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R.G. Wilkins: Protecting the Family and Marriage in a Global Society
Written by Dr. Richard G. Wilkins, J. Reuben Clark Law School Director, The World Family Policy Center, Brigham Young University
Monday, February 18, 2002
Presented to Assembly 2002, “Establishing a Culture of Peace: Worldviews, Institutions, Leadership, and Practices, The Search for Solutions to Critical Global Problems,” Seoul, Korea, February 18, 2002
This paper is based upon standard legal analysis and a review of published social science data. Legal analysis assumes that law (including international law) forms a coherent set of norms that will be observed over time by the relevant actors (including member states of the international community). The review of published social science data assumes that the published findings of respected researchers accurately reflect the outcome of scientific inquiry.
Solid empirical evidence supports the conclusion that long established and traditional notions of marriage and the family are essential to the social health of men, women and children. Furthermore, developments in the West related to marital instability and family breakdown demonstrate that many newly proposed United Nations norms may, in actual fact, impose high social costs. Therefore, the world community should be cautious before embracing many purportedly “progressive” norms related to family life. The recent actions of the Second Preparatory Commission for the five year review of the Habitat Agenda reflect the thoughtful, family-oriented approach that is sorely needed in the international arena.
The world is rapidly becoming a global village. This change is swiftly affecting all aspects of life—and particularly the roles of marriage and family. Conferences sponsored by the United Nations system are promulgating norms that seek to alter dramatically such traditional concepts as motherhood, marriage and family. Whether much of this social experimentation is sound, however, is questionable. Solid empirical evidence supports the conclusion that long-established and traditional notions of marriage and the family are essential to the social health of men, women and children. Furthermore, American and European families—where many modern reforms have first been implemented—are becoming increasingly fragile and unstable.
The world community, therefore, should be skeptical of following the lead of the West in areas related to marriage and family life. Such skepticism, moreover, can result in beneficial developments in the ongoing legal dialogue between members of the international community. The five-year review of the Habitat Agenda adopted language that encouraged the world community to thoughtfully—and carefully—consider the role of marriage and family in developing sustainable human settlements. As a result, the Habitat Agenda recognizes (rather than disregards) the central role of family and marriage in a global society. This recognition of the importance of the family and marriage is vital to maintaining worldwide social stability.
International Law and National Policy
The United Nations system has assumed a major new role: that of world policymaker. Recent conferences, such as the Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the Second Conference on Human Settlements (hereafter, “Habitat”), have been influential norm-setting events. Moreover, the declarations and agendas flowing from these meetings are playing a growing role in shaping and solidifying the content of enforceable international law. UN conference declarations, in short, now are beginning to set not only international—but national—policy.
The growing importance of UN treaties and conference declarations is best understood against the background of general international law. The present international legal system had its genesis nearly 400 years ago with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Under the Westphalian system, the nation/state was the dominant party and the only actor subject to international law. The individual was not subject to the international legal system. Instead, that system regulated relationships between states, and the state regulated relationships between individuals.
Two primary sources of international law developed within this system: customary international law and law created by agreement (e.g., treaty) between states. Before the development of lawmaking treaties, international law was based primarily on the customary behavior of states which was generally recognized as binding. Treaty law developed mainly as negative law, prohibiting specific actions by signatory states. It dealt “primarily with political matters: peace treaties, treaties of alliance and friendship, neutrality treaties, and treaties settling territorial claims.”
For the most part, this Westphalian framework survives intact today. But, under the tutelage of the United Nations, the subject matter of contemporary international law has evolved significantly. Under the United Nations system, international law is now concerned with nearly every important aspect of society. International law no longer addresses only political matters, but “legal, social, cultural, economic, technical and administrative matters as well.” Moreover, modern international law arises from a complicated morass of custom, treaty, formal agreement, informal agreement, debate, discussion and conference declarations of “norms.” Modern international law also increasingly deals with the rights and obligations of the individual—not just the rights and obligations of states.
With the emergence of the United Nations Conference System, moreover, customary law is beginning to play an increasingly important role in shaping and directing the behavior of nation/states and the rights of citizens residing within those states. Customary law, as noted, is binding upon states. As a result, technically nonbinding UN Conference Declarations—such as those flowing from the Cairo Conference on Population and Development or the Habitat Conference—can become binding to the extent that they either crystallize emergent rules of law or attract uniform practice by states.
