Almost 52 percent (51.7%) of households-"a person or group of people who occupy a housing unit"-reported in the U.S. Census 2000 were Married-couple Family Households, a decline from the 1990 Census finding of 55.2 percent being married-couple households.

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 1; 1990 Census of Population, Summary Population and Housing Characteristics, United States [1990 CPH-1-1]; in Tavia Simmons and Grace O'Neill, Households and Families: 2000, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, September 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-8.pdf.)

"Perhaps, then, The Osbournes does have something positive to offer after all.  Like many TV shows that have been criticized for undermining family values, The Osbournes in its own way actually upholds them.  With an added twist: the Osbourne family is for real.  ...With The Osbournes we can feel we're viewing something on the cutting edge, and yet still see the nuclear family as an institution that is not outdated.

(Source: Paul A. Cantor, "Ozz Fest: Why The Osbournes might save the nuclear family," ReasonOnline, May 24, 2002, http://www.reason.com/hod/pc052402.shtml.)

During the Sixties and Seventies, Americans witnessed such a dramatic upsurge in divorce that some commentators feared for the survival of wedlock as an institution.  Fortunately, new national data indicate a comeback for lasting marital unions; with survival rates for first marriages entered into since 1980 finally inching up again and divorce rates mercifully creeping down.  But when sociologist Tim B. Heaton of Brigham Young University recently set out to investigate this trend, he uncovered bad news hiding in the shadow of the apparent good news. 

Scrutinizing data from a 1995 national survey of 10,847 women between the ages of 14 and 45, Heaton discovered, first, the persistence of adverse cultural trends that continue to undermine wedlock.  That is, Heaton clearly limned continued increases for the 15-year period in question for premarital sex, premarital births, and nonmarital cohabitation, all of which continue to predict "substantially higher" marital dissolution rates for women involved.  So why do the 1995 data indicate stronger and more stable marital unions?  Heaton's repeated statistical tests isolate one key variable: age at marriage.   American women are marrying later than in the past, and "women who marry at older ages have more stable marriages."  Marriages have been more stable in recent years simply because the average American bride has been slower in reaching the altar.  "All of the decline in [marital] dissolution rate," Heaton remarks, "can be accounted for by the rising age at marriage."  Indeed, because of the continuing upward climb of rates for premarital sex, out-of-wedlock births, and nonmarital cohabitation, only the rising age of the nation's brides has prevented the marital dissolution rate from climbing to even more alarming heights.  "If age at marriage had not been increasing," Heaton concedes, "then dissolution rates would be increasing."

Heaton speculates that "as couples continue to make more mature decisions about marital commitments, the stability of marriages may continue to continue to rise."  However, he acknowledges that "the long-term effects of delayed marriage may dissipate."  After all, "most of the decline in marital disruption has resulted from a decline in young marriages."  Consequently, if the average age of the American bride were to continue to rise, climbing from 22 to 30, this further rise in age at marriage "would not have much effect on marital stability."  Worse, "individuals who have remained single into their 30s may simply decide not to marry." 

Nor should those who take heart from the recent statistical increase in marital stability ignore the ugly social reality not registered in the state's vital statistics: "increases in premarital sex and cohabitation imply that more people are entering relatively unstable sexual relationships."

(Source: Tim B. Heaton, "Factors Contributing to Increasing Marital Stability in the United States," Journal of Family Issues 23[2002]: 392-409.)