Monday, January 13, 2003

A story released today by Ascribe News reports that some states are now recruiting "marriage education" counselors, who frequently receive training sessions of only two days, and channeling anti-poverty funds into marriage workshops given by these newly credentialed individuals.

Last month President Bush signed a bill making it easier for religious organizations to get grants to conduct marriage preparation and counseling. A recent report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, claims "Overwhelming Evidence" that such "Marriage Education Works."

High-quality interventions to help couples manage their relationships in a healthy way could be an important addition to the social safety net in the United States today. But there is no evidence to justify diverting funds for these programs from proven anti-poverty measures such as education, child care assistance, and job training.

A recent paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families found that most of the successful marital counseling programs cited in the Heritage report were based on work with white, middle-class couples. In one, for example, over 90 percent of the sample had at least some college education. It is naive to think that programs designed for primarily middle-class couples can be transformed into effective workshops for impoverished, at-risk populations.

John Gottman of the Relationship Research Institute at the University of Washington notes that welfare families often have many problems in addition to relationship distress. These include drug- and alcohol-addiction, physical violence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and infidelity. It is irresponsible, he says, to institute group treatment in weekend workshops where individuals are not screened for domestic violence, addiction, or suicide potential, and intensive backup therapy is not available for workshop failures.

Decades of social science research has documented the fact that economic stress decreases the likelihood of marriage and increases the likelihood of marital failure. Astonishingly, the Heritage authors dismiss this as "faulty reasoning," citing a recent Oklahoma survey where divorced welfare recipients were asked why their marriages had failed. The three most common reasons were "lack of commitment, too much conflict and arguing, and infidelity." But the report self-servingly omits the fourth most common reason, cited by 51 percent of the divorced welfare recipients: "financial problems or economic hardship." Furthermore, it is well established by poverty researchers that economic problems increase conflict and undermine commitment.

An ongoing study of impoverished families in 20 cities shows that many unwed parents have good reasons for caution, since one or both partners may be economically unstable or have problems with substance abuse or anger management. Talking such couples into overcoming their hesitations is probably not an effective way to assure a stable future for families or children.