creator for the benefit of all humankind,and as such, it cannot be undone or reasoned away through theworkings of finite man. We attempt to do so at our peril. AsPope John Paul II teaches us in his encyclical, Familiaris Consortio,"lIt] he future of humanity passes by way of the family."'" And soour body of law must protect, rather than redefine, the family-atimeless institution that is established upon and nurtured bymarriage.19. Id. at 63.20. Maggie Gallagher, Rites, Rights, and Social Institutions: Why and HowShould the Law Support Marriage?, 18 NOTRE DAMEJ.L. ETHICS & PUB. POL'Y 225,233 (2004).21. POPE JOHN PAUL II, FAMILIARIS CONSORTio: THE ROLE OF THE CHRIS.TIAN FAMILY IN THE MODERN WORLD 129 (Pauline Books & Media 1999) (1981).

Marriage is the Foundation of the Family

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Marriage is the Foundation of the Family

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