Jane Fonda’s hit show “Grace and Frankie,” now in its sixth season, is about two gals, Grace and Frankie, who raised hell in the 1960s, got rich and settled down, but in their 70s, suddenly, their husbands come out of the closet and get married.
The ladies are hurt, but recovery comes quickly, and nothing, not even in the hearts of their children, is really broken. They move in together, crack jokes and form a family of sorts, staying close with their exes, who, in their new role as besties, come by often. It is a springtime of freedom to explore men, sex and an evolving definition of family.
As Hollywood plots go, it’s just one more example of how the industry depicts marriage as optional and family as bendable to one’s pleasure. Yet despite Hollywood’s reputation for live-and-let-live libertinism, many in the industry are stably married or are well on their way to becoming so.
That’s no surprise: As our new Institute for Family Studies report, “State of Contradiction,” shows, marriage levels for college-educated parents like these are about 20 percentage points higher than for less-educated Californians.
Using American Community Survey (Census) data, we can see this divide even street by street. Take Los Angeles. Many South and Central LA neighborhoods, like Westmont and Inglewood, have few married households — less than 15 percent.
Stable marriage, in general, is linked to better economic, physical, social and mental health — and happier people. Not surprisingly, then, these areas are also beset by high rates of violent crime, high teenage birth rates and the lowest levels of median household income.
Head north just about 10 miles and you’ll find communities where more than 50, 60 and even 70 percent of households are married. Here crime is low, teenage birth rates are almost non-existent and median household income runs from the high to the extremely high.
This includes significant chunks of Hollywood. Many living in these areas are executives or creatives working in the movie and television business.
What separates rich and poor families in the Golden State is not that the rich like to marry and the poor don’t. When we asked the unmarried individuals in our sample whether they would “like to get married,” 68 percent of those with an annual income under $50,000 said yes.
So why aren’t poor Californians marrying? Thirty-five percent of those who are not married attributed it to not having a stable job. Forty seven percent say they “haven’t found the right person.”
Much has been said elsewhere about the joblessness — and more needs to be said still! — but the danger of holding out for the perfect mate often goes unrecognized.
Yet the media often encourage just that. Shows like “Grace and Frankie” train us to seek personal fulfilment and above all “The One” in marriage. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Contrary to what we are told, true love and lasting marriage are fruits of sacrifice. One doesn’t find the right person; one becomes the right person through an ongoing suppression of one’s desires for the sake of the union.
This is old wisdom, but it is also backed by the latest research. Our report shows, for instance, that among all ethnicities in California, Asian parents are by far the likeliest to be in intact marriages. At the same time, although most are happy, Asians were also more likely to say they were unhappy in their marriages than other groups.
What explains it? Asian cultures tend to honor marriage as a lifelong union worth sacrificing for.
Fact is, Hollywood could do much good if it called on its better angels and went out of its way to show the beauty and drama of living for someone other than oneself in our marriages and families.
This, of course, would not mean that our economy needs no fixing. It does. It is a matter of social justice that we do all we can to help mend broken communities where people want stable families but can’t get them.
A change of heart in Hollywood, nonetheless, would go a long way to seeing that happy ending.
Michael Toscano is executive director of the Institute for Family Studies.
