Get Married: Marriage is Good for You | Strong, Stable Marriages Offer Fulfillment, Happiness, Family Flourishing

Jan 8

Get Married. Marriage is good for you. It’s good for children to be raised in two-parent homes, but marriage is also good for women AND men. This declaration is not just subjective or wishful thinking. Prominent social scientist Brad Wilcox, Ph.D., has analyzed data from thousands of Americans that backs up this claim. In fact, he’s found a happy marriage is the number one predictor of global life satisfaction for men and women across the country. Notably, people in stable, long-term marriages are the happiest in America. And their sense of well-being and purpose provides a strong defense against our country’s growing levels of loneliness and deaths of despair.

Brad has written about his findings in his new book Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. His research for the past two decades on marriage, fatherhood and cohabitation makes him one of the leading experts in the areas of family flourishing and societal well being in the country. Brad’s the Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS). His is one of the most well-respected, albeit counter cultural, social science voices in America.

Although Brad’s been involved in a range of intellectual projects at IFS since joining in 2009, he’s focused his attention on marriage for the past decade.

“Marriage is a fundamental social institution that organizes how we love each other and how we love our kids,” he said. He’s worried the narrative purported from naysayers on both the left and the right is that marriage doesn’t matter – education, career, and making money should take priority. Conversely, Brad’s found data that shows marriage is the greater causal factor in human flourishing.

Marriage Makes People Happy

His analysis discovered a strong association between marital happiness and global life satisfaction. However, polling data shows Americans ascribe more importance to work. They expect the “resume values” will get them ahead and lead to a happy life. Brad’s research compared the power of marital happiness and job happiness on the scale of global life satisfaction and found marital happiness mattered significantly more.

“Yes, if you like your job, we saw a 145% increase in being happy. But being happy in your marriage boosts your Global Satisfaction Score by 545%,” he noted.

“In a culture that prioritizes the degree, the job, the bank account —investing in marriage, children, kin and friends bears returns that far surpass the return we experience from the workplace,” he said. In contrast to resume values, it’s the “eulogy values” — charity, loyalty, compassion, generosity and friendship — that provide more meaning, direction and happiness in life. For most people, nothing ends up being as important than their quality of family life.

“We are social animals most likely to flourish when we have deep and abiding ties to other people. We need to do a better job of getting married and staying married, because it bears enormous returns in emotional and financial wellbeing,” Brad said.

Marriage is Declining

However, marriage has lost ground in our broader culture. Statistics show marriage and childbearing rates are declining. Since 1970 our country has seen a 65% decline in the marriage rate, going from 80 % of people being married to 60%. It’s a sea change for how personal lives are structured. For the first time, fewer than one-half of adults will be married, and one-third will never marry, Brad noted. “This is a record demographic territory of people who will never have the benefit of a spouse. Family formation is now more selective and attainable only by the educated, affluent and religious. It’s slipping out of the hands of young adults.”

Flying Solo Myth

Influencers like Pearl Davis on the left claim marriage and motherhood require women to make too many sacrifices. Others on the right like Andrew Tate perpetuate the idea that marriage is a death sentence for men, because divorce is too common and that the benefits of marriage do little to “counteract the massive costs men pay to be married.”

“They are missing the big picture,” Brad said. “Quite simply, women and men who are married with kids are flourishing, have more meaning in life, and are doing much better than others.

“Living for the good of one’s family endows life with an extra layer of meaning not found in virtually any other domain of social life,” he wrote. Family ties translate into higher reports of meaning and lower reports of loneliness for married Americans.

As people postpone or eschew marriage, we see kids and adults hurting. Since the year 2000 there’s been a decline in the share of Americans who report they are happy with their lives and a dramatic increase in deaths of despair – drug overdose and suicide. There’s a lot of evidence that the retreat of marriage drives these statistics, Brad said.

The quality and character of our social ties significantly impact flourishing or floundering, he added, noting profound loneliness and lack of social connection for those not integrated into a social fabric that provides rhythms, routines, direction and purpose.

“Marriage and family ties vehicle afford the kind of bonding and believing that protect people against suicide,” he wrote.

A recent University of Chicago study noted the number one factor in drop of happiness among working class men was the decline in marriage rates.

“As marriage goes, so goes the nation,” Brad said. “How’s the health of the American dream? What’s the number one predictor if poor kids will make it out of poverty? It’s not education spending, it’s not economics — it’s the share of single parent families in the community.” The more two-parent families, the higher the probability for children flourishing.

Marriage Divide

Adding to the growing economic inequality in this country is the finding that poor, working class Americans are much less likely to forge stable marriages to govern and guide their lives, he added. For instance, most Americans who don’t have a college degree will not spend their lives stably married. “A whole range of outcomes have been central concerns in the last decade that intersect directly from the retreat of marriage and don’t get a lot of attention from main-stream policy makers.”

