EXCLUSIVE: Co-author of Heritage report says future of US depends on marriage

If the U.S. is to thrive into the future, civic leaders must prioritize restoring the family, the Heritage Foundation argues in a Jan. 8 report. 

In an exclusive interview with CatholicVote, Jay Richards, one of the report’s co-authors, explained that the Heritage Foundation recently identified four “cornerstones” of civilization, with family formation being the first. 

“Family formation is the first cornerstone, because we are convinced that for America to have another 250 years, we have to reverse the decline of family formation,” Richards, director of the Richard and Helen Devos Center for Human Flourishing at the Heritage Foundation, told CatholicVote. 

The lengthy report attempts to explain the nature of the family, describe the crises the institution of the family faces, and suggest ways to build a stronger family culture in the future. 

Richards says that the traditional family is the best way to help people flourish.

“By family, we don’t just mean any arrangement of people living together. We mean the institution in which children are born and raised in home with their married biological parents. This is not a criticism of the complex life circumstances of people who, through choice or circumstance, don’t live in such a home. It is a strong recognition, however, that children, adults, and society itself can not flourish as they should without robust and widespread family formation.”

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Sociological research overwhelmingly shows that the best way to set children up for success is to ensure that they are raised in married households, according to the report. Current marriage and childbearing trends mean that there are fewer children today than in the past and that those children are more likely to deal with financial, educational, and emotional challenges that set them back in life.

These negative impacts do not stop with the individual children, but ripple out to society at large, according to the report. Fewer children means weaker support from extended family and weaker communities.

In his interview with CatholicVote, Richards described some of the consequences of America’s deteriorating marriage culture.

“If too few young people form life long, fruitful marriages, we will continue on the path we’re on of demographic collapse, in which there are fewer and fewer Americans in the future,” he said. “That’s not only fewer workers paying into, say, Social Security. It is fewer doctors and teachers and builders and innovators. And since we know that proper family formation is crucial for overall well-being, it will mean more crime, more despair, and more social dysfunction.

”The report does not claim that America is doomed, but instead calls Americans to action to revive a thriving culture of marriage, stating, “Americans’ choices, both as individuals and as a nation, will determine their future.”

Richards says that, whether or not they are married, faithful Catholics have a role to play in fostering a stronger culture of marriage in America. He says that the most practical step single Catholics who feel called to marriage can take is to prepare themselves for marriage through choices about lifestyle, types of friends, and approach to dating. 

Richards advises married Catholics to cultivate their families to be models of healthy and holy family life. He also says that married couples can do significant good by finding ways to mentor and guide younger couples and single people.

He also explained that many faithful Christians are impacted by the overall decline of marriage in America. 

“I know many fellow Christians who deeply want to marry and have children, but have been unable to find a suitable mate. Clearly something is wrong with our culture, when adults, despite our resources and technological connections, find it harder to find marriageable partners than people did one hundred or two hundred years ago. This is a serious moral, social, and political problem. We hope our major report on the family can play a small role in helping to solve that problem.”