The strength of marriage is an essential measure of how healthy our society is. Marriage — the life-long faithful union of a man and woman, dedicated to their well-being and the procreation and raising of children — is the foundation of any society. And by all reasonable measures, marriage is in trouble right now:

• The marriage rate — the number of people getting married, as a portion of the population — continues to fall.
• The percentage of the population that is married continues to go down — soon, fewer than half the women in America will be married (as opposed to almost two-thirds in 1960).
• The number of couples who are choosing to cohabit without marriage continues to rise.
• The number of children born out of wedlock is still going up — it will be over 40% soon, and is a catastrophic 77% among African-Americans.
• While the divorce rate has gone down in recent years, it remains true that about 40% of marriages don’t last.
• All of these measures of marital health are even worse among low-income people and African Americans.