Remember to Thank God for your Family

At the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims and Native Americans came together to thank God for the abundant blessings bestowed upon them, especially for their families. Unfortunately today, though family still remains, God is being pushed out some by Black Friday sales and other materialistic frenzies. But as the bedrock of society that best cultivates future generations, the intact married family that worships God weekly cannot be forgotten—it was and is one of the most important things we all have to be grateful for. 

Although most Thanksgiving festivities are winding to a close, the intact married family produces a number of benefits for individuals and society, and should be celebrated everyday of the year. MARRI has consolidated 20 social science reasons to give thanks to God for your married family:

1. Men raised in married families have more open, affectionate, and cooperative relationships with the women to whom they are attracted than do those from divorced families.  
2. Families with either biological or adoptive parents present have the highest quality of parent-child relationships.
3. Married men and women report having more enjoyable sexual intercourse more often.
4. Those from married families are less likely to see religion decline in importance in their lives, less likely to begin attending church less frequently and less likely to disassociate themselves from their religious affiliation.
5. Children of married parents are more engaged in school than children from all other family structures.
6. Children in intact married families have the highest combined English and math grade point averages (GPAs.)
7. Adolescents from intact married families are less frequently suspended, expelled, or delinquent, and less frequently experience school problems than children from other family structures.
8. Men’s productivity increases by 26 percent as a result of marrying.
9. Intact married families have the largest annual income of all family structures with children under 18.
10. Married couples are less likely to receive welfare.
11. Married men are less likely to commit crimes.
12. Marriage is associated with lower rates of domestic violence and abuse, compared to cohabitation.
13. Married women are healthier than never-married, divorced, and separated women.
14. Married men and women are more likely to have health insurance.
15. Married men and women have higher survival rates after being diagnosed with cancer, regardless of the stage of the cancer’s progression.
16. Married people have lower mortality rates, including lower risk of death from accidents, disease, and self-inflicted injuries and suicide.
17. Married people are least likely to have mental disorders.
18. A larger fraction of those raised in an intact family consider themselves “very happy” than those raised in non-intact families.
19. Married parents spend more on education and less on alcohol and tobacco as compared to cohabiting parents.
20. Married mothers enjoy greater psychological well-being and greater love and intimacy than cohabiting or single mothers.