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American Values | Society’s Well-Being Depends upon the Traditional Family

In the following viewpoint, Jean Bethke Elshtain asserts that the two-parent family is crucial to the well-being of America’s children and society as a whole. In Elshtain’s view, divorce and single parenthood contributes to a wide array of social problems, including teen suicide, crime, drug abuse, and poverty. She contends that marriage provides the only environment in which children can truly flourish. Elshtain is a professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School.

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1. In what ways does family...

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