Conference declarations are sometimes viewed as binding because they restate customary law. “Customs,” furthermore, are developed through uniform, consistent practice revealed by one state’s claims against another. Accordingly, conference declarations may shape and direct the actions of nations, thereby significantly influencing the development of customary law. And, in the contemporary UN system, conference declarations may themselves be seen as evidence of uniform practice. Some have even argued that the negotiation of an international conference agreement creates customary international law.
Thus, while it once took a rather long time for customary international law to develop, the acceleration of international interaction, brought on in part by UN conferences, has resulted in the rapid creation of customary international law. The emergence of the doctrine of “instant” customary international law is an extreme example of the rapidity with which customary international law may now be created. It has been argued that, while they are technically nonbinding, UN Conference declarations nevertheless state the world community’s intent to abide by the norms set out in those documents, thereby creating “instant” customs. This argument, at present, is controversial. But, whether or not the doctrine is sound, discussion of “instant” customary law demonstrates, at a minimum, that international law can be dramatically influenced by nonbinding instruments—and without the passage of much time.
The United Nations, in short, has significantly complicated the scope, processes and subject matter of international law. The range and pervasiveness of the United Nations’ influence on questions of social policy is also expanding. Accordingly, individuals and groups who are interested in protecting (among other things) the rights and prerogatives of the family and traditional customs and religious practices must pay increasing attention, not only to treaties, but to UN conference declarations and the ongoing review and implementation of those conference declarations.
International Law and the Family
Until relatively recently, the concepts of “marriage” and “family” were not commonly linked with the notion of “international law.” Family and marital law present issues so closely tied to unique cultural and religious norms that the international community did not undertake any real efforts to regulate marriage and family issues on an international scale. Nevertheless, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—as well as numerous other UN treaties—announce (or at least recognize) the importance and centrality of marriage and family to human civilization. Moreover, human rights issues have become an increasingly important topic of discussion at international conferences. Perhaps because of the confluence of these two factors (e.g., the existence of “family” and “marriage” language in governing international agreements and the growing importance of human rights rhetoric), marital and family structure have recently become the centerpiece of discussions at international conferences.
In the latter half of this century, women (and groups representing them) have played an important role in international conferences. Indeed, women’s organizations have had historically unprecedented influence. The representation of women’s views on the international scene is to be applauded and encouraged. The progress of women is directly linked to social justice and progress. Furthermore, sound social development is inevitably linked to the advancement of women.
But, notwithstanding the importance of social advancement for women, how we define “social advancement” is critical. All too often the “woman’s viewpoint” at international meetings has been dominated by Western groups who are hostile to traditional notions of marriage, family and religion. As a consequence, marriage, motherhood, family, and religion often have been presented as cultural and economic “problems” which impede a woman’s full development. Accordingly, substantial pressures are being placed on developing nations to adopt family and marital structures “more in line” with liberal Western models.
These efforts proceed on several fronts. Initially, and perhaps most prominently, there is a major drive to liberate women from the burdens of childbearing by means of an insistent emphasis on abortion rights. This is coupled with efforts to diminish the traditional importance of the role of motherhood by suggesting that motherhood (and the family itself) is stereotypical, oppressive and prevents women from greater fulfillment. The deconstruction of the family proceeds with proposals to grant autonomy rights to children, assertions that states must legalize homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and attacks on the importance and content of religious faith. These newly emerging international norms—to the extent they attract voluntary compliance by nations and/or are accorded the deference due customary international law—could radically restructure marital and family law around the world.
For example, in the heads of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies held a Round Table on Women’s Rights at Glen Cove, New York. The report of the meeting speaks openly about reinterpreting human rights documents to include an unchallengeable right to abortion—a right conspicuously absent from the documents themselves. The Round Table Report also concludes (again, without direct support) that homosexual sodomy is a protected human right. At the same time, this Round Table Report explicitly criticizes religion as an obstacle to the realization of these newly discovered rights.
Parental rights, like religious rights, are also being denigrated. Even though study after study shows that the weakening of parents’ supervisory roles—even more surely than poverty—leads to serious dysfunctions such as drug abuse and crime, the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child interprets the Convention on the Rights of the Child in ways that intrude on and weaken the parent-child relationship. The Committee views the child as a miniature adult, with rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom to decide what he or she will learn, even against the parents’ wishes. The Committee, for example, has found the United Kingdom out of compliance with the Convention simply because that country permits parents to decide whether their children shall be enrolled in public sex education courses.
