I just fell in love and fell in love again and fell in love again. John finally, whats the point of marriage, why is marria good . I promise to be true to you in good times and bad. John thats our show tonight. Dearly beloved. Most weddings begin with that phrase, its an old greek phrase used to welcome people to big events. Few events are as big as a dding. Wedding season. John next month, june is thought of as the wedding month. Why y june . Maybe because of that woman, june of roman goddess of marriage. The month of june was after her. Another explanation is in the 1500s, people took their arealy bath in may s people smelled better in june. Third explanation and this is more plausible to me. Newlyweds were trying to time childbirth, if a bride got pregnant in june, she wouldnt be so pregnant in summer so she could help grow and harvest the food. Whatever the reason is for june, im grossed out by how much money people spend on weddings, even people who arent rich. Whats wrong with people . Lets ask jacobina martin, author of miss manne guide to a surprisingly dignified wedding. Well, i dont see dignity in spending all these gross sums. Yes, people have gotten out of control. I think we are living in a celebrity culture where we want to emulate the big celebrities but they can afford it and we cant. John you are the daughter of the original miss manners judith marten. Have you written the squel to her book. You say people think of weddings in reverse, thats the reason they spend so much. Exactly. They want this huge wedding with this kind of food and this champagne and theyre thinking about that and how many people can we afford to invite to that. As opposed to here all my friends and family who i think would enjoy being at my family. What can we afford to give them . Even if that might juste punch and cookies and i would think if your loved ones love you and want to be with you for this occasion, that would be okay. People feel it has to be a spectacle and its gotten way out of control. John did you have a big weing . Medium sized wedding. We had a little upgrade from punch and cookies. We had a tea, and it was very modest. And we thought it was charming. We liked it. John when you saw people want this, i would argue people dont want this, women want it. Guys have very little interest. Yeah, theyre getting sucked up into it too. John they are sucked up by the female fantasy . Perhaps. John bursts in fairy tells. The wedding industry is conditioning us to do this. They are trying to sell us the products. Obviously they have an economic interest thinking you need all this stuff. Also they are asking other people to pay for it, to contribute to the wedding itself, theyre in multiple registries to pay for it. John whoa, theyre asking the guests to pay for the wedding . Yep. Weve heard about that. There are things called my fund. Com, and theres another. John one is honey farm where you pay for the honeymoon. Ive heard of people asking to contribute to mortgages in the way of gifts. So, yeah, theyre getting their lives financed for the privilege of coming to the wedding. John some people will imitate what they see and Pay Attention to celebrities, and we have great, grievous excess in celebrity marriages. Kim kardashian marrying pro basketball player kris humphries, 10 Million Dollars wedding. Ten weeks later kardashian filed for divorce. Michael jordan and Yvette Prieto 10 Million Dollars. Justin timberlake and jessica biel, 6. 5 Million Dollars. Chelsea clinn and her new husband, almost 5 Million Dollars. Arent they embarrassed . Well, theyve got the money to spend. Were not here to judge. If youve got the money and not asking other people to spend it on you, then go ahead. John you wrote your guide to a dignified wedding. Yes, were telling people you dont have to get yourself into debt to do this. If people can afford it, who are we to judge. John well, im judging, and now there are several reality shows about weddings. Some like bridezillas to pick materialistic women who get into fights over stupid things. I swear to god i will kill you. John others show women spending fortune flowers and dresses and so for. Its so pretty and pank. Okay, here she comes. You may now kiss the bride. John this isnt mainstream. Tell me it isnt. No, itoesnt have to be that way. Certainly doesnt have to be that way. John lets move to Something Else i consider a scam. Most men who propose give their future bride a diamond ring, why not a cow or tv set or car . How did diamonds get to be the symbol of love and marriage . Simply because a sleazy racist Diamond Cartel paid an ad agency to make it a tradition. After world war ii when american soldiers returned home, they saw ads showing soldiers proposing by giving women dmond rings. Similar ads still run. The diamond engagement ring, how else could two months salary last forever . A diamond lasts forever, de beers. John two months salary. The ad just made that up, too. And also there is nothing intrinsically romantic about a diamond. Its a piece of carbon. Looks like a diamond, it was crushed by intense pressures and heat and other rocks are just as pretty. Emerald, sapphire. If you want colorless, you can buy much cheaper substutes like cubic zirconia. Almost no one can see the difference. A borrowed a diamond worth 65,000 and a piece of cubic zirconia worth 100. I disguised myself with a silly beard and took both stones to Jewelry Stores where couples were shopping for diamond rings. The couples had no idea which was the real diamond. Even jewelers looking through one of these loops couldnt tell the difference. Why do you women want diamonds . Why do we want diamonds . Why do you want nice cars . Anything. John i can drive a car, its just a ck. Its jewelry, and diamond is just a trend. It doesnt have to be a diamond. Its up to the couple. Were not here to tell you it has to be a diamond or real. Its tradition, what people want to do. John i did this story and gave my wife earrings and she assumed they were diamonds. They were zirkonia, two years later, she asked, nice, i told her the truth. And she was ticked off. You lied to your wife of course she was. If she cant tell the difference why, should she be mad at me . The assumption of truth is more important than whether or not they were real