Bridal Section

By KAY S. PEDROTTI
Staff Writer

Marriage as an institution is alive and well in Georgia, but the Georgia Family Council says the community needs to get involved in strengthening marriages.

The council's recently released recommendations include some suggestions for every facet of society, from recommending that doctors make it "a clinical practice to promote marriage as a healthy lifestyle," to saying that businesses should "minimize the time an employee spends away from (family) by exploring flex-time benefits, reducing overtime and cutting work-related travel when possible."

Georgia's divorce rate soared 174 percent between 1970 and 1994, reports by the council show, and another set of statistics points to a "growing acceptance" of divorce. In the 65-and-over group polled, only seven percent said that their parents had divorced, but 55 percent of those in the 18-24 age group said they had divorced parents.

Randy Hicks, executive director of the council, says that the breakdown of marriages "on a large scale" has the "potential to destabilize the entire community." He says social research shows that children from no-parent or single-parent homes are more likely to have higher rates of academic failure, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, delinquency, poverty and suicide.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that a per-day average for marriages in the country is about 6,400, while the divorces-per-day average 3,200. In 1996, 2.3 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces took place in the U.S. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, Georgia had the country's 18th highest divorce rate in 1994.

Some other interesting findings of the Georgia Marriage Report include:

- Seventy-one percent agree that marriage should be considered a promise to remain together "till death do us part."

- Eighty-seven percent disagree that marriage is old-fashioned or outmoded.

- More than two-thirds think the quality of a typical marriage is weaker than it was 30 years ago.

-Strong marriages need good communication, lifelong commitment, close friendship and fidelity.

- Contributors to a decline in marriage strength include more permissive attitudes about divorce, and sex outside marriage.

- Georgians agreed by 91 percent that "all things being equal, it is better for children to be raised in a household that has a married mother and father."

- Those polled said that other than the couple themselves, churches (60 percent) and extended families (21 percent) are the most likely sources of strengthening marriages.

The council's new recommendations call for churches to insist on marriage preparation for all couples who wish their ceremonies solemnized in the faith group, and to encourage renewal of wedding vows in front of family and friends. Extended families, the report says, can sponsor married couples in their families for enrichment seminars, or volunteer to baby-sit children so that couples can spend quality time together.

About two-thirds of the people in the Georgia Family Council poll said they see divorce as "trading one set of problems for another," and nearly half of all divorcees questioned said they wished they had tried harder to work out differences.

For more information or a copy of the report and recommendations, contact the family council at 770-242-0001, Angie Hillman or Tim McIntosh; or use e-mail: gafamcncl@aol.com.

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Special Sections Home Page