Similar reinterpretation of “rights” is occurring with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, or “CEDAW.” The CEDAW Committee routinely criticizes governments for limiting abortion, even though abortion is nowhere mentioned as a right in the Convention itself. The Committee labels motherhood as a mere “stereotype” that holds women back. When countries have attempted to follow the admonition in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that motherhood deserves special protection and care, the CEDAW Committee has complained that those efforts are “paternalistic,” or even worse that encouraging motherhood discourages women from seeking greater fulfillment in paid work. For example, the Committee admonished Armenia to “use the education system and electronic media to combat the traditional stereotype of women ‘in the noble role of mother.’”
The CEDAW Committee frequently takes aim at religion and culture, expressing the view that “cultural and religious values cannot be allowed to undermine the universality of women’s rights.” The Committee, in fact, was so bold as to pronounce that “in all countries, one of the most significant factors inhibiting women’s ability to participate in public life have been the cultural framework of values and religious beliefs.” The Committee concluded that “true gender equality does not allow for varying interpretations of obligations under international legal norms depending on internal religious rules, traditions and customs.” The Committee, in fact, has gone so far as to instruct various Muslim nations that they must reread the Holy Qur’an in ways that will better comply with modern social trends.
Regarding the appropriate care of children, in one amazing comment, the CEDAW Committee bemoaned the fact that only 30 percent of the children in Slovenia under three years of age were in formal day care, while the rest were cared for by family members and other private individuals. The Committee took the position that these tiny children were better off in day care than with their families, and urged more formalized day care for children under three.
But United Nations discussions related to religion and family life do not stop here. Many organs within the UN System are openly advocating the legal recognition of same sex marriage. For example, in Toonen v. Tasmania, the Human Rights Committee declared that the right to privacy in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”) embodies a right to homosexual sodomy, and that laws against such behavior therefore violate the ICCPR. Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner on Human Rights, gave an address in which she extolled the virtues of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a “living document” in which she had discovered a right to protection based on sexual orientation. Following up on these comments, Elizabeth Evatt, a member of the Human Rights Committee, has declared categorically that “intolerance of homosexuality [is] a clear case of discrimination and inequality” that falls “clearly within the scope of human rights protection and there should be no debate or controversy.
Stable Family Structure and Sustainable Development
This discussion to this point should make two points clear: (1) the UN Conference System is gaining considerable clout in establishing norms that, by various means (including the development of customary law), may one day be viewed as enforceable international law; and (2) some of the norms now under discussion within the UN Conference System diverge dramatically from traditional concepts of marriage and family. These two factors, in turn, raise questions regarding the effect these newly articulated norms might have on global society.
A careful review of available social scientific evidence suggests that the world community should be exceptionally cautious in adopting and implementing new marital and family law norms. The proposals and policy initiatives outlined in Section II of this paper did not appear out of thin air—they come from social experimentation in Western nations. But, while there is much to be lauded in Western social progress, not all developments in the West (and particularly some of the West’s experiments related to marriage and family life) have yielded positive results.
Policy proposals that denigrate the importance of motherhood weaken family privacy by inserting the government between parents and their children, and that erode religious faith (which for centuries has served as the basis for the marital union) have an incremental—but inevitable—effect: they tend to undermine marriage and the family. The world community must understand how proposals to alter family structure have affected men, women and children in the West. Without such a vision, the entire world may fall victim to an alarming Western trend—the disintegration of family and marriage.
The disintegration of the family unit is having a profoundly negative impact on social stability in the west. Social science data from the United States demonstrates two nearly incontestable conclusions: (1) stable, traditional marital structures provide profound benefits for men, women and children; and (2) the breakdown of stable, traditional martial structures imposes significant social costs upon individuals and society at large. These realities suggest that—rather than follow the West’s lead in deconstructing traditional marriage and family—the world community should follow the course set during the five year review of the Habitat Agenda: insist that proper attention be paid to preserving and strengthening the historic role of the family in building a stable society.
