Marriage rates in the United States reached an all-time low in 2018, according to a recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics. Looking at marriage rates from going back to 1867, the earliest year on record, the report found that marriage rates dropped to 6%, or 6.5 new marriages per 1,000 people in 2018. The Wall Street Journal points out that instead of marriage, many couples are choosing cohabitation.
This trend is expected to continue. The report noted that a record number of youth and young adults are projected to completely forgo marriage. Curtin also predicts that COVID-19 could negatively affect marriage rates, pointing out that many couples who put off marriage cite economic concerns as a driving factor for their decision.
Coinciding with the drop in marriage rates, the CDC also found that birthrates have been in decline, reaching a 32-year low in 2018. Family is part of God’s good design, and as increasing numbers of Americans decide not to build families, they are missing out on the blessings involved. This is a tragic loss. God established marriage and family in Genesis when he gave Eve to Adam as his helper and his bride, blessing them and telling them to fill and subdue the earth. In the New Testament we are told that marriage points to Christ’s relationship with his bride, the church. As Christians, we ought to lead the way in pointing people to the goodness of God’s design in marriage and family by embracing it ourselves and living out God’s design as a picture of the marriage between Christ and his church.
