The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, declared this week that, while marriage was the ideal, it was a waste of time for government to attempt to promote it, given the "plethora of family forms" that now exist, writes Breda O'Brien.
Instead, she intends to focus funds on improving parenting skills. No one could quarrel with attempts to improve the level of parenting, but to do so in a way which is completely neutral about family form may be rather more difficult than she suspects.
Her own department partially funded the Ceifin report, Family Well-Being - What Makes a Difference? Kieran McKeown, one of Ireland's most experienced and respected researchers on family matters, is the lead author. If we were to believe media commentary, the report supports the idea that family form is irrelevant, and that what matters is the quality of relationships between people, not whether they are in marital or non-marital relationships.
However, that is too superficial a reading to give this well-researched and valuable report. It is indisputable that the report's main finding is that "the physical and psychological well-being of men and women is shaped primarily and directly by three factors: personality characteristics, family processes and socio-economic environment.
"Once we control for factors such as these, the particular type of family in which one is living has little or no impact on well-being, with the exception of one-parent single (that is, never married) families where mothers tend to have lower levels of psychological well-being than other parents." Case closed, then? Not quite.
One of the benefits of employing someone like Kieran McKeown is that he will spot intriguing trends in the raw data. It is perhaps not surprising that lone mothers suffer more stress and anxiety, although this has been roundly ignored by some commentators who wish to push the idea that family form is irrelevant.
However, look at the list of five key factors which impact on the well-being of children. "These are: unresolved problems between the child and its parents, the supportiveness and well-being of mothers, the supportiveness of fathers, whether the child's grandparents are separated or divorced, and family income."
None of the other factors is particularly surprising, but how on earth can a grandparent's marital status impact on a child's well-being? The authors conclude that "the most plausible explanation involves the impact of marital difficulties in the parents' family of origin on their own relationships, parenting skills and aspects of their personality."
The bad news for Mary Coughlan may be that it is facile to expect that focusing on parenting skills will make for fewer marriages and greater marital breakdown, given that the negative effects carry on to two generations at least.
It could be argued that all the "grandparent effect" shows is that it is the quality of relationships which matters, not the marital or non-marital form. Yet an intriguing statistic from this report shows it is not that simple.
All the cohabiting parents are much younger statistically than married parents. Is cohabitation the secret of eternal youth? The explanation is more mundane. Cohabiting relationships which are strong tend to move into marriage. Those which are built on a weaker foundation break up. That is why the average age of cohabiting parents is so low.
Contrary to most media commentary, nowhere in the report do we find any attempt to undermine the findings from a now vast body of research which suggests that a good marriage is the best situation for men, women and children.
Indeed, one of the earliest statements in the main body of the report says: "For adults, there is extensive research using data from the US, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Ireland to show that marriage is strongly associated with life satisfaction and physical and mental health." The Ceifin report confirms that the happiness or otherwise of parents is one of the factors which impacts most strongly on children, and parental happiness is greatly influenced by circumstances in the family of origin.
This report is a snapshot in time, and makes no comment on long-term outcomes for relationship forms. However, it is indicative of the importance of marriage that marital breakdown impacts not only on children, but on the children's children.
I believe the converse may also be true. Some of the most successful lone parents I know (and I know many) are able to draw on the social capital accumulated by the strength of their parents' marital relationship, which is sufficiently sturdy to provide shelter to grandchildren, marital or non-marital.
How long will society be able to draw on that social capital, without serious attempts to replenish it by supporting good marriages as an ideal? In conversation with Kieran McKeown during the week, he expressed concern at attempts to use his research to suggest that marriage no longer matters.
"Rather than saying marriage does not matter," he said, "we are saying that good marriages matter more than ever. Good relationships are important, and many of these relationships will be found within marriage. Many will also be found in cohabiting relationships, which in many cases will end in marriages. So the reality is that marriage is the preferred way that men and women live out satisfying relationships."
The key words here may be "good marriages". Those of us who believe in the importance of marriage for individuals and society sometimes act as if the mere fact of marriage is sufficient. This position is untenable. Marriage is inherently more stable than cohabitation, and therefore provides better odds than cohabitation for children's happiness.
However, given the complex interplay of factors as diverse as socio-economic background to grandparents' marital success, now, more than ever, people need to be equipped with the skills to maximise the chances of happy marriage.
Nor does supporting marriage have to undermine lone parents. Indeed, it is a tribute to them that so many of them sacrifice so much for their children and succeed so well, given that many two-parent families struggle to find the emotional and material resources to cope with the increasingly difficult task of parenting.
The bottom line is that Mary Coughlan may think that simply supporting parenting is sufficient, but all available research, including that funded by her Department, points towards the fact that the need to support good marriages is now greater than ever.