Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears is on a mission to strengthening marriage in Georgia and across the country. With more than 25 years of experience on the bench, Chief Justice Sears has witnessed the alarming increase in children growing up in this country in families without a mother and a father in the home and the effect that it has had on the caseload in Georgia’s trial courts. Last year in Georgia, more than half of all civil cases heard at the trial level involved families and children.
Forty years of social science evidence confirms that family structure matters for children. “Fractured families lead to fractured communities,” said Chief Justice Sears. “Daughters of single parents are more than twice as likely to become single parents themselves, and they make up more than two-thirds of all teen pregnancies and are nearly twice as likely to divorce. Children born to unmarried mothers, children in single parent families and children whose parents have divorced suffer disproportionately from emotional and physical illness. They are more likely to become addicted to drugs and alcohol and they are more likely to engage in violence or suffer it at home.”
By contrast, research clearly indicates that children who grow up in stable families with their own continuously married parents have a higher standard of living, receive more effective parenting, experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances than their peers in alternative family forms.
Chief Justice Sears is not advocating for a return to an era in which societal stigmas about divorce prevented some women from leaving abusive and oppressive marriages, nor does she believe that everyone should get married. Indeed, she has acknowledged that, “it is a rare person who has not been directly affected by divorce and single parenthood or who does not at least know and care about someone who has.” However, although she is “sensitive to concerns about judging people without an understanding of how they ended up in their particular situation,” she notes that “there is overwhelming research indicating that the health of our society and our children is directly related to the health of our families. The evidence is strong and growing that marriage is an important generator of human, social and financial capital. Our country’s future depends on the strength of our families”
Chief Justice Sears is convinced that marriage is the most pro-child institution we have. When she considers all she has achieved in life, she believes she has her family to thank above all else.
“My parents were not perfect parents, no parents are,” Chief Justice Sears said in a recent op-ed article in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But, I believe my parents’ presence in our home and in my life was my foundation. They instilled in me a belief in myself and the challenge to work hard, get a good education and strive to be the best I could be. It is because I grew up in a stable home with a mother and father who supported, guided and challenged me that I never doubted I could achieve my dreams.”
“We are a great nation when our families are great," said Chief Justice Sears. “Without a conscious, combined effort on the part of our legal system, government, educators, faith communities, civic leaders and others, marriage is in deep danger of becoming part of the structure of class privilege in America rather than the common inheritance of all our children.
Our great nation’s commitment to principles of equality and our concern for all children require that we undertake the task of renewing marriage in this country in the twenty-first century.”
Chief Justice Sears will be in Chattanooga on September 18th to speak at First Things First’s Annual Fall Banquet. For more information go to firstthings.org
