Is Marriage Dead?

Not a week goes by without my ministering to an individual who is living with someone outside of marriage. What used to be called “living in sin” or “shacking up” no longer even has a pejorative description. Sinners are simply “partners.” But now a new book, Generation Unbound: Drifting into Sex and Parenthood without Marriage, sheds light on just how seismic this fault-line is. The Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, has predicted that one in four young Americans will NEVER marry. This sentiment is expressed with the tongue-in-cheek credo, “You will get to have sex with a different attractive person every night for the rest of your life.” Or so they think. It seems the only place that marriage still matters is with the upwardly mobile. Ninety percent of University-educated mothers get married before their first baby. Among non-graduates, 58% of births are out of wedlock.

The book describes the new family landscape as a “family-go-round” with absent fathers, new (and sometimes sexually abusive) stepfathers, an unstable array of step-siblings (who are also often incestuous), and constant uncertainty. Those of us who minister deliverance encounter this family dynamic frequently, because such circumstances are a breeding-ground for demons. Abandonment, rejection, domestic violence, substance abuse, molestation, anger, unforgiveness; these are all part of this spiritual landscape where demons roam freely. Being born illegitimately into a home of “partners” doesn’t ensure demonization, but the odds are higher. (Read my chapter on the curse of illegitimacy in my book CURSE BREAKING. The book contains a special prayer to break this curse. To order CLICK HERE.) If you’re in a merry-go-round relationship, get married or get out. If you were born into a “generation unbound” environment, get deliverance before the carousel stops at the entrance to torment.