or not. John thank you jacobina martin. I madeun of the cost of excess weddings and never mock the importance of marriage. It may hold civilization together. Our government thinks so, it gives money to groups that claim they can preserve marriages and keep families together. Millions of your tax dollars go to this group. This is expectations holiday party, and eighth annual. Well have 1600 people tonight. John this group is called family expectations, they have events. We learn to have small conversations about big monts in our lives. Its a place. Where we come together. Where we share experiences. And have a happy. Healthy baby. And relationship. John great does it work . Does it help preserve marriages . No. The governments own study found couples who participate in family expectations are no more likely to stay tgether than couples who dont. So did government stop the funding . No, of course not. Its government. It never stops throwing money away, they gave that Group Another 100 million of your tax dollars this year. What a waste. But it would be good if there were a way to teach us how to make our marriages better. Longer lasting and good for the kids because lots of data show its important for kids to be raised in a stabile, twoparent household. Kids who are not are more likely to grow poor and have psychological problems. Those are reasons why Melissa Moschella says government should do more to keep families together. Steve horwitz who studies the economics of marriage says thats not a good idea. Why not if they find a program that worked. The programs have not worked in doing this. I agree, i think all other things equal, having kids raised by stable, twoparent families is a good thing. Im not convinced the government can make that happen. Melissa, why do you think that can help . The government plays an important role. Othe might do a better job. John do you know of any that do . Government launched an Advertising Campaign to get everybody to hate smoking. Look at the change in attitudes towards smoking and the resulting change in behavior. John can they stay married . You can do lots of thing, campaigns showing a positive way, the value of getting married before you have children, staying married for the children. Working through the rough spots. John you argue that it would help if america continued to defy marriages between a man and woman. Absolutely. John why . If we really abolish marriage and reaffix the label to Something Else, namely a romantic Domestic Partnership for the private emotional fulfillment o adults. I wouldnt call that abolishing marriage, changing the definition. Its not the same thing, you abolished it as diferent and unique category of human relationship with its own nature and structure and purpose thats arbitrarily defined by a group of people. What makes marriage different from any other frindship if its just about the emotional satisfaction of people . John you declare yourself married. Im making a commitment to a woman or a man. And so what about two widowed sistersho live together and deare themselves domestic partners, take care of each other, maybe raise child together. John back up, i think part of the problem is marriage has never been a static institution. Marriage has changed over thousands of years of human history. Marriage meant that men essentially own their wives and married men couldnt have property of their own. John recently. More recently we allowed interracial marriage across the country. All the notions of marriage change, and i thinink that the fact that marriage is now about love and companionship and romantic attachment. You cant put that toothpaste back in the tube. That came when it was no longer necessary for mared couples to have lots of kids to be a production unit. Marriage bake Something Else starting 150, 200 years ago, i dont think theres any going back. The fact that samesex couples want into it shouldnt surprise us at all. Their marriages look like mine. One of those changes change the essence of marriage. Throughout history, the defining constant thing has been its a sexually complementary relationship, the kind of union that can produce children. John heterosexual couples dont produce couple. Is that not a real marriage . Its a real marriage. The point is its uniquely the kind of relationship that we get children from. John why does the kind of relationship matter . We dont test couples for fertility to see if they are able to produce children. What people understood marriage to be has changed and evolved. John melissa, it does appear you are losing this war. In oklahoma, a judge ruled they must allow samesex marriage. Republican politicians are talking about get government out of marriage and whats wrong with that . Why cant it be a private contract . Why must the state sanction . Look, our marriage cult sureffectively in the icu, all the statistics show that, now the question is do we take that ailing patient, that ailing marriage culture and kill it . Or do we do our best to try to bring it back to a healthy state for the sake primarily of the children and the future of our society. Im saying we want to take positive steps to bring marriage into a healthier state into our culture. Why not let samesex couples into that. Dont we want more of those . Not just about twoparent households, its about children being raised by their own biological mher and father. What we want are two parents who made a decision to obtain, raise, create a child of their own at they care about. Those are the people who are the best parents. Thank you, steve and melissa. Keep this conversation going on facebook or twitter. You can use that hashtag marriage. Let people know what you think. Coming up, melissas nightmare,lural marriage. One man, several women. You think thats creepy . The sister wives say it works for them. And they say its great for the kids too . John the data is pretty clear, kids raised by two parents married to each other usually do better in life than kids whose parents are not married. So its t good news that the number of singleparent households is up. Heres a graph. Up a lot for all races, whites studied the longest. When i was a kid most every parent got married. 2 of kids were born to unwed mothers. Today its 29 . 