A Colloquium of Social Scientists and Theologians - Promoting and Sustaining Marriage as a Community of Life and Love - October 24-25, 2005

Aug 26, 2026

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Conference program and panel summaries for a colloquium hosted at Creighton University, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Marriage and Family Life, focused on promoting and sustaining marriage as a community of life and love. Papers synthesize social-science findings on predictors of marital success, including the impact of unrealistic “soulmate” expectations and changing dynamics for parents with young children, alongside theological arguments framing marriage as covenant, sacrament, unitive and procreative partnership, and a school of love. A moderator guides discussion across social science and theology panels.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

October 24: Program and Paper Summaries

Social Science Panelists and Papers

Theology Panelists and Papers

A COLLOQUIUM OF SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND THEOLOGIANS Sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Marriage and Family Life And Hosted by the Center for Marriage and Family At Creighton University On Promoting and Sustaining Marriage as a Community of Life and Love October 24-25, 2005 Creighton University Omaha, NE Panelists and Papers: Social Science Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Ph.D. Patterns and Predictors of Success and Failure in Marriage W. Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D. Seeking a Soulmate: A Social Scientific View of the Relationship Between Commitment and Authentic Intimacy Barbara Markey, ND, Ph.D. The Lifecycle Stages of a Marriage Moderator: Michael G. Lawler, Ph.D. Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Creighton University Theology John S. Grabowski, Ph.D. Marriage as a Unitive and Procreative Partnership Julie Hanlon Rubio, Ph.D. Marriage as a Covenant and Sacrament Wendy M. Wright, Ph.D. Marriage as a “School of Love” OCTOBER 24: Introduction of the program and papers: Dr. Lawler presented brief summaries and highlights ofthe papers as a catalyst for discussion with the panelists. Whitehead paper Dr. Whitehead presents a picture of the “state of our unions,” that underscores three social facts: 1) the benefits of marriage for both women and men; 2) the strong aspiration of young Americans to the idea of marriage; 3) the precipitous drop in the past twenty years in the numbers of married people. She raises a major question for this colloquium: “Why are so many Americans enchanted with the idea of marriage but increasingly disenchanted with being married?” Whitehead lists the standard predictors of marital success or failure: parental divorce, age at first marriage, homogamy, level of education, religious commitment, economics, non-marital sex, cohabitation, rampant individualism. Her own research has highlighted one individualistic factor that offers a possible answer to the question cited above: “When you marry, you want your spouse to be your soulmate, first and foremost.”Precisely because the soulmate expectation is unrealistic, when unfulfilled it is “likely to make marriages unhappier and potentially more fragile,” and it can lead to marital conflict, especially when the soulmates become parents. Dr. Markey points out what is well known to researchers, namely, that “the marriage satisfaction rate drops significantly for parents with young children...Having children both centers the marriage and changes the overall quality of the marriage.” The unfulfilled soulmate expectation can also lead to divorce when the failing soulmate-spouse, in Dr. Grabowski’s words, is “set aside for a newer model.” Grabowski paper Whitehead finds that “religious teachings offer strong normative support for marriage and for the norm of marital permanence.” Grabowski presents such teaching, drawing on “rich biblical and theological resources which can serve to ground both a conceptualization and praxis of marriage even in the face of unprecedented challenges.” Among those resources, he lists a traditional Catholic approach to marriage as sacrament and as covenant. The idea of marital covenant discloses what Paul VI called, for the first time in Catholic history, the“unitive end of marriage,” with its demands for total self-gift, spousal fidelity, and marital indissolubility. The total self-gift of the spouses to one another in marriage, Grabowski points out “is lived out in the myriad struggles ofa couple’s daily life.” It includes and is sealed by the mutual self-gift in sexual intercourse, which introduces the other end of marriage in the Catholic tradition, namely, procreation. Grabowski calls attention to the fact “the shared fertility of a couple challenges the couple to see their relationship in a broader [social] and more truthful perspective,” especially the perspective that “they are not trying to live happily ever after as an isolated couple.” Part of

FAQs

What question does Barbara Dafoe Whitehead raise for the colloquium?

Why many Americans feel attracted to marriage yet become increasingly dissatisfied with being married.

Which predictors of marital success or failure does Whitehead list?

Parental divorce, age at first marriage, homogamy, level of education, religious commitment, economics, non-marital sex, and cohabitation, alongside broader social attitudes such as individualism.

How do Grabowski and Catholic tradition describe marriage’s ends and meaning?

Marriage is presented as a unitive and procreative partnership through covenant and sacrament, with demands for total self-gift, fidelity, indissolubility, and shared fertility viewed in a broader social perspective.

Aug 26, 2026

Uploaded by Ophelia