Benefits of Stable, Traditional Marital Structures
Marriage, as it has been conceived by and practiced in Western societies for centuries, has marked benefits for marital partners and their offspring. Marriage is more than the union of two persons, it is a social institution “culturally patterned and integrated into other basic social institutions, such as education, the economy, and politics.” marriage, in a real sense, underlies every social institution. It comes as no surprise, then, that marriage affects some of society’s most consequential interests:
Married people are generally healthier; they live longer, earn more, have better mental health and better sex lives, and are happier than their unmarried counterparts. Furthermore, married individuals have lower rates of suicide, fatal accidents, acute and chronic illnesses, alcoholism, and depression than other people.
Historically, in the West and elsewhere, the need to articulate the benefits of marriage has been largely unnecessary. American courts, for example, have recognized for some time that marriage is “fundamental to our existence and survival” and “of basic importance to our society.” However, it has become commonplace of late within American academia (as well as within the UN System) to deride, or at least ignore, the benefits of traditional marriage. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of research showing that marriage is indispensable to the welfare of society and to the individuals that comprise it. Much recent research, in fact, shows that traditional, heterosexual marriage has significant benefits for children and their mothers and fathers.
1. Benefits to children and youth
According to one scholar, traditional marriage is “by far the most emotionally stable and economically secure arrangement for child rearing.” Recent research, moreover, indicates that—for children—nothing compares to a solid, stable marriage between their biological parents.
a. Traditional marriage supports children’s education. Studies consistently show that children in two parent families are significantly less likely to drop out of high school than children in a one parent family. In some studies, the likelihood of dropping out more than doubles for children in single parent households.
b. Traditional marriage minimizes the likelihood of poverty. Studies also show that children raised outside marriage are more likely to be raised in poor economic conditions. These children suffer not only from economic deprivations, but also from a lack of parental attention and from high rates of residential relocation, all of which can work to disadvantage the child’s development.
c. Traditional marriage aids in crime prevention. Recent studies also emphasize the critical role dual parenting plays if children are to become law abiding citizens. As one researcher noted, “the single most important factor in determining if a male will end up incarcerated later in life is…whether or not he has a father in the home. The mother child relationship is equally important. “As mothers spend less time with infants and toddlers…the boys’ developing brains, and thus their behavioral systems, are affected.” Children without this crucial early bonding are “more likely to start out on a path of later narcissism and out of control behavior as [they] compensate for [the] early deprivation.”
d. Traditional marriage supports healthy socialization. Marriage also appears to be an unequaled institution for fostering healthy socialization. “Children of divorce do not accept monitoring or supervision from live in partners nearly as much as they do from married parents.” Young adults in single-parent households are more likely to give birth out of wedlock, and are more likely to be out of both school and the labor force. Furthermore, “children who spend part of their childhood in a single parent family . . . report significantly lower quality relationships with their parents as adults and have less frequent contact with them.”
In sum, society has a compelling interest in promoting and preferring stable, heterosexual marriage in order to protect future generations. “Adolescent children care about marriage and view it positively [they] endorse marriage, want to get married, and want to have children.” And, although young people are increasingly bombarded with pessimistic views about marriage, they “yearn for a return to stable family life, and…are much less likely than their elders to consider divorce a good option.” Any breakdown in the importance placed upon traditional marriage impairs the social welfare of future generations.
2. Benefits to adults
The advantages of marriage for children are derivative of the benefits gained by those who enter into the marital vow. Marriage is the ultimate social bond that can be formed between a man and woman because by their marriages, husbands and wives accept an obligation to be faithful, to give and receive help in times of sickness, and to endure hardships. Not everyone will be able to remain true to such vows. However, it is more difficult for a married than for an unmarried person to break such promises because they are part of our laws, religions, and definitions of morality. Others have taken identical vows throughout history. Collectively, society enforces these ideals both formally and informally. Nothing can be said about any other type of intimate relationship between two adults.
It should come as little surprise, then, that this ancient social union has particular (and unique) social value. This unique social value, moreover, does not flow from some natural selection process in which healthy, strong, bright, and charismatic people are the most likely to marry and, therefore, the most likely to benefit from the union. “Married people do not simply appear to be better off than unmarried people; rather, marriage changes people in ways that produce such benefits.” It follows that society has a compelling interest in promoting, sustaining, and preferring the oldest social institution shown to change people in propitious ways, ways that make the world a better place. Recent studies strongly support the propositions that traditional marriage promotes physical health, mental and emotional health, and social productivity.
a. Traditional marriage promotes physical health. There is a positive—and multi-factored—causal relationship between marriage and physical health:
• Married men and women live longer than non-married individuals. This includes non-married individuals who have never married, those who are divorced, and those who are widows and widowers. These statistics are especially significant for unmarried men who “face higher risks of dying than married men, regardless of their marital history.”
• Married people are less likely to report “problem drinking” than are non-married persons. Excessive alcohol consumption has been linked to a variety of health related problems, including liver failure and heart disease. Although men are the clear beneficiaries of marriage in this regard, even married women are nearly one third less likely to report drinking problems than divorced women.
• Married persons, both men and women, are less likely to engage in risk taking behavior. With respect to activities such as drunk driving, smoking, and drug abuse, married persons are less likely to engage in such activities compared with their non-married counterparts. Perhaps even more importantly, however, researchers believe that marriage actually encourages responsible, healthy behaviors.
• Research shows that traditional marriage positively impacts the sexual health of individuals. Not only are married persons less likely to experience sexual dysfunction, they are also more likely to be extremely satisfied with their partner. According to one scholar, the long and monogamous relationships typically associated with married individuals allow for the development of partner specific skills and facilitate “emotional investment in the relationship.” Marriage also reduces a significant anxiety that only non-monogamous individuals face—the fear of sexually transmitted disease.
• Perhaps flowing from all of the above, research indicates that married individuals “suffer less from illness and disease and are better off than their never-married or divorced counterparts when they do fall ill."
b. Traditional marriage promotes mental and emotional health. The health benefits of marriage do not stop with the body. A growing mountain of research strongly indicates that “the psychological wellbeing of the married is substantially better than that of the unmarried. “Married people have lower rates of depression and suffer significantly less from any psychiatric disorder than their divorced, never-married, or cohabitating counterparts. Married individuals, furthermore, are less likely to be admitted to a public mental institution, less likely to be admitted to a psychiatric clinic, and more likely to cope with psychologically stressful events.
Marriage has also been linked with reports of increased happiness, life satisfaction, and overall occurrence of positive emotions. Marriage offers individuals a “spiritual connection to their deepest values” and satisfies the basic human need for “emotional and physical closeness. Some scholars have opined that marriage “provides individuals with a sense of obligation to others, which gives life meaning beyond oneself. Furthermore, “some consensus exists that marriage improves women’s material wellbeing and men’s emotional wellbeing. Indeed, “‘no part of the unmarried population—separated, divorced, widowed, or never married—describes itself as being so happy and contented with life as the married.’ As one scholar put it, “[t]he positive effect of marriage on wellbeing is strong and consistent, and selection of the psychologically healthy into marriage or the psychologically unhealthy out of marriage cannot explain the effect.
c. Traditional marriage encourages social productivity. Marriage, finally, has a significant (but often overlooked) impact on social productivity. Marriage, to take but one example, has proven to be a positive factor in the workplace. Besides providing health and psychological benefits, marriage positively affects wages and productivity. One study, in fact, has indicated that married men logged more than double the hours of cohabiting, single men. This translates into a “wage premium” for marriage that positively affects men and (in particular) African-American women.
Another scholar has noted that marriage tends to minimize what Karl Marx described as the alienation between a worker and his employment. “Marriage and family still involve the unspecialized, holistic self, providing a context where people bring together their many specialized roles…and [can] strategize about the future of family and career within a union that provides value and continuity. Yet another noted scholar has concluded that the development and reinforcement of the Western marital model (and the intergenerational conception of family built upon that model) is the essential foundation for personal liberty and an efficient market economy.
In sum, the weight of social science demographic research indicates that marriage has unique benefits for women and men, as well as for the children that develop from and within the marital union. Marriage offers individuals (and society) natural and inherent benefits. Indeed, the procreative and normative functions of marriage provide the very foundation of civilized society. Efforts to devalue motherhood, diminish parental involvement with children, devalue religious norms and even redefine the very concept of marriage itself—all well underway within the UN Conference System—bring with them high and tragic social costs.
Costs of Destabilizing Traditional Marital Structures
There are growing signs of distress—including poverty—in American society. “Much of the debate about the growing gap between rich and poor in America focuses on the changing job force, the cost of living, and the tax and regulatory structure that hamstrings businesses and employees. But analysis of the social science literature demonstrates that the root cause of poverty and income disparity is linked undeniably to the presence or absence of marriage. Broken families earn less and experience lower levels of educational achievement. Worse, they pass the prospect of meager incomes and family instability on to their children, making the effects intergenerational.
As demonstrated above, “research has documented that natural family structures benefit nearly every aspect of children’s well-being. This includes greater educational opportunities, better emotional and physical health, less substance abuse, and lower incidences of early sexual activity for girls, and less delinquency for boys. In the United States, 50 percent of children who live with a single mother live in poverty; by contrast, only 10 percent of children residing in two-parent homes live below the poverty level.
But more than education, emotional health and poverty is at stake. The very safety and lives of women and children depends upon marital stability. A groundbreaking survey of the scientific literature performed by Dr. David Popenoe and Dr. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead found that cohabiting, unmarried women “are more likely than married women to suffer physical and sexual abuse. The consequences of cohabitation are even more serious for children. Doctors Popenoe and Whitehead conclude that: the most unsafe of all family environments for children is that in which the mother is living with someone other than the child’s biological father. This is the environment for the majority of children in cohabiting couple households.
In short, stable martial unions promote the health, safety and social progress of women, men and children. Unstable marital relations promote poverty, crime, abuse and social disintegration. These realities, moreover, are particularly acute for women and children. While the assault on marriage, motherhood and child rearing—in large part—has been championed by feminist organizations who purportedly seek the betterment of women and children, their efforts (as shown above) have not always improved the lives of actual women and children. Modern activists for women’s rights would do well to heed the fact that “the family as an institution exists to give legal protection to the mother-child unit and to ensure that adequate economic resources are passed from the parents to allow the children to grow up to be viable adults.
A Word of Caution and a Plea for Help
What is the import of the foregoing? As Professor Sophia Aguirre cogently notes, familial disintegration “affect[s] social stability and therefore affect[s] the economic development of a country.” 6 Accordingly, the world community would do well to avoid many of the troubles now evident in Western social development. I will offer a word of caution and make a plea for help.
First, a word of caution. While working to improve the social mobility and cultural and economic status of women, the international community would do well to avoid the social consequences arising out of the marital and sexual revolution in Western societies. As Professor Aguirre has noted, “[t]he disruption of the family has had serious and high social welfare costs for societies.… Furthermore, the size of such costs indicate that, were this to happen in less developed countries, these group of countries would not be able to afford them. It would, instead, further hamper their efforts to develop.
Second, I plead for your help. The threats facing men, women, children and the family do not face one faith, country or culture alone. All religious faiths, all cultures and all countries must stand together to combat the erosion of morality and the family. All nations must take their role in crafting international conference agreements very seriously. All too often, nations sign UN agreements only to “appease popular or ‘politically correct’ sentiment. Such a casual approach to the negotiation and finalization of international declarations is unwise.
In June of 2001 the five-year review of the Habitat Agenda was held in New York City. The Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium contains language that reflects and reemphasizes the important role of marriage and family in developing sustainable human settlements. After stating the world community’s “commitment to overcoming obstacles encountered in implementing the Habitat Agenda,” the Declaration “reaffirms that the family is the basic unit of society and as such should be strengthened.” The Declaration also affirms the world community’s consensus that “marriage” is a unique relationship between a “husband and wife” that “must be entered into with the free consent of the intending spouses. The Declaration, finally, directs that “human settlements planning should take into account the constructive role of the family in the design, development and management of such settlements.
The outcome of the five-year review of the Habitat Agenda would have been much different without the strong support of traditional family and religious values demonstrated by many countries. Any mention of “family” or its unique role in fostering stable human settlements was strongly opposed by Norway and the European Union. Further destabilization of the concepts of marriage and family within the UN Conference System was halted by the strong stand taken by blocs of other nations. This action should be applauded. Similar action at future United Nations meetings should also be encouraged. Although the precise influence of international declarations on national laws cannot be ascertained precisely, there is little question but that conference declarations do have an impact. Each document builds upon language used and objectives sought in preceding conferences and as a result form an important link in a chain that inevitably encircles the international community.
The nations of the world must carefully consider the family and religious language they incorporate into an international declaration. Language may be merely a recommendation today. But that same language may be binding tomorrow. The world community must be certain that these binding international legal cords do not strangle marriage and the family, or suffocate the spirit of faith that for centuries has sustained the entire world.