The Married Minority

by Oct 19, 2006

Sometimes I get annoyed at the dominance of singles in TV shows. In almost every popular show, the lead characters are almost all single no matter how old they are. Don’t believe me? Just think about all the characters on Lost. There you go. The implication is that the lives of married people just aren’t interesting enough to hold our attention for half an hour. (True, I may go to bed at 10:30 now, but does that mean I’m that boring?)

Well, it turns out that singles don’t just dominate TV shows, they dominate our country as well. A New York times article says that for the first time, married people make up less than 50% of America’s population. There’s the obvious concern about how this will impact kids, but I’m also concerned about how this will impact adults.

There are a select few who are called by God to be single, but the rest of us (Christian or not) need the commitment of marriage to humble and refine us. Marriage forces you to confront selfishness in your life as you share a house, share finances, and share responsibility for a family. It also gives you a great preview of what life with God in heaven would be like. If less and less people choose marriage, there’s no doubt our culture will suffer.

You can read the article here.