Scoot over some Osama bin Laden. Itís now Arnold Schwarzeneggerís media moment, something he earned by extra friendliness with household help, having a love child and finally telling Maria Shriver, his wife, about it. She has naturally enough separated from him, and some may think this one more message about an institution in deep trouble, though it is far from the heart of that story.
No, the Schwarzenegger tale mostly symbolizes how ambitious, driven, ego-centered men seem especially given to wandering off the ranch, the examples running the political gamut from John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to Newt Gingrich more recently. These particular men, however, are upper middle class ó well, upper, upper, upper middle class. Itís mostly poorer Americans with scant education who are most abandoning marriage, often not even giving it a whirl, as you can learn from Kay S. Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of several books and some online writings I recently encountered. Sheís full of reason, understanding and facts, and tells us among other things that all the news gab about the marital mayhem of celebrities can be very misleading.
Most educated, better-off folks are in fact growing more in love with marriage. When you catch a story such as a recent one saying 3 percent more married-couple families are celebrating 10th wedding anniversaries than in the 1980s, you can bet itís the most advantaged taking more advantage of this absolutely crucial institution.
Go back to the 1960s, and we were a marrying, stay-together nation. But then came the birth control pill, something called the sexual revolution and more widely respected rights and opportunities for women. Says Hymowitz, all of this caused many women to reevaluate the old idea that first comes love, marriage, then the baby carriage. Divorce became a big deal with us, and still is, despite some decline over the past two decades. Very, very scary on top of that is that something more than a third of children are now born out of wedlock, if only a tiny percentage of them to college educated women. Theyíve figured something important out. Marriage matters to children.
They get it that kids with two parents earning money are going to have more money coming in. They get it that having two married-couple parents means more training for the children, more guidance by example toward the kind of life that works best for families, more attention to academics. Those who donít get it are people with the least education ó often less than high school. Here is what single-parent homes give us on average: still no education to speak of in the next generation, still more poverty, still more single-parent moms.
Hymowitz grants the market is increasingly less friendly to unskilled labor, but notes that marriage tends to engender education and skills in children.
The percentages of unwed mothers among poor whites, blacks and some other minority groups are over half, and if we are going to fix what ails us, we have to fix this. I am dubious about the role of politics, though some good examples and good preaching might help.
I do believe that cultural values count, as opposed to the politically correct social scientists, some of whom say that talking about wrong values amounts to blaming the victims. No, itís blaming the culture. We need a new revolution, and wise thinkers like Hymowitz can help us get there.

Jay Ambrose wries for Scripps Howard News.