53 for hispanics, 72 for blacks. Here to help us what it means is kay hymowitz who studies families and marriage. Well, what does it mean . People like to say well marriage is obsolete. We have its a new world, people have new arrangements and why cant we let . You have to tell the kids before you decide that the world has really changed. What were finding from all of the research, and this is studied for decades with huge data sets is that on average kids do better growing up with two married parents. Two stably married parents. John if theyve gotten the circive indicate who cares . Kids who are born to co habiting parents are likely to see the parents break up before five years old. John just by getting married, you are less likely to break up . You are making a decision, this is what im going to t to do. At any rate. We continue doesnt always work out. With cohabiting, an arrangement people slide into, they havent decided together to make the commitment. The Pew Research Company found half of all marriages 1829 have a step sibling. So what . They get parented by more people. More love, better. Well, more than about a third of the marriages break up, usually the father tends to disappear or fade out because theres a new man in the house. And that often creates tensions between the father and the mother and the new man. He maybe has found a new love and has a child with that person, and its very, very hard to maintain any kind of stability. It complicates childrens lives enormously. John what does it do to the kids . Particularly with ys, children are more likely to have trouble in school. More likely to have behavioral problems. Boys who are in such an environment often act out, they externaliza the experts call it. They get into fights, more likely to drop out of school and not go to college, et cetera. John i read this too, what seems contradictory is with much more of this going on, you think the kids would be in much bigger trouble. Graduation rates are way up. Teen pregnancy fell 41 from 1991. Teen violence arrests are way down. When you look at these big numbers, you are not breaking it down by education. Breakdown of marriage is almost entirely effecting lower income, less educated people. College educated women tend to almost always marry before they have their children and much less likely to divorce. When it comes to teen pregnancy, john, teen pregncy is way down, but instead rates of 20 somethings, young 20 somethings having children outside of marriage has gone way up. Yes, women are johnbetter 20 somethings than 15 somethings. When it comes to child outcomes, this much better. Not worlds better. John and yet, celebrities get all this press coverage by saying i havent found a good man, ill find a kid on my own. Charlize theron, sheryl crow. Angelina jolie adopted first child as a single mother. Madonna, single moms. They send a message this is just as good an option, and i assume their kids do okay. Do the children of celebrities do okay . That depends what your baseline is here. Weve been watching this breakdown of marriage over the last 30, 40 years, weve been watching kids go through life and see it over and over and over again, when you control for race, for the age of mother, for mothers income, education, all of that, twoparent household works better for a child. John thank you, kay hymowitz. Coming up, the controversy over living together before youre married. Plus plural marriage, one man, three women. John americans used to get married before they moved in together. When i was i college, most people did not live together before they married. Now, most do. 65 . You probably know the famous examples, kirk russell and goldie hawn. Noemi watts and liev schrieber. Kourtney kardashian and scott sisec. We dont want a wedding at all . I mean why mess it up. Theres a reason people get married. Because they love each other and they want to have their child and a real family, married parents. Married parents. What a Concept University of michigan sociology professor pamela smock studies trends and family formation. Pamela, cohabitation is the norm now . Yep, everody is co habiting essentially. Before marriage, after marriage. John everybody . A select few who dont. Those with strong religious convictions, most can expect to cohabit in their lives. John were putting up the census data how it increased. It is astonishing how quickly its changed in a big way. Yes, so we had 400,000 couples in 1960 cohabiting and 2013, which you dont have about 8 million couples. I talked to a number of young people who say they would never get married unless they live with the person first, that it would be stupid to do so. John and i must say that makes sense to me. The celebrities we showed, some of them never got married. But many lived together for, what, a year, and then get married. Right. Overall about 50 of cohabiting couples end up getting married. 40 break up. And about 10 remain cohabiting for a longe time. John a big difference what socioeconomic group youre from . Yeah, its more like the role of cohabitation in our lives depends what social class one is from. The more privileged people are meeting, dating, and cohabiting, then marrying, with a wedding and having children. So for example. We think of outofwedlock births, we know its high in the u. S. About 41 of all births are outofwedlock. 60 of those are taking place to cohabiting couples and not to single women. John so its not what we think of as outofwedlock. Correct. John a previousuest says even if its by the biological parent, if they dont get married, theres a significant difference. The kids dont do as well. Is that true . Do you buy that . I heard the commentators before. Yes, in the main i buy that, if the cohabiting couple is a stable relationship and remains stable, then the kids can be just as well off. John its less likely to be stable . Yes, thats correct. John and weirdly with all this cohabitation going on it is banned in florida, michigan and mississippi . Although, thats only on the books. Nobody pays attention to it. John nobody enforces that. No, no. John thank you, pamela. Coming up, youve heard a lot about the debate about gay marriage. When we come back, the debate over families like this one. Hi, im alina, and im joes wife. Im vicky and im joes wife. Hi, im valerie and im joes