BYU lecture honors late wife of Pres. Hinckley

PROVO — LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley and other family members of the late Marjorie Pay Hinckley were on hand at Brigham Young University Thursday night for the inaugural lecture of the chair bearing her name.

James Q. Wilson, Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, spoke on marriage and commitment, which is also the subject of the most recent of his 15 books, "The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families."

Wilson has also taught at Harvard University and UCLA and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, one year before President Hinckley received the honor.

Wilson said knew very little about Sister Hinckley, who died last April, when he accepted the invitation to speak, but was deeply honored to be asked.

"This is a great honor for me," he said. "This is probably my fifth lecture at BYU, and this is the one that will probably mean the most to me because of the circumstances."

Wilson focused his remarks on the disintegration of marriage and the family — and the subsequent effects on society.

"Having children out of wedlock and cohabiting has lost its stigma," Wilson said. "Marriage was once a sacred obligation, but it has devolved into a contract. Of all the relationships we enter, the family is the most important one."

Wilson said that the negative effects of cohabitation of unmarried couples are lost on most young people and should be discussed more than same-sex marriage.

"Gay marriage affects 2 to 3 percent of the population," he said. "Cohabitation affects most of the population, but we don't talk about it."

Wilson said he did not have a simple solution to the problem, but that researchers can take a step by examining which measures are successful in encouraging marriage.

"There is no magic bullet, no simple strategy," he said.

President Hinckley took a moment to thank Wilson as he left the lecture.

"It is a great honor to meet you," President Hinckley said. "Thank you very much, and come again."

Wilson met President Hinckley for the first time Thursday at a dinner before the lecture, though Wilson had read Hinckley's book, "Standing for Something," which he received as a gift.