State Policies Encourage Healthy Marriages

May 27, 2004 -- About three years into their marriage, Trena and Jon Corless of Oklahoma City weren't communicating. Everyday topics were fine, but when the conversation turned to more serious subjects, a pattern would emerge: Trena would talk — a lot. And Jon wouldn't talk at all.

"I was doing all the talking and all the problem solving on my own," she said, "and he felt he wasn't needed and what he had to say wasn't important."

Through a free program sponsored by the state and taught at their church, the couple learned communication and relationship skills. Things have improved so much since the fall that they're adopting a child.

"I learned to listen," Trena said, "and he learned that it was safe to talk without any kind of fallout — to share his opinions when they differed from mine."

The Corlesses are among an increasing number of couples taking part in healthy marriage programs throughout the nation. And more often, the workshops are being offered with government funds as part of an effort to stem divorce and promote stable families.

Over the last decade, every state has initiated at least one activity or made a policy change designed to strengthen marriage or two-parent families, according to a new study by the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit research and advocacy group for low-income families.

Government Funds Programs

The activities vary. Some states have instituted commissions and campaigns to study marriage issues. Some have created "covenant marriage laws" in which couples applying for a license opt to attend counseling before marriage or divorce, which can only be obtained upon specific grounds like adultery or abuse.

Others have started relationship and marriage education for high school students and fatherhood programs with co-parenting or marriage components. And in some places, policies have been changed, such as forgiveness of child support arrears upon marriage or reconciliation, the study found.

President Bush has made marriage promotion a priority as well. Through his Healthy Marriage Initiative, first announced in 2002, he hopes to allocate $1.5 billion over five years to promote such programs.

The money would be part of a welfare reform bill that awaits reauthorization by Congress this year.

Seven states and several communities have already used money from the 1996 welfare reform law to fund programs, allowing low-income couples to receive services that previously were available to mostly middle-class couples in private settings, according to the CLASP report.

In addition, the report notes that the federal Administration for Children and Families over the past three years has awarded $90 million in grants for demonstration projects, technical assistance and research and evaluation of such initiatives, which often are implemented by clergy and mental health professionals in local communities who traditionally handle marital problems.

A Good Idea?

The programs work on the premise that children thrive when two parents are involved in their lives, and encouraging marriage is a way to increase the chances of them growing up in a healthy, loving home. The argument is if more couples get or stay married, the less need there is for government programs.

Theodora Ooms, an author of the CLASP report, noted that through divorce and child custody issues, "the government already gets very involved with marriage at the back end. Shouldn't we be putting some effort on the front end?"

Marc Schulz, an associate professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College who has studied such programs, said the need for some type of intervention is clear. "The divorce rate still hovers between 40 and 50 percent," he said. "The costs of divorce and the costs of poor marriages are high for the adults involved, but also for the children involved."

Schulz said programs that emphasize communication "clearly are efficacious, and given what I see as a strong public health need, they deserve the opportunity to be tested and implemented." But some question whether some of the methods, though well-intentioned, are a good idea. "There are some diamonds and there is some coal," said Dorian Solot, executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project. "There are programs that really can help people, teaching communication skills and parenting skills and domestic violence education. Then there are ones with the potential to do harm."

She cites incentives like "marriage bonuses," which nine states offer to welfare recipients. In West Virginia, for example, recipients who marry the father of their children get $100.

"It punishes families that aren't married and encourages marriage for the wrong reasons," Solot said. "If you're poor, that $100 can make a difference."

There also are fears that tying the effort to welfare could force women to stay in abusive relationships, said Timothy Casey, senior staff attorney with Legal Momentum, formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Some also wonder whether there is an underlying agenda. "Not everyone in the administration, or who supports the administration, shares all the same beliefs," Casey said, "but there does seem to be an undertone there that … only married couples should have sex or children, and once you are married, divorce should be more restricted than it is today."

Schulz said issues of consent, and potential issues of coercion, could be avoided if the rewards are nominal or the services are church-based or through other community groups. "I think many of the programs have been developed very carefully, very thoughtfully," he said. "I do see this as a very important health need deserving of public funding. The hard part is it's become encumbered with other political needs and objectives."Measuring Effectiveness

Ooms noted that all services are voluntary and people who run the pre-marital programs "often think it's a measure of success if you decide after you participate in one that you don't think this person is the right one for you. … They want people to have good marriages. They don't want them to have marriage, per se."

The need for other services should not be overlooked when serving low-income couples, she added. "Low-income people both want and could benefit from relationships education," she said. "[But] by themselves, they're not going to help people who are struggling with issues of poverty and low income. We must link them with services for depression, substance abuse, domestic violence."

Solot also said there is no panacea for living happily ever after. "There is a lot of evidence about the kinds of things that help people escape poverty — access to health care, an opportunity to work," she said. "We don't have as much evidence that if you take two poor unmarried people and get them married to each other it'll pay their bills. They're still two poor married people."

In addition, Casey said the programs have not been proven to work at reducing poverty. "It's being presented as an anti-poverty program," he said. "To us … there's no evidence these programs are effective at doing anything, including reducing poverty. And it detracts from having a real anti-poverty program that focuses on economic security for all families."

Evaluation is key, Ooms said, as Congress debates Bush's funding proposal. "We have said we think it's too much too soon. We don't know enough about how to spend it wisely. The good part is that the government has invested a lot of money in evaluation."Solot predicted that eventually the answers will be clear. "One thing I'm really glad to see is that a lot of these programs are being researched and evaluated, so I think five or 10 years from now we'll have much better information about it," she said. "Right now, I do think there's a lot of guesswork."

The Corlesses, however, have no doubt that the training they received saved their marriage. "I feel wonderful about it," Jon said, "especially having somebody that's behind me who I know I can talk to and get my feelings out. We're much closer."