Welcome to HMN!
February 10-16 is National Marriage Week
Plan now to join one or more of the many activities in the community that celebrates healthy marriage! Plan your own celebration! It always coincides with Valentine's Day week, so take the opportunity to do something to strengthen your marriage--or help someone you know strengthen his or hers!
Looking for ways to strengthen your marriage--or that of someone you know? Welcome to Healthy Marriages Nashville, a part of a larger marriage movement sweeping the country promoting healthy marriages in communities. On this site, you will find information and links to events, classes, and celebrations that are a part of community efforts to build strong, healthy marriages--not only in Nashville, but in other cities as well. You will also find links to local and national resources that will suggest ways that you or your organization can strengthen and celebrate marriage, or help you as an individual seeking a healthy marriage, support and enrichment. We also have information on marriage trends in the Nashville area and across the country. We hope you will explore this site, and learn more about the marriage movement in the country today, and decide to be a part of it.
There is no question that healthy, strong marriages are the foundations to healthy families, and healthy families are the basis for strong communities. So whether you are married, or hoping to marry in the future, or working with those who are, explore the resources here to learn how to develop the skills couples need to have a marriage that will go the distance...and have a lot of fun along the way!
There is a New Consensus that Marriage Matters
A large body of social science research indicates that healthy, married-parent families are an optimal environment for promoting the well-being of children. Children raised by both biological parents are less likely than children raised in single- or step-parent families to be poor, to drop out of school, to have difficulty finding a job, to become teen parents or to experience emotional or behavioral problems.
--National Council on Family Relations, the nation's largest organization of family scholars.
Both scholars and politicians now agree that married two-parent families are good for children, and that poverty would be greatly reduced if marriage could be increased.
--Two policy experts, a Republican and a Democrat, writing for the Brookings Institution
Children in two-parent families generally had access to more financial resources and greater amounts of parental time. They also were more likely to participate in extracurricular activities, progress more steadily at school, and have more supervision over their activities such as television watching. The presence of two parents continues to be one of the most important factors in children's lives.
--U.S. Census Bureau
Benefits of a Healthy Marriage
Research has identified many benefits for individuals and society that are associated with healthy marriages. For a list of just some of those, ...read more
