Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Coulson Center, I'm Shane Morris.

For years, the term Food Desert was a way experts described areas of the country where fresh,

unprocessed groceries are difficult to find. The key insight captured by this term is that

obesity and other diet-related health problems aren't solely a matter of individual choice, especially for children.

They are at least partly determined by access or lack thereof to quality food where people live.

What if a similar pattern applies to marriage?

What if there are sections of the country best characterized as marriage deserts,

where lasting unions aren't just rare but virtually non-existent.

That's the argument sociologist Brad Wilcox and writer Chris Boulevard made recently in Deseret News.

They suggested that marriage deserts

are found across demographics,

from inner city minority neighborhoods

to poor rural white towns.

In such places, stable marriages have essentially disappeared, and along with

them households that model what such unions look like. This is a relatively recent development.

Wilcox and Boulevard explained that in the late 1960s, marriage was the norm across classes.

Just 13% of American children lived with an unmarried parent. But fast forward 50 years and that

number has climbed to a staggering third of all children, mostly comprising the

lowest income brackets. It's almost like a cultural bomb went off. Such high

rates of single or cohabiting parents results in blocks on end with no

married role models and this makes the very thought of marriage seem implausible,

...