Proposed Model State Legislation and Policy Initiative for
Strengthening Marriages and Families and Reducing Divorce to
Decrease Poverty and Increase Health and Human Flourishing
The National Alliance for Relationship and Marriage Education (NARME) is dedicated to building healthy marriages and families. It primarily supports practitioners across North America providing relationship education services to communities.
Public policy has a vital role in strengthening marriages and families. One way it does this is by supporting the work of relationship educators and other professionals, especially those serving more vulnerable individuals and families. As Dr. Melissa Kearney’s essential work documents,[1] stable two-parent families confer a distinct and significant social and economic advantage on children. They can also substantially reduce the public costs associated with family instability.[2]
The NARME Board of Directors calls upon state legislators and policymakers to enact legislation to support the core public policy goal of increasing the proportion of children growing up in two-parent families with parents in a healthy, stable marriage. This includes promoting healthy dating practices and skills, increasing the marriage rate (forming healthy marriages), sustaining healthy relationships and marriages, and decreasing the divorce rate. This also includes creating policies to help families when healthy, married, two-parent families are not a reasonable option.
NARME recognizes that there are laws and policies that indirectly impact the ability to form and sustain healthy relationships and stable marriages. Law and policies must work to create the fertile soil in which the seeds of healthy relationships and strong marriages can thrive. However, this document focuses on state policy measures that directly target the formation and maintenance of healthy marriages and stable family relationships. States set and govern most family laws and policies in the United States.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY AND LEGISLATION
NARME recommends these first four policies to be more strategic and practical when implemented together as a whole, each interdependently supporting the other.
1. PROVIDE high-quality educational resources and services to help individuals and couples form and sustain healthy relationships and stronger marriages.
2. FUND GRANTS to community organizations across the state to provide these educational services and resources. These grant activities would fund marriage- and family-strengthening resources/services in critical areas.
3. EDUCATE youth and young adults with healthy relationship skills training (including unhealthy danger signs, healthy partner qualities, and positive conflict resolution). Teach the benefits of stable, two-parent families and the value of healthy, strong marriages and strong father-child bonds to society. Take formal action to encourage schools to teach adolescents the “Success Sequence” (finish at least a high school education à work full time à marry à have children).
4. PREPARE engaged couples for solid first marriages and remarriages. With evidence-based curricula, premarital counseling, and coaching, teach dating and engaged couples fundamental principles and core relationship skills to build a strong foundation for their marriage or remarriage.
5. INCENTIVIZE greater participation by discounting the marriage license fee for engaged couples who invest in at least six hours of premarital education or three hours of premarital counseling completed at least one month before the wedding.
6. SUSTAIN and strengthen already married or remarried couples. Support educational resources/services that teach essential principles and core relationship skills, cultivate relationship virtues (engaging in action for a higher good), and nurture hope. Encourage, support, and incentivize participation in regular educational opportunities to sustain and strengthen their relationship.
7. SUPPORT couples in crisis. Support the development of marriage-intensive educational programs for individuals and couples in crisis or those couples seriously considering divorce. Enhance access to professional marriage counseling (with vouchers, tax breaks, or other mechanisms, especially for low-income couples). Before filing for divorce, require brief divorce orientation courses for all couples with minor children (with instruction on resources for repairing relationships, effects of divorce on children, and legal alternatives for pursuing a divorce). Require a minimum 60-day waiting period for divorce (except when intimate partner violence is involved).[3]
8. ASSIST partners to build constructive co-parenting relationships when a healthy marriage is not possible. Offer evidence-based education and services on the positive impact of healthy co-parenting can have on child well-being and development. Also, provide fathering education services to support men in consistently strengthening the bonds between non-resident fathers and their children.
9. SUPPORT the above educational resources/services by:
· TRAINING facilitators, educators, coaches, and counselors to provide these resources/services in their communities to increase quantity and quality.
· MARKETING resources/services to increase awareness and run regular media campaigns to normalize the concept of ongoing relationship education.
10. Create and fund an in-state commission to provide strategic leadership to curate and develop resources/services and manage the implementation of these policy initiatives. The commission will also evaluate the effectiveness of resources/services and the policy initiative and report periodically to the appropriate agency, legislature, or governor. Commission members will include legislators, judges, policymakers, academics, clinicians, media professionals, community religious leaders, and other professionals with expertise relevant to the commission's work. Hire full- and part-time staff to direct and implement the day-to-day operations.
11. Convene and empower a task force to identify state laws, public policies, and socioeconomic conditions that penalize or discourage marriages and report these findings to the legislature. This would include examining public assistance policies that punish the choice to marry. The task force would also identify indirect policies that make it harder for families to form, such as affordable housing or inadequate wages. The task force may include recommendations for federal policy changes in the report. The task force will consist of legislators, judges, key policymakers, academics, and other professionals with expertise relevant to its work.
12. Track and report (annually) state marriage and divorce numbers, rates, and trends. Empower and fund the state Office of Vital Statistics or equivalent agency to do this. Report state data to federal agencies that collect such data.
FUNDING: Support for this initiative would come from a combination of (a) setting aside a portion of marriage license fees, (b) allocating 1% of discretionary federal TANF block-grant funds,[4] and (c) budgeted general state funds, as needed. Private donations could also be solicited. We recommend funding levels at $1 per resident per year.
NARME SUPPORT: NARME will develop resources to support state leaders pursuing the implementation of this policy initiative. This could include offering webinar training, cataloging relevant research to support the policies, identifying expert witnesses to testify for legislative and policy changes, and other support activities.
[1] Kearney, M. S. (2023). The two-parent privilege: How Americans stopped getting married and started falling behind. University of Chicago Press.
[2] Tollstrup, J. (2024). Child Support Enforcement: Program Basics. U.S. Congressional Research Service. https://crsreports.congress.gov RS22380
[3] Note that most states now have no waiting period for a divorce.
[4] Note that states, on average, spend only .5% of TANF Block Grant funds on efforts to promote marriage and strengthen two-parent families, both key goals of the TANF program. In addition, states have, on average, more than $125 million dollars in unallocated reserve TANF funds. See: Pearson, J., & Wildfeuer, R. (2022). Policies and programs affecting fathers: A state-by-state report (Chapter 11: Responsible Fatherhood). Center for Policy Research and Fatherhood Research & Practice Network. https://www.frpn.org/asset/policies-and-programs-affectingfathers-state-state-report-chapter-11-responsible-fatherhood.