By John M. Grondelski.

Our media are intermittently stirred up over the decline of marriage in American society. Many factors play into that phenomenon: confusion over the very definition of "marriage" and its substitution by ersatz stand-ins; economic insecurity that deters young people, especially young men, from entering adult life; a split between "adult" and "professional" life, in which there are gender differences; differing and often unrealistic expectations of marriage; the decline of religious commitment, expressed in religious marriage with a co-religionist, etc.

All these factors feed into the eclipse of marriage. But perhaps there's one other that we just don't take much into account because, like the air we breathe, it affects us, but we don't notice it. It's how we view the "normal" human person. Is the "normal" person naturally situated in a communion of persons such as marriage, or is he a rugged individualist for whom marriage is perhaps an "add-on" but not a "fulfillment?"

Genesis 2:18 teaches "it is not good for the man (ha'adam, הָֽאָדָם) to be alone." Two things are noteworthy about this passage. The first is the speaker: God. It is not "the man" who recognizes his solitude, much less its deficiencies. It is God who authoritatively pronounces that aloneness is "not good" (one of the few times in Genesis something is not "good").

Second, who is this "man?" The usual reading is the male without the female. Indeed, we've even taken the Hebrew collective noun for "man" - adam - and made it his proper name, Adam.

Pope St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body in fact pushed this question further. In this state of original solitude, is the "man" the male - or the human? Can "man" know what it is to be "man" prior to the complementary contrast of "woman"? "The man" knows things negatively, i.e., that in the Dr. Doolittle parade of Creation that God presents to him there is no "suitable companion." God says it is "not good." But does he, Adam, recognize it as "not good" or merely "not there?" Is his recognition conscious? Visceral? Neither? Both?

God remedies man's "not good" situation by the creation of woman, which - as John Paul pointed out - clearly establishes the experience of "male" and "female," again making the point that sexual differentiation is not something incidental or valueless to human anthropology. My question is: Do modern people have that same experience of "male" and "female?"

Do 20- and 30-something American males living in their parents' basements feel it is "not good" that they are alone, or is it a "take-it-or-leave-it" situation? Do 20- and 30-something American females, often better educated and quicker into the job market than their male counterparts, consider being with another some kind of a sine qua non "good?"

Borrowing Brad Wilcox's terminology for how we treat parenthood, do those women consider marriage a "cornerstone" necessary to building a "good" life, or a "capstone" achievement, a crowning element on life's resume?

There was a time when parents nudged their children, subtly or less so, towards marriage. Young women were especially asked, "Are you going with somebody?" "When are you going to get married?" "What are you waiting for?" "Are we ever going to have grandchildren?"

But those questions were not unique to women: young men got them, too, along with such socio-cultural expectations, like "When are you going to get a job so you can be on your own?" - which really didn't mean alone as much as with a spouse in an adult relationship. (Note the expectation was "When are you going to get a job, not necessarily when are you getting a degree.")

These parental pushes towards marriage still exist, though they are often muted or simply cast in terms of "choice." The present writer is also old enough to remember when "state of life" for a Catholic meant either the married or the formally religious. It wasn't until sometime in the 1970s that people really began talking about "mar...