The proportion of homes in America with husband-wife couples has now fallen below 50 percent, the lowest since the Census Bureau began tabulating this family data in 1940. New census 2010 figures, released today, reveal that 48 percent of all households include a married husband and wife, compared with 52 percent in 2000. That’s down Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’
Pray, Date, Marry
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
“Become the woman of your dreams, and you’ll attract the man of your dreams,” Sarah Swafford advises young women. As “dorm mom,” or resident hall director, to 142 girls who lived in Benedictine College’s St. Scholastica Hall, Swafford had a “front-row seat” into the lives of young women who came to her to talk about Read more
The downside of cohabitation before marriage
Friday, April 20th, 2012
At 32, one of my clients (I’ll call her Jennifer) had a lavish wine-country wedding. By then, Jennifer and her boyfriend had lived together for more than four years. The event was attended by the couple’s friends, families and two dogs. When Jennifer started therapy with me less than a year later, she was looking Read more
No need for husband: woman marries herself
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
Before a crowd of 45, 36-year-old Nadine Schweigert from Fargo, North Dakota, USA, recently married herself. During the ceremony Schweigert declared her vow, “I, Nadine, promise to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self,” and presented herself with a ring. At the time the bride and Read more
Childless couples tell of slights and judgments
Friday, March 23rd, 2012Money-hungry, career-obsessed and selfish – such is the stigma surrounding childless couples.
A book by Theresa Riley has given an insight into the lives of those who have opted not to have children – and the Auckland PhD student told the Herald she was fascinated by her findings.
Her thesis and book, Childfree in New Zealand: How couples who choose not to have children are perceived, explores the experiences of 10 couples aged from their early 20s to their 50s.
Read the article...Vatican archbishop rebukes Blair over his support for gay marriage
Thursday, March 15th, 2012A senior Vatican figure has rebuked Tony Blair after it was reported at the weekend that he “strongly supports the Prime Minister’s proposal” to legalise gay marriage.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, had harsh words for the former Prime Minister, who became a Catholic in 2007 and whose comments were reported in the Independent on Sunday.
He said: “If the stories in the press about Blair’s thinking are true, I think he should examine his conscience carefully”, Vatican Insider reported.
Meanwhile Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was expected to praise marriage today. In a Social Justice Strategy Paper he is expected to say that the stability of the parents’ relationship is a key factor in the development of children and that marriage is particularly good for children, The Telegraph reported.
Read the article...Blair at odds with his new Church; supports gay marriage
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
Tony Blair, Britain’s former Labour Prime Minister and a Catholic convert, has come out in support of Conservative efforts to provide a way for gay and lesbian couples to marry. Blair, who introduced same-sex civil unions to Britain, is reported as telling friends that he “strongly supports” plans for gay marriage. Blair’s support of gay Read more
- Gay marriage could dog PM like Blair's fox-hunting ban
- Weaker appreciation of marriage is harming society say pope
- This is a time for passionate language; Cardinal O'Brien and Dr Sentamu are right to speak as they do about gay 'marriage' (Opinion)
- Don't make gay marriage a priority, say voters
- The case for gay marriage is fundamentally conservative - it will strengthen Britain's social fabric
- British Catholics urged to rally against gay marriage
- Church approval needed for gay marriage, says Archbishop of York
- Church will be forced to conduct gay weddings
- Bishop Conry cautions Cardinal O'Brien in the Tablet about 'inflammatory language'
- Gay couples make wedding plans amid angry Catholic sermons
Gay marriage: people of faith need a better spokesman
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
I’m not sure Cardinal Keith O’Brien is especially interested in the finer points of public relations. If I enjoyed the backing of over a billion practicing Catholics I probably wouldn’t be that bothered either. Which is just as well, because his article in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph on gay marriage, together with his rant on this morning’s Today programme, Read more
Pope’s alarm over ‘crisis of marriage’
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012Pope Benedict XVI has called upon the Church to defend marriage in a meeting with US bishops.
“It is in fact increasingly evident that a weakened appreciation of the indissolubility of the marriage covenant, and the widespread rejection of a responsible, mature sexual ethic grounded in the practice of chastity, have led to grave societal problems bearing an immense human and economic cost,” he said.
The Pope said there were “powerful political and cultural currents” seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage.
“The Church’s conscientious effort to resist this pressure calls for a reasoned defence of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation,” he said.
“Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage. Defending the institution of marriage as a social reality is ultimately a question of justice, since it entails safeguarding the good of the entire human community and the rights of parents and children alike.”
Read the article...Portland Bishop: Church won’t actively campaign against gay marriage
Friday, March 9th, 2012The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland will not actively campaign against a statewide referendum seeking to legalize same-sex marriage, but instead will focus on teaching parishioners about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, the bishop announced Friday.
Bishop Richard Malone unveiled a 22-page pastoral letter titled “Marriage: yesterday . . . today . . . always” at a press conference at the Chancery in Portland. Malone said he wrote it to explain the church’s position on marriage. The document will be discussed at Catholic churches and schools and through the diocesan magazine and radio station.
“What they are doing is appropriate,” David Farmer, spokesman for the Freedom to Marry Coalition, which supports the legalization of same-sex marriage, said in response to the bishop’s announcement. “That’s what they should do.”
Read the article...