Poor and lower income families are much more likely to experience family instability and enter the “relationship carousel.” Their kids are doubly disadvantaged, not only do they have less money and less education, they have less family stability. “The working class and poor have a lot going against them today,” he said. “In an unequal society devoted to screens, institutions are relatively weaker. And marriage matters more to provide a core sense of solidarity and a place to love and be loved. Having the benefit of married parents is even more important today.”

If data reveals getting married and staying married as predictive of wellbeing, what’s preventing that from happening? Why is the marriage rate declining?

Brad noted 20-30 years ago that women considered marriage a top goal and most likely to lead to life fulfillment, even though it also was associated with a lower work position. Now Americans tend to ascribe more importance to work than marriage and family.

“It’s true a good job leads to greater life satisfaction,” Brad agreed, “but those factors are not as important as being married. Having a good marriage knocks being very happy with life out of the ballpark. Nothing in the data set predicts being happy with your life more than a good marriage.” Marriage is more than two times the predictor of having general overall happiness for women than work satisfaction — even twenty something married Americans are about 80% more likely to be happy than their unmarried peers.

“Having a good marriage knocks being very happy with life out of the ballpark. Nothing in the data set predicts being happy with your life more than a good marriage.”

— Brad Wilcox

“Marriage also is an institution that transforms people, bonding men and women to a particular person, to a whole way of life. In doing so, as we have seen, it endows their lives, day in and day out, with more meaning, prosperity, stability, and solidarity, all of which typically boost the sense of satisfaction that men and women take from their lives after they enter our civilization’s most fundamental institution. In other words, marriage is causal.”

Prioritize Finding a Spouse

With that understanding, shouldn’t young people resist the individualistic siren songs of culture, prioritize finding a good spouse and then invest in that marriage? he asked, because in the end, “love matters more than work.”

And why wait until the third decade of life? It is easier for folks to forge a common life together as husband and wife and build a powerful and strong family if they start investing in marriage and family in their 20s, Brad said. People in their 30s have prioritized a work-based identity, and it’s more difficult to layer a family on top than to grow a family-first identity from the outset.

“If your goal is to be a great husband, wife, mother or father, you are more likely to have a strong, stable, family-first marriage if you focus on getting married in your 20s.”

He’s struck by the number of young adults today (many with whom he interacts at the University of Virginia) who are so focused on their career they have lost sight of the importance of cultivating friendships, partly with an eye to finding a spouse.

“They hit their 30s with no marital prospect in sight. They are now regretful of their lack of intentionality in their 20s. The older you get, the more challenge it is to find a good partner for the long haul,” he said.

Brad’s noticed young women are showing a growing concern about their marital prospects down the road. “They are not able to find men who are interested in marriage, able to commit and measure up to the bar. The men they meet are lacking a sense of ambition or direction in life or are not interested in committing.”

Brad calls this phenomenon the closing of the American heart, where social structures organize life in a way that gives less opportunity to care for others.

“The share of young adults who will never marry is larger than one-third,” Brad said. “Those who will never have a child is greater than 25%.”

He speaks a word of advice to parents of adult children, “If you would like a future where you are enjoying your kid’s wedding or would like to have grandchildren to extend your legacy into the future generation, you should not be telling your children to prioritize education and career over their marriage.”

Financial Benefits

Brad’s research also casts a vision toward public policies. He details extensively how household income increases dramatically for married men and women, both early on and as they head into their golden years. Married families are better off financially, and dads are more engaged. He calls it the marriage premium, and notes that the ratio of dollars for married households increases fourfold. Married men work harder, smarter and more successfully. Married families are 80% less likely to be poor.

As costs in the world are skyrocketing, “Marriage is a safe haven like no other,” Brad concluded. “It provides two kinship networks, a potential of two incomes, a life partner to share domestic tasks and expenses, and the ability to steer clear of losing thousands of dollars on a relationship carousel, leaving married couples in much better financial shape.”

Once Brad determined with confidence marriage was a net positive for human flourishing, he became interested in broader social structures that provided situations that encouraged marriage. He noticed culture impacts marriage success. Whether it was a college education, higher income, or belonging to a faith community. Brad found socioeconomic class is driving who succeeds and who fails at marriage. Educated and affluent people live in neighborhoods that are dominated by married adults and two-parent families. He found the county with the highest proportion of married families in the nation is Utah County, which contains Provo.

Brad identified four groups of people who were more likely to be successful at love and marriage. He titled those who are building stable and largely satisfying marriages as Masters of Marriage.

Masters of Marriage

“A clear majority (78%) of adults ages 18-55 who are stably married with children come from one of four groups he called: Faithful, Strivers, Conservatives or Asian-Americans.

Strivers: Are the kids who sat in the front row at school. They believe in “bourgeois values” of education, hard work, financial success. They take a long-term view of things and embrace delayed gratification. They may espouse fashionably liberal views about family matters in public, but they don’t put them into practice in their own private lives.

Faithful: Are religious believers who regularly attend church or synagogue several times a month or more. “Their ties to the local religious communities and their faith endow their marriages and family lives with deep spiritual significance. They are most likely to believe that the institution of marriage is good for the well-being of kids, communities and the country,” he wrote.

Conservatives: Believe in classic American middle-class values of hard work and personal responsibility. They also hold “traditional” values like the importance of marriage, sexual fidelity in marriage, the idea that men and women are inherently different and the value of religion.

Asian-Americans: Adopt “Striver-style” values to create a family-first orientation. They tend to see marriage as an economic partnership and prioritize the project of raising children. They recognize staying married gives their kids a big head start in pursuit of the American Dream.

Not only are the Masters of Marriage better at getting and staying married, the vast majority of them report they are “very happy” in their marriages, which greatly influences their overall happiness in life. They prioritize a family-first model of marriage – putting the “we” before the “me.” Marriages are most likely to survive and thrive when husbands and wives aim for ways to serve each other and work as a team. It turns out being generous and caring for others makes people happy.

“Thinking about your marriage, your spouse, and your family as a priority— and coupling this with a willingness to make sacrifices for them— fuels a life-giving cycle in married life. Husbands and wives who embrace a mutual sacrificial ethic and a team spirit tend to be more happily and stably married,” he wrote.

“The family- first model of marriage still recognizes the importance of an emotional connection between husband and wife. But it goes beyond that connection by also stressing some of the classic goods of marriage, like having and raising kids, forging a strong financial foundation for your family, and giving support to and receiving it from kin.

“The gift of a stable family is protective in today’s increasingly uncertain and unequal world. At some level, most of us married parents know— even if only tacitly— that our children are significantly more likely to graduate from college, steer clear of poverty, and avoid a visit to the local psych ward if we can keep things together on the home front. We also know that, financially, sticking together is the wiser course. We recognize that the 401(k), the house, and fun summer vacations depend in large part on keeping our marriage together.”

Promote Strong, Stable Marriages

How then can marriage champions and our culture help minimize divorce and maximize marriage flourishing?

“We must push back against a culture that tells our young men and women that money and work are more important than marriage and family, discouraging and diverting them from focusing on love and marriage in their twenties and early thirties, when they have the best shot at finding a spouse and maximizing their chances for marital success,” Brad wrote.

“We must instead encourage young men and women— along with middle-aged husbands and wives navigating the challenges and occasional doldrums of marriage and family life— to reject the me- first ethos of our culture and open their hearts to a we- first approach to love and marriage built around the distinctive values and virtues embodied by the masters of marriage.”

Five pillars that encourage marital success:

Communion: The “We” before “Me” approach. This spirit of togetherness is marked by sharing last names, bank accounts and regular date nights. Brad found date nights are an incredibly powerful way to keep the spark alive in marriage. Research revealed husbands and wives who have a date night at least once a month are the happiest. “Net of controls, they are almost twice as likely to be very happy in their marriage, compared to their peers without regular date nights. In fact, regular date nights are one of the strongest predictors of marital happiness in the survey. Moreover, a National Marriage Project report showed that the probability of divorce for couples who set aside such ‘couple time’ at least once a week was about 25 percent less, over a five- year period, than of those who did not have such regular couple time.”

Children: Prioritizing the welfare of their children is also a mark of successful family-first marriages. Husbands and wives who view raising children as a primary goal in life and spend a lot of time with their children, from frequent family chores to fun family activities, are generally happier in their marriages and less prone to divorce, he found.

Commitment: What is the strongest predictor of a high-quality marriage? Family scholars, led by psychologist Samantha Joel, found that the best predictor of a relationship’s success is “perceived partner commitment (e.g., ‘My partner wants our relationship to last forever.’” Commitment is the number one predictor of marital satisfaction. So, make and keep vows of “’Til death do us part.”

Cash: A steady income source lends stability to a marriage. Couples where the husband is stably employed, who own a home and have shared assets are more likely to steer clear of divorce.

Community: Birds of a feather flock together. Couples who surround themselves with like minded, family-first peers are more likely to thrive. Membership in a religious congregation provides a ready-made support system for marriage and families.

Brad Wilcox

“Churches and synagogues give symbolic and practical support to family life. There is no community that is more family-friendly than American religion— the churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques across the nation. From a sociological perspective, the norms, networks, and nomos found in American religion play an important role in fostering stronger and more stable families among the faithful. The truth is that religion is generally a force for good when it comes to the quality and stability of married life, men’s and women’s satisfaction with their lives, and the welfare of children,” he wrote.

Brad concluded Get Married with a two-fold exhortation: “So, for your own sake— and, indeed, the sake of our civilization— I urge you: If you’re married, honor your commitment to love and cherish your spouse and any children you may have all the days of your life. And if you haven’t tied the knot, then, with wisdom, seek out one worthy of your heart, and get married. It’s one of the best decisions you’ll ever make.”