EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 28,551 words- 0:00 – 4:29
Is Marriage a Bad Deal for Men & Women?
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think about people on the internet who say that marriage is a terrible deal for men and women?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, Chris, you know, I've been sort of playing the marriage, uh, horn for a long time, and it's primarily been kind of, uh, critiquing folks on the left. In the mainstream media, as you know, I've, I've kind of gone after folks at Bloomberg, New York Times, and elsewhere. But what's kind of new is we're getting all these voices from the online right, from the red pill right. You know, like Andrew Tate and Pearl Davis, who are, you know, saying things like in, in Pearl's words, that, that marriage is a death sentence for men or, you know, in Andrew Tate's words that, um, basically, um, there's no return, you know, on, uh, marriage. Uh, there's zero advantages, his, his terminology, you know, for, uh, for men when it comes to getting married. So we're kind of getting it now from the left and the right here. Um, and, um, I think it's in some ways emblematic of the difficulties that of, of course comes primarily from the women on the left and, and primarily the men on the right. And it's partly kind of a reflection of the difficulties that a lot of younger adults are facing in finding, you know, uh, a spouse, finding a partner who would be worthy of marriage. And so that's probably kind of an expression of frustration, but I think it also kind of conveys what I call kind of the Midas mindset. And that's this idea that what really matters in life is work. It's money, it's kind of building your own brand. And I think in, in different ways, these folks too are kind of, um, you know, propagating this Midas mindset because, you know, they think that the real action is where, um, you know, your work is at, you know, where your, your brand is at, uh, where your bank account's at.
- CWChris Williamson
You definitely see this from the left, uh, women on the left in a perhaps surprising way that you wouldn't have done 50 years ago, whereby it is all about financial security and being a boss bitch and being independent. And I don't need no man. And, you, you know, if he comes to me, fine, but I'm not gonna go looking for him. So that seems to be the equivalent, that odd, uh, horseshoe theory where, uh, some elements of the right and some elements of the left end up kind of saying very similar talking points, even though they don't agree on everything else.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, no, what's striking is sort of how similar their message is. I mean, they're kind of encouraging women and men separately to kind of stay free of family encumbrances, stay free of marriage, and to, you know, to pursue individualism, to pursue money, pursue career in different ways. And that that's sort of the pathway towards fulfillment, when in fact the data lead us obviously in a very different direction.
- CWChris Williamson
What is happening with current marriage rates? Give me the 30,000-foot view.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. So I think that's certainly one of the, one of the, the pieces of bad news that I convey in the book, um, that is that the marriage rate has come down about 65%. What we're seeing now in the adult population is just under 50% of folks who are married. So we're kind of, you know, that's a, that's a new record or new low, um, and we're projecting-
- CWChris Williamson
Where would, where would that have been if it's at 50% now or just under, where would that have been 30 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever?
- BWBrad Wilcox
75%, you know, we're talking like, you know, the, the, the late '60s, early '70s basically. So, um, so that's obviously a, a big change in recent decades. And then we're also projecting too, um, you know, between 80 and 90% of folks would've been getting married, you know, coming of age, um, in, you know, in the, in the '70s, you know, give or take. Um, whereas today we're projecting that probably more than one in four young adults, you know, in their 20s today will never get married. So this is kind of record demographic, um, territory that, that we're entering into, um, and it just means that there are gonna be a lot of kind of permanent bachelors and permanent bachelorettes, at least when it comes to sort of, um, having put a ring on it in, in this culture today.
- CWChris Williamson
What is driving this? We've talked about, you know, some cultural forces that