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Can marriage be saved? The college-educated have managed to preserve it. If nothing else, they realize how much more difficult single parenthood would make their lives and those of their kids. Single moms, by contrast, often consider marriage something they can achieve only after securing a place in the middle class. This gets it backward. Marriage is a means of getting and staying out of poverty rather than an economic capstone. The poverty rate for single-parent families is six times that of married families.
No one wants to be preachy about marriage when everyone knows its inevitable frustrations. ("Marriage is a wonderful institution," H.L. Mencken said, "but who would want to live in an institution?") At the very least, though, we should provide the facts about the importance of marriage as a matter of child welfare and economic aspiration. As a society, we have launched highly effective public-education campaigns on much less momentous issues, from smoking to recycling.
It's not hard to think of a spokeswoman. Michelle Obama is the daughter in a traditional two-parent family and the mother in another one that even her husband's critics admire. If she took up marriage as a cause, she could ultimately have a much more meaningful impact on the lives of children than she will ever have urging them to do jumping jacks.
For now, the decline of marriage is our most ignored national crisis. As it continues to slide away, our country will become less just and less mobile.
Lowry is the editor of National Review