Essential Excerpts: Bring Back Marriage!
Why married people are happier, why younger generations aren't getting married, and how you can help your kids navigate a dramatically different dating world.
Hello Bar-Setters!
There have been profound shifts in the beliefs and attitudes that Americans have regarding marriage. As shown by the recent American Perspectives Survey, younger generations, in particular, are marrying later and marrying less frequently.
This trend is quite problematic for the happiness of our children. As Rob Henderson explains in his fantastic piece for the Free Press:
…new research from the University of Chicago found that marriage is “the most important differentiator” of who is happy in America, and that falling marriage rates are a chief reason why happiness has declined nationally. The study revealed a stunning 30 percentage point happiness gap between married and unmarried Americans. As the American Perspectives Survey report notes, “No social change has altered the fabric of American life so profoundly as the decline of marriage.
Marriage is the most important differentiator of who is happy in America.
This seems to be supported by the largest ever longitudinal study on happiness, which Dr. Robert Waldinger Jr. details in his book, The Good Life. According to Waldinger, the number one predictor of long term happiness is relationships and relationship quality.
What This Means For You
That means that parents should think hard about how they can help their children grow into adults who want to get married.
The American Perspectives Survey identifies a number of reasons that may account for the decline of marriage:
More women in the work force (which I believe is a good thing)
Economic disruptions that disproportionately affect working-class men
Suspicion and “outright opposition” among young adults to marriage and other traditional social arrangements
Legal changes to divorce law
An increase in the number of young people raised by divorced parents, which may cause increased skepticism about marriage.
Dr. Henderson posits another very interesting potential cause for the decline of marriage (and the rise of unhappiness):
Too many options—the well documented Paradox of Choice
As Henderson explains:
Previous generations didn’t have many options, so they stuck together through hard times and made it work. Now, abundance (or its illusion on dating apps) has led people to feel less satisfied. People are now more anxious about making a choice and less certain that the one they made was correct.
A Whole New World
Our children are growing up amid some seismic shifts in the world of dating and relationships, which Henderson details:
“According to the American Perspectives Survey, 43 percent of young women say they have no interest in dating whatsoever, compared with 34 percent of men. This is consistent with other survey data indicating that 55 percent of women now say that dating has gotten harder in the last 10 years, compared with only 39 percent of men. Among young women, the new survey shows a little less than half are single. Among young men aged 18–29, 6 in 10 are.
As young men continue to drop out of education and the workforce, educated and successful women will find it increasingly difficult to find a decent male partner. And once the sex robots/hyperrealistic VR arrives, forget it. At that point, even a lot of the smart and talented men in your life will straight-up disappear.”
Parents, we are living in novel times.
If our children are to live good lives, we are going to have to show them why marriage matters. We are going to have to give them a compelling vision of why things like sacrifice, duty, commitment, and fortitude are not to be avoided, but are, in fact, necessary antecedents to real lasting happiness. These are, also, at the very core of what it means to be an adult.
It’s time we make adulthood sexy again.
Thank you for reading and sharing!
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