ABSTRACT
One of the problems in shoring up the institution of marriage is that so many of the professionals who teach and write about it--the counselors, therapists, academics, and popular authors--really don't support marriage at all. Some depict it as archaic and oppressive. Others give it tepid support as just one of many acceptable adult arrangements. Families and Intimate Relationships by Gloria Bird and Keith Melville strongly argues that most problems showing up in children of divorce actually precede the marital breakups. Only one of the eight books focuses on the enormous accumulation of evidence that children in single-parent homes are far more at-risk than children in two-parent homes. Most treat the single-parent home as an inescapable fact and glide swiftly past the findings of high risk. The battle for public opinion may be over, but the losers are still writing the textbooks.
