Speaking out in support of marriage and family

On the 19 March, the Rt Hon Ian Duncan Smith, MP spoke to a packed hall about the value of marriage and the family in the today's society.

Posted: 25 Mar 2010

On the 19 March, the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith, MP for Chingford and Woodford Green and Chair of the Centre for Social Justice spoke to a packed hall about the value of marriage and the family in today’s society.

The event, which was organised jointly by the Deanery of Waltham Forest and CJSR, aimed at bringing a wider view as to the impact of family breakdown and the steady decline in the value of marriage in today’s society. Quoting from the extensive research carried out by the Centre for Social Justice, the MP spoke of the destructive impact of debt on families and quoted statistical evidence which supports marriage as being the ‘best way’ to ensure an enduring relationship and most particularly the positive impact on families.

He spoke of the effect of family breakdown and the way that society will feel this effect over successive generations – adding that children will suffer as the result of relationship breakup, which leads to a dependency culture. Without effective parental role models this cycle will continue. Duncan Smith added ’that we are sitting on a demographic time bomb of collapsing relationships.’ Speaking on marriage he stressed the fundamental difference between cohabitation and marriage and that ‘cohabitation is the single biggest cause of lone parenting ‘. He also illustrated the way that society has become reactive and spoke of the minimal amount of money and effort that has been put into preserving marriage.

In answer to the question of ‘What can the church do?’ he said that ‘we should be up where we always are publicly espousing the need for marriage and we should be spending a lot more time on the practicalities of marriage’.
The full speech has been recorded and we hope that both an audio version and written transcript will be available soon. To find more about how you can help support both marriage and family in your own parish please contact phil@dioceseofbrentwood.org ,  or tel 01277 265252.