The Decline of Marriage is Bad For Civilization

SCOTSMAN: Michael Gove: Who says the decline of marriage is bad for us all? I do

Michael Gove is [GREAT BRITAIN'S CONSERVATIVE] Shadow Secretary for Children, Schools and Families

Figures from the National Statistics Office published last week show that, on current trends, the unwed will outnumber the married within a year. Marriage will join kirk attendance, voting Tory or reading the Sunday Post as an activity which was once the norm, indeed which bound together a majority of Scots, but which is now a minority pursuit.

The flight from the altar is, of course, bad news for kilt hire firms and hoteliers. But, for others it is no great cause for lament. Why should adults be corralled into an institution invented by a church in which a majority no longer believe? Why should the personal have to become public? Why should the million different shapes that love can take be forced into the Victorian corset of mouldy vows and mildewed sentiments? Since most couples live together before they marry, and therefore few these days believe that bridal white reflects virginal purity, why go through a charade just to please parents, when the cash could pay for a new kitchen instead?

Given the strength, and gathering force, of this trend, who would dare stand against it? Who would want to be a Holy Willie, twitching and frothing at what young people get up to these days, seeking to apply the morality of a judgmental and prejudiced past in these, more liberal and tolerant, times?

But if no one points out the consequences of the marginalisation of marriage, then some of the most vulnerable in our society will be voiceless. For the drift away from marital commitment is part of a broader flight from responsibility which is weakening our society and hitting the poorest, hardest.

... Children become mature when they grasp the principle of deferred gratification, the idea that greater prizes accrue to those who are prepared to work, wait and share than to those who wish to eat, shoot and leave. When adults behave like children, seeking instant gratification of their desires, abandoning relationships which no longer serve their purposes in pursuit of new, more intense, pleasure they leave children in their wake who have been deprived of the most valuable of inheritances – stability and security in which to grow to maturity.

These nouns may be abstract, but the problems created by the collapse of commitment are not. When I visit primary schools I am struck by how often headteachers point to the increasing numbers of children who, aged five, are incapable of sitting still and listening, who have not learnt how to communicate even basic thoughts and grow frustrated, even violent, when their needs aren't met. The heads I talk to bracket the growth in the numbers of children arriving at school with these disadvantages with the decline in the number of households where both the birth parents still live together. In a sober, entirely pragmatic way they point out that the absence of responsible male role models has a direct effect on the behaviour of the children.

... If we're all reviewing our economic perspectives in the wake of the credit crunch, shouldn't we also extend that same process to our most intimate concerns? Shouldn't we see personal relations less through the prism of celebrating freedom and maximising pleasure and more as a means of growing through sharing? Support for marriage should actually be a cause behind which progressives rally. We may promise to wed for richer, for poorer, but we all live in an impoverished society if more and more people choose to put me before we.

THE LEFT'S GRAMSCIAN AGENDA HAS LONG INCLUDED ATTACKING MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY - AND IT'S WORKING:

• THE LEFT HAS LONG SUPPORTED THE ERADICATION OF MARRIAGE - FIRST IN THE 1960'S BY CALLING FOR IT'S DEMISE, PROMOTING ADULTERY, COMMUNES, ETC AND BY MAKING DIVORCE EASY.

• IN THE 1980'S THEY BEGAN PROMOTING SINGLE-PARENTHOOD...

• NOW, THE LEFT IS ATTACKING IT ON ANOTHER FRONT: BY TRYING TO MAKE IT INCLUDE GAY MARRIAGE.

• (ANN COULTER COVERS THE ATTACK ON MARRIAGE EXTENSIVELY AND CONVINCINGLY WITH STATISTICS IN HER LATEST BOOK.)

• IN JUST THE LAST TWO DAYS, THE NYTIMES HAS PUBLISHED NOT JUST ONE BUT TWO LONG ARTICLES PROMOTING DEVIANCY AND ATTEMPTING TO OBLITERATE THE LINE BETWEEN NORMALCY AND DEVIANCY. THE PHOTO BELOW ACCOMPANIED THE LATTER ARTICLE - IN THE SUNDAY TIMES - SUPPOSEDLY A FAMILY NEWSPARER!
  

• THIS IS ALSO WHY THE LEFT IS AGGRESSIVELY INFILTRATING CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES AND TRYING TO IMPLANT GAY CLERGY: TO DESTROY BOTH FAMILY AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.
  
• DESTROYING THE FAMILY AND RELIGON HAVE LONG BEEN STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL GOALS OF THE LEFT;
  
• FIRST, THEY NEED TO DESTROY THE TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ORDER TO REPLACE THEM WITH STATE INSTITUTIONS;
  
• SECOND, THEY BLAME TRADITIONAL/JUDEO-CHRISTIAN FAMILY INSTITUTIONS FOR "SEXUAL REPRESSION" OF WOMEN AND GAYS AND SEXUAL DEVIANTS.
• ACCORDING TO THE LEFT, SEXUAL REPRESSION IS ONE OF THE "MAJOR CULTURE CRIMES" OF THE WEST AND - (ALONG WITH THE OTHER FALSE CHARGES THEY MAKE AGAINST THE WEST, SUCH AS: AGW; MOST OF HISTORY'S GENOCIDE; IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD, AND SO ON...) - THESE CRIMES COMPRISE THE REASON WHY THE LEFT FEELS THE WEST NEEDS TO BE TAKEN DOWN A NOTCH IF NOT REPLACED.
  

• THE RESULTS FOR TODAY'S CHILDREN, AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR FUTURE, THE FUTURE OF OUR TRADITIONAL CIVILIZATION - ARE DEVASTATING.

• THIS IS WHY THE LEFT'S GRAMSCIAN AGENDA MUST BE DEFEATED.