Screwtape knew his company. The imaginary devil of C. S. Lewis had a wide range of methods for enslaving and killing people, and his devilish arsenal included poisoning relationships between men and women. As he put it to his protégé Wormwood,” The aim is to link each sex aside from those members of the other with whom morally good, happy, and rich marriages are most likely”. He desired that both men and women be looking for the wrong people and the wrong person at the same time.
The foolish old devil had certainly gloat over the current state of men and women’s relations, which are in many ways worse than he had anticipated. There are, of course, however angry relationships, but whereas Screwtape took relationship as a social given, about half of American adults are then young. Everyone has been alarmed by the decline in marriage and childbirth, from politicians to historical commentators to Elon Musk, but simply looking at the problem won’t solve it. People won’t marry and have children just because it will benefit GDP in a few years.
Some men and women would like to get married and have children but are struggling to find a partner, even though some people purposefully reject marriage and children. Our culture doesn’t educate men and women how to find, let alone how to get, good wives and husbands. Rather, it sometimes seems that, as Lutheran pastor Hans Fiene put it,” ]O ] ur culture teaches young men to be losers and young women to be narcissists”. Harsh, but probably good.  ,
Because men and women are different, the latest social and interpersonal wasteland will function differently for each, frequently resulting in relationships that foster personal dysfunction and damage, further entangling both the social and individual problems.  ,
Pornography is an obvious example. It might be particularly appealing to men who haven’t been able to find a mate, as a documentary about nature might suggest, but it encourages behaviors that make it difficult for them to start and maintain a relationship with a woman. For example, porn has taught a generation of young men to be aroused by degrading and dangerous kinks, such as sexual strangulation. The end result is a new sex division and hostility.
Sexual liberation has led to a number of vicious vicious cycles of this kind. A culture of promiscuity makes it more challenging to create and maintain stable romantic relationships, which further strengthens a culture of promiscuity as people settle for hookups or unrequited relationships. Because people are most likely to have regular, enjoyable sex in committed relationships, this has decreased overall sexual satisfaction. Men may have the idea of beding a new woman each night, but the reality is that very few actually have the status, wealth, or charisma to do so. Monogamous marriage is the best sexual arrangement that the majority of us can agree on.
The abortion vicious cycle is another one that is related. This violent rejection of parental responsibility is self-sustaining because the sexual revolution required abortion to get rid of people who were having unwelcome conceptions. By preventing sex’s reproductive effects, abortion encourages more intimate sex, which results in more abortions. Therefore, despite the sexual revolution having led to fewer overall sex, there has still been more sex when a pregnancy is most likely to lead to abortion. And as the fundamental solidarity of mother, father, and child is replaced with a selfish clash of competing interests, hearts are hardened as the most dependent humans are met with violence, rather than love.
The signs and symptoms of our culture’s relational discontent are all around us, along with hints of renewal, as the evils and broken promises of the sexual revolution become ever more apparent. However, to change our culture, it will require both a conscious break from the sexual revolution and a cultural rebuilding that restores solidarity and cooperation between men and women.
The reliance on outdated methods and practices to unite men and women and maintain their relationship in acceptable harmony has long been lost. Even those who retain elements of these lifeways are consciously anti-cultural about it, often as a result of their association with traditional religious beliefs and communities. Even though it will also be locally led, renewal will need to be deliberate and intentional.  ,
Even if there were someone with the authority to try to implement a top-down plan, it would be impossible to restore good relations between men and women. However, it will rely on the deliberate efforts and guidance of local leaders and institutions. This can be summed up as a need for community, but churches can provide this in particular.  ,
In our broken culture, teaching people how to live and love is essential, both in the present and future. In a world where men and women are no longer able to form lasting, loving relationships, churches can provide discipleship and discipline for the majority of us. For instance, there must be designated areas where both men and women can meet in addition to their recommended locations and trusted reputations. That and much more can be done by crosses.
Furthermore, because strong families are the basis for strong communities, the increasing estrangement of the sexes in our culture hurts everyone, so establishing and sustaining families will help everyone. By allowing people into their homes and lives, strong families can, for example, ensure the mixing of generations, even for those who are otherwise alone. Many single adults also travel far from their families, and churches with strong families and marriages can provide them with fellowship and involvement in family life.
And, of course, strong families are the real solution to a multitude of social evils, from crime to education to poverty. More effectively than any government initiative, men and women who marry and raise their children together are much more effective at eradicating these evils.
The foundation of civilization is the complementary union of men and women in marriage, not just because it facilitates its continuation but also because it uniteeth the two halves of the human race in love and solidarity. In this, we fulfill the vocations of marriage and parenthood that most of us are called to and for which we find great joy.
We were created for this; it is better to carry out our vocations in accordance with natural law than any tidbits of modern culture. Christians must model and proclaim this in a culture that has lost sight of how to live well in this life, let alone how to have hope for the future.  ,
A right understanding of marriage must be promoted and protected, both in terms of culture and policy. Marriage and family are universal in application, rooted in human nature, and geared toward the good and the good of those around us. They are not idiosyncratic Christian observances.  ,
Nathanael Blake is a member of the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a senior contributor to The Federalist.
