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- The National Marriage Project (NMP) is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and interdisciplinary initiative located at the University of Virginia. The Project's mission is to provide research and analysis on the health of marriage in America, to analyze the social and cultural forces shaping contemporary marriage, and to identify strategies to increase marital quality and stability.
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Research
NMP is currently engaged in three lines of research.
- The Foundations of Marital Quality and Stability. This project is investigating whether a "soulmate" or an "institutional" model of marriage is more likely to foster higher levels of marital happiness and marital stability among young adults (aged 18-45). Specifically, this project will determine whether young couples are more likely to enjoy marital success when they adopt the soulmate model of marriage: a conditional ethic of marital love ("for long as our love shall last") and a focus on emotional intimacy, or when they adopt the institutional model of marriage: an unconditional ethic of marital love ("till death do us part") and a focus on a range of marital goods, including children, economic cooperation, emotional intimacy, and, for some, religious faith.
- The State of Our Unions. The NMP’s annual report, The State of Our Unions, provides statistics on marriage, divorce, cohabitation, parenthood, and other relevant family trends in
America. The annual report also features new research on important and timely topics related to marriage. The report will focus:
- In 2009, on money and marriage, with new research on how the recession, savings and debt, and recent increases in unemployment are affecting contemporary marriages.
- In 2010, on marriage and parenthood, with new research on how parenthood influences the quality and stability of married life, and why college-educated couples continue to connect marriage and parenthood at higher rates than do poor and working-class couples.
- In 2011, on faith and marriage, with new research exploring how religious attendance and belief shape the quality and stability of contemporary married life; this report will focus particularly on the role that religion plays in the lives of African American and Latino families.
- Religion and Marriage among African Americans and Latinos. This project is exploring the ways in which religious attendance, religious tradition, and religious belief shape the quality and stability of marriage and family life among the nation’s two largest minority groups. This project is specifically analyzing the links between religion and childbearing, marriage rates, marital quality, and divorce among African Americans and Latinos.