Carousel, Part 1

"It seemed to me that family life was different in the United States than any other Western countries - Western Europe and the non-European English speaking nations of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - in a way no one really understood. I noticed, first of all, that in none of the other countries has marriage become a social and political battlefield. Nowhere else is the government spending money to promote marriage. ...Moreover, nowhere else is the debate about same-sex marriage so fierce.

These observations imply that what's different about the United States is the strength of marriage as a cultural idea. Although that's true, other signs suggested to me that the promarriage ideal is only part of the American difference. I know that in no other Western country is the waiting period for a no-fault divorce so short. I was stunned to read, buried in a footnote in an academic journal, that children living with two married parents in the United States have a higher risk of experiencing a family breakup than do children living with two unmarried parents in Sweden." - "Marriage-Go-Round"