DALLAS — Despite decades-long reporting of its demise, new data suggests the institution of marriage is not in danger.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, marriages are up since the pandemic -- a trend that follows a steady decline in divorce for a number of years.
These statistics are contrary to many predictions of yore that suggested changing dating and lifestyle habits would slowly end the exchanging of vows. In fact, a 1969 WFAA story now archived in the SMU Jones Film Library featured reporter Jerry Taff lamenting the inevitable end of love and marriage based on evidence he found, in of all places, a jukebox.
Taff pointed out that musical selections contained significantly fewer mentions of “love” in the song titles of his day compared to a generation earlier. Among the new musical ballads? Tammy Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Cher's "You Better Sit Down Kids" -- two songs about an unhappy end to a marriage.
But while Taff's jukebox may have foretold the tradition of marriage's doom, the youth of America was learning how to love again in school. Or, well, they were at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, where a 1976 “Marriage and Family Living” class studied marriage and all the cost-benefit metrics one needed to know before tying the knot.
Of course, the final test in that course was a faux wedding that gave students the chance to practice exchanging vows with a classmate before facing the big day in real life.
Their reward? A wedding reception with cake and punch provided by the Home Economics class down the hall.