Book Review: Get Married

America’s declining marriage and birth rates offer a prime opportunity for Christians to buck cultural trends. Contrary to popular myths, marriage is far better than cohabitation on every level.

My wife and I married 20 years ago, just at the tail end of the cultural dating/courtship discussions that were taking place across Christian circles in the wake of the publication of Josh Harris’s book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It’s a topic I had followed and about which I had even taught some Sunday School lessons which were later turned into a short book.

Soon after that a Christian university asked me to speak at its chapel service, on husbands and wives text based on Ephesians 5:22-33. It seemed like an odd choice to me, since almost all students in attendance would be single.

I decided to give some time toward the end of my message on why the desire and goal of marriage was a good thing — a message from my book. I saw it as something all Christians could agree on: The purpose of pairing off as singles is to fully and finally pair off, tie the knot, get married. This orientation made more sense for young adults than serial relationships going nowhere. For Christians, we see its origin in the garden of Eden, and the vast swath of human history.

I did not anticipate the scowls on the faces of the university’s administrators after my message. The next week’s speaker saw fit to open his message by debunking mine. Apparently, the only goals we were allowed to talk about with college students were academic and professional — pick a good major, work hard in school, build your resume, prepare for the job market.

These are all important aims, but why wouldn’t “prepare for and pursue marriage” be among them? We can switch majors, jobs, or even careers. But a good marriage is a fixed reality, something you build upon together — something that steadies you in life, like an anchor. Not surprisingly, nothing predicts happiness better than a good marriage.

Over the last two decades, the median age of marriage has only increased.

Today, one quarter of 40-year-olds have never married. And the birth rate has fallen to its lowest level since 1979 — all of which leaves us in dire need of a book like Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.

Defy the Elites

Brad Wilcox, director of the Home Economics Project at the American Enterprise Institute and a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, explains that our cultural leaders generally practice the virtues of marriage. They prioritize child-raising with their spouses and investing time in family activities. But they preach “family diversity” — the idea that it doesn’t matter whether you marry, cohabit, divorce, or raise kids alone. They don’t want to sound judgmental towards those who, in some cases, are on the receiving end of a bad relational hand.

The problem is that young adults are listening. They are increasingly developing the perspective that marriage makes no difference. And yet it does, tremendously, and not just as a predictor of adult happiness. It’s by far the best environment in which to raise children.

The Flying Solo Myth

Many in the online manosphere today (think Andrew Tate) preach that men are better off valuing physical fitness, making money, and sex with many women over marriage. Female voices in the media similarly push a career-over-marriage mindset, emphasizing the virtues of independence and recreation over commitment and kids. Wilcox calls this “the flying solo myth.”

Those flying solo can invest more in friendships, cohabit, live apart together (LAT) with a boyfriend/girlfriend or enjoy polyamorous relationships. Work community can substitute for marriage. Financial stability and career success — things which really make us happy —come from education and work, not wedlock. Or so the myth goes.

It’s all bunk. Married adults are not only happier and less lonely; they enjoy far more financial and career success than their single or cohabiting peers. Lest some think this is a selection bias, Wilcox explains how marriage has a transformative power, especially for men, that makes them better workers and therefore more financially successful.

Men need others to depend upon them. They associate marriage with growing up. The providership norm remains alive and well, producing a “responsibility ethic” among men. Married guys work longer hours, seek out higher-paying work, and are more reliable employees than their unmarried peers. Married women in their thirties have about $22,000 more in family income compared to cohabiting women, and $52,000 more than single women. These gaps only increase with age.

The Family Diversity Myth

Sociologist Philip Cohen popularized the idea that money is more important for families and children than marriage. He argues that single moms need cash — not necessarily Dad — to raise their kids as well as their married counterparts do.

The truth is that while money helps, intact families help more. Even after controlling for income, kids from married households are far less likely to be sent to the principal’s office (or prison) and far more likely to graduate from college. Kids raised by one biological partner and an unrelated adult (typically Mom and a boyfriend) are 10 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused compared to kids raised by their own married parents.

And not even rich kids escape the effects of divorce. Students from wealthy families whose parents are stably married are almost twice as likely to graduate college than their peers who weren’t raised in such homes.

Other Myths

Wilcox debunks other myths, too. Like the soulmate myth, which says we should stay married only as long as we feel happy. In truth, the intense passion we first experience in romantic love tends to fade for almost everyone. It’s also the case that happiness — in love and, generally, in life — is less likely to be found when pursued directly.

Happiness is a byproduct of a life well-lived, a life set in a direction consistent with a person’s transcendent values (often religious). Those who live only for themselves, to do whatever they feel in the moment, experience less happiness (and more divorce). Wilcox explains that, in marriages, those who seek not so much to feel good as to do good end up happier.

Then there’s the parent trap myth — the falsehood that kids ruin married life. Kids pose challenges and stresses, but also greater and more lasting joy for parents. Wilcox also addresses how faith and religious practices tremendously reinforce marriage.

Give this book to the young adults in your life. It’s a countercultural message they badly need to hear.

Alex Chediak (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley) is a professor and the author of Thriving at College (Tyndale House, 2011), a roadmap for how students can best navigate the challenges of their college years. His latest book is Beating the College Debt Trap. Learn more about him at www.alexchediak.com or follow him on Twitter (@chediak).