• A growing body of research says marriage’s most overlooked benefit today isn’t financial, it’s security. For women, that means physical and emotional safety. For children, it means better mental health and a faith that lasts.

• Married women are dramatically less likely to feel unsafe than single or cohabiting women. Kids raised by married parents are far less likely to be depressed as adults, and far more likely to keep their faith.

• Communio’s new report with the Institute for Family Studies, Passing the Torch:How Faith Moves Across Generations, draws on more than 60,000 Americans and finds that a strong parental marriage is one of the most powerful predictors of whether children carry faith into adulthood.

• The institution best positioned to strengthen marriage at scale is the local church. That’s exactly what Communio equips churches to do.

For generations, the conventional wisdom held that marriage was, at its core, an economic arrangement, and that women, in particular, married up for security and a higher standard of living. That logic has quietly collapsed. Today, women ages 25 to 34 earn about 95 cents for every dollar earned by men the same age, and in nearly half of U.S. marriages, women earn as much or more than their husbands. The old financial incentive has faded, and marriage rates have fallen with it — down roughly 60% for women since 1970.

So a fair question follows: if the economics no longer point to marriage, what does?

A recent Washington Post essay by Wendy Wang, research director at the Institute for Family Studies, names the answer most of our culture overlooks: security. Not a paycheck, protection. And once you see that thread, it runs through nearly every piece of new research crossing our desk at Communio.

What is marriage’s most overlooked benefit today?

The most overlooked benefit of marriage today is the sense of safety and protection it provides, especially for women and children.

The numbers are striking. A 2025 Gallup poll found that 58% of American women feel safe walking alone at night, compared with 84% of men. But marriage changes that picture. New data from IFS and the Wheatley Institute shows that while 18% of single women ages 25 to 34 say they feel unsafe most days, only 4% of married women say the same.

And it isn’t simply about having a man in the house. Commitment itself appears to matter. Cohabiting women are more likely than married women to report feeling unsafe, and far more likely to say their partner doesn’t contribute to their sense of physical safety. Even among younger women who have largely set aside traditional gender roles, roughly three in four still believe men should protect women.

In other words, the appeal of marriage hasn’t disappeared. It has simply moved from the wallet to something deeper — the security of knowing someone has committed to face the world alongside you.

Does a parents’ marriage affect children’s mental health?

Yes — and the effect is significant. The security marriage offers doesn’t stop with spouses. It cascades down to the next generation.

As Communio founder J.P. De Gance noted in a recent Townhall column, America’s youth mental health crisis is severe: research in Pediatrics found as many as 40% of high schoolers report persistent sadness and hopelessness, and around 10% report having attempted suicide. Against that backdrop, family structure turns out to be quietly protective.

Drawing on the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey, De Gance points to a sobering finding: adults whose parents divorced before they turned 18 were 70% more likely to be depressed than those whose parents stayed married. Adults whose parents never married were twice as likely to report depression. Both groups were also far more likely to report loneliness.

The takeaway isn’t to shame anyone’s family story. It’s to recognize that a stable marriage is one of the most powerful, and most ignored, public-health assets we have.

Does a parents’ marriage affect whether kids keep their faith?

This is where Communio’s newest research comes in. Our report with the Institute for Family Studies — Passing the Torch: How Faith Moves Across Generations — examined data from more than 60,000 Americans to understand how faith actually survives from one generation to the next.

One conclusion rose to the top: marriage matters a ton. Adults whose parents were still married when the child was 12 were more likely to attend church weekly, pray daily, read the Bible, believe in God, and rank their faith as highly important.

The report identified several reinforcing factors that make faith durable into adulthood:

1. Religious practice in childhood strongly predicts religious practice in adulthood.

2. The quality of the parent–child relationship shapes whether belief and practice are retained.

3. Parental marital quality is directly linked to stronger faith transmission.

4. Active congregational involvement by both parents and adolescents raises the odds that faith endures.

Put simply: the home where a healthy marriage and shared faith are part of everyday life is the single most effective seedbed for lasting belief. And no parent has to be a theologian to start. A regular date night, prayer together, and ordinary conversations about faith go a remarkably long way.

The thread Communio sees

Three different studies. Three different headlines. One unmistakable thread.

For women, marriage means safety. For kids, it means mental health. For the next generation, it means a faith that lasts. The benefit our culture keeps overlooking is the same one in every case: security — physical, emotional, and spiritual. As Wang put it, marriage is ultimately about “two people committing to face the world together.”

That’s not a sentimental idea to us. It’s the heart of why Communio exists.

Why this points straight to the church

Here’s the part that should encourage every pastor and ministry leader reading this: strong marriages don’t happen by accident, and they can’t be legislated into being. They are formed in relationship — in community, in discipleship, in the rhythms of ordinary church life.

That makes the local church the most strategically positioned institution in America to rebuild what our culture has lost. When churches strengthen marriages and relationships, they aren’t just running a program. They are protecting women, guarding children’s mental health, and passing faith to the next generation all at once.

This is the work Communio was built for. We equip churches with a data-driven, ministry-tested model to strengthen relationships at every life stage — singles, dating couples, newlyweds, struggling marriages, blended families, and co-parents alike. The research keeps confirming what the Church has always known: when the family is strong, faith endures and people flourish.

The culture is finally asking the right question about marriage. The Church is positioned to answer it.

Lead a church or ministry? See how Communio can help you build a relationship ministry that strengthens marriages and grows your congregation. → Partner with Communio

Go deeper into the research:

1. Read the new IFS/Communio report: Passing the Torch: How Faith Moves Across Generations

2. Read J.P. De Gance’s column: Are Strong Families the Cure for America’s Mental Health Crisis?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most overlooked benefit of marriage today? Security. As economic incentives to marry have faded, research increasingly shows that marriage’s enduring value is the physical, emotional, and spiritual protection it provides — for spouses and especially for children.

Are married women safer than single or cohabiting women? According to IFS/Wheatley Institute data, only 4% of married women ages 25–34 report feeling unsafe most days, compared with 18% of single women. Cohabiting women report feeling less safe than married women, suggesting commitment itself plays a role.

How does parents’ marriage affect children’s mental health? Adults whose parents divorced before they turned 18 were 70% more likely to be depressed, and those whose parents never married were twice as likely to report depression, according to the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey.

Does a parents’ marriage influence whether children keep their faith? Yes. Communio and IFS’s Passing the Torchreport found that children whose parents remained married were significantly more likely to attend church, pray, and value their faith as adults.

What can churches do to strengthen marriages? Churches are uniquely positioned to form strong marriages through relationship ministry. Communio partners with churches to implement a data-driven model that strengthens relationships at every life stage.