Yount: The new lonely crowd

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With the world economy tumbling, it's only natural for Americans to worry whether we can erect a safety net that will protect our homes, investments, and jobs, while ensuring our ability to afford health care and save for later years.Since the dawn of human history, there has been an institution that protects men and women from being alone and at the mercy of forces beyond their control. It is called marriage -- an institution that requires couples to assume responsibility for each other and to provide for future generations. Blessed by the Creator, marriage is as ancient as Eden.In our perilous times, marriage has ceased being the glue that binds Americans to one another. Today, a shrinking minority of American households consists of husbands and wives. Most now are single men and women, left to their own devices. Revealingly, the typical American household includes no children.Although few Americans prefer living on their own, wedlock eludes them. Few singles can afford the comfortable life styles of TV's "Friends" and "Sex and the City." Singles consist of the divorced, widowed, single parents, and the never married.Half of unmarried Americans between the ages of 25 and 39 have cohabited. Living together gives the appearance of being cherished and cared for. But cohabiting partners are truly on their own. Those who decide after a time to wed are 46 percent more likely to divorce than couples who go straight to the altar. Three out of four children born to cohabiting couples see their parents split up before the children turn 16.These days, if you are unmarried and pining for romance, you are in a small minority. Only 16 percent of single Americans told the Pew Research Foundation that they were looking for a romantic partner. A majority of singles of all ages (and only one in five between the ages of 18 and 29) admits to an active interest in either romance or marriage.Why has marriage declined as society's safety standard? In Genesis, the Creator decreed that, "It is not good for man to be alone." But today, even those who attempt marriage do so much later than at any time in history.Many younger men and women are themselves victims of broken families. Even the most romantically inclined prospective brides and grooms acknowledge that their prospects of happily-ever-after are only 50-50. Those couples in second and third marriages face even bleaker prospects of permanence.It is only because marriage and family are still valued by immigrants to the United States that we give the appearance of being a nation of "married with children." More than a half-century ago Harvard sociologist David Riesman predicted that American society would increasingly resemble a "lonely crowd" of unconnected, unconcerned men and women.In perilous times like the present, reviving marriage would go a long way toward restoring our old commitment to one another. The Creator was correct that we are not meant to be alone.(David Yount's new book is "How the Quakers Invented America" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.)