Till death – or whatever – do us part

Family law in the West, Wilson notes, has largely abandoned the moral basis on which it once rested. Yet he refuses to lay all the blame for family ills on the tumultuous 1960s. That decade made a difference, of course. Among other changes, it marked the beginning of no-fault divorce laws and higher divorce rates.

But this represents only one change in developments that began centuries earlier. In Paris, for example, in the first three months of 1793, 562 couples were granted divorces, one-third the number of marriages during that time. As far back as 1689, John Locke urged that childless couples be allowed to divorce at will.

For 21st-century Americans, the challenge involves making marriage more common, thus helping "two nations to become one again." But how? Wilson rejects the idea that tax breaks or government subsidies will necessarily shore up marriage. He sides with former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who once said, "If you expect a government program to change families, you know more about government than I do."

Churches and the media must play a role, he says, helping to persuade men that marriage makes sense in the long run. He points to an earlier era when it was a "gross breach" of a man's honor to refuse to marry a woman who was pregnant with his child.

Wilson is the master of the pithy definition: The family, he writes, "is the fundamental social unit of any society, and on its foundation there is erected the essential structure of social order."

And: "The purpose of marriage, however it was defined, has always been to make the family secure, not to redefine what constitutes a family. Pretending [that] anything we call a marriage can create a family is misleading."

His views will strike some readers as too rigid and idealistic. But even those who disagree with his conservative politics may find his historical perspective thought-provoking.

Calling the family the bedrock of society, Wilson cautions that marriage is a "fragile institution" requiring "constant efforts" to keep it strong. The same holds true for childrearing. He makes a persuasive case for tradition in this heartfelt paean to the family: "Children are not raised by programs, governments, or (in this country) villages; they are raised by two parents who are fervently, even irrationally, devoted to their children's well-being."

• Marilyn Gardner writes about family issues for the Monitor.

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