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Science & Additional Commentary 

PARAGRAPH 6

 

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.  “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3).

  • Being a homemaker is the most reliable predictor of the happiness of married women - as compared to women who work full-time outside the home.  Judith Treas & Tanja van der Lippe, “The Happy Homemaker?  Married Women’s Satisfaction in Cross-national Perspective,” Social Forces, 2012.

 

  • Among couples who married and stayed married, the per person net worth increased on average by 16 percent with each year of marriage. Compared to those who remained single, getting married increased one’s wealth, on average, by 93 percent.  Jay Zagorsky, “Marriage and Divorce’s Impact on Wealth,” Journal of Sociology 41, 4 (2005): 406-424.  Cited in: Want to be Wealthy? Try Marriage, Cable News Network. January 18, 2006.

 

  • Married mothers showed greater psychological well-being and reported less ambivalence and conflict, and greater love and intimacy in their relationships with their partners than cohabiting or single mothers. They also believed in more progressive child rearing ideas, and were less likely to believe in benefits for child development from maternal employment.  Stacy R. Aronson and Aletha C. Huston, “The Mother-Infant Relationship in Single, Cohabiting, and Married Families:  A Case of Marriage?” Journal of Family Psychology 18, 1 (2004):  5-18.

Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.

 

  • Twelfth-graders whose mothers work outside of the home (full- or part-time) report that religion is less important to them, attend religious services less frequently and are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated than those whose mothers do not work.  John M. Wallace, Jr. et al., “Religion and U.S. Secondary School Students:  Current Patterns, Recent Trends, and Sociodemographic Correlates,” Youth and Society 35(2003):  98-125.

 

  • Marriage -- especially if low-conflict and long-lasting -- was a source of economic, educational and social advantage for most children. Researchers agreed that, except in cases of high and unremitting parental conflict, children who grew up in households with their married mother and father did better on a wide range of economic, social, educational and emotional measures than the children raised in other kinds of family arrangements. Mary Parke, “Are Married Parents Really Better for Children?,” Center for Law and Social Policy, May 2003. 

  • Unsupervised time allows teens opportunities to engage in high-risk behaviors including having sex.  Sex is taking place inside homes during unsupervised time.  The greater the amount of unsupervised time the greater the percentage of youths who have intercourse.  Boys who were left alone after school for more than 5 hours per week were twice as likely to have chlamydia or gonorrhea as those who were unsupervised for 5 or fewer hours.  Increased rates of tobacco use, alcohol use and marijuana usage each are correlated with more hours left alone, especially among boys.  Deborah A. Cohen, et al., "When and Where Do Youth Have Sex?  The Potential Role of Adult Supervision,” Pediatrics, Vol. 110, No.6 (December 2002),    

 

  • A study of juvenile crime in rural areas revealed that broken homes were strongly associated with higher rates of arrest for violent crimes, while poverty was not directly associated with juvenile violence.  D. Wayne Osgood and Jeff Chambers, “Social Disorganization Outside the Metropolis: An Analysis of Rural Youth Violence,” Criminology 38 (2000): 81-115.

  • An adult raised in the single-mother home was twice as likely to serve jail time as an adult raised by always-married biological parents.  Adults raised in step families are three times more likely to spend time in jail that adults from intact married families.  Adults raised with fathers and stepmothers are almost four times more likely to go to jail than are those raised by biological parents who were married to each other.  Cynthia Harper and Sra McLanhan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 1998.  Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

 

  • In a study of mothers incarcerated for drug offenses, 69 percent were single, 17 percent were either separated, divorced or widowed and 14 percent were either married or in a long-term relationship. Almost two-thirds (62 percent) of drug-abusing mothers were born to "natural parents [who] had either separated or had never lived together." Thomas Hanlon, Kevin O’Grady, Terry Bennett-Sears and Jason Callaman, "Incarcerated Drug-Abusing Mothers: Their Characteristics and Vulnerability," The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 1 (2005): 59-77. 

 

  • Data from Sweden shows that compared with peers from intact families, girls from single-parent families were twice as likely and boys were two-and-a-half times as likely to develop psychiatric disease. Both boys and girls from single parent families were more likely to attempt suicide and to develop alcohol-related disease. Compared with peers from intact homes, boys from single-parent households were more than four times as likely to develop a narcotics-related disease, and girls from single parent homes were more than three times as likely. Boys raised in a single-parent home were much more likely to die from any cause. After adjusting for age, boys in single parent homes had a 50 percent greater risk of dying than peers who were living with both parents. Margaret Whitehead, “What Puts Children of Lone Parents at a Health Disadvantage?” The Lancet, 361, No. 9354 (2003): 271.

  • “Throughout the ages, political philosophers, social historians, and civic and religious leaders have praised the family as the foundation of the social order, the bedrock of nations, and the bastion of civilization.... The fact is that family is a universal and irreplaceable community, rooted in human nature and the basis for all societies at all times. As the cradle of life and love for each new generation, the family is the primary source of personal identity, self-esteem, and support for children. It is also the first and foremost school of life, uniquely suited to teach children integrity, character, morals, responsibility, service, and wisdom.” US Statement to the United Nations General Assembly at the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Family.  

  • “The family is the seedbed of economic skills, money habits, attitudes toward work, and the arts of financial independence. The family is a stronger agency of educational success than the school. The family is a stronger teacher of the religious imagination than the church. Political and social planning in a wise social order begins with the axiom ‘What strengthens the family strengthens society’…. The roles of a father and a mother, and of children with respect to them, is the absolutely critical center of social force.”  Michael Novak, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.  

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The Family Proclamation Project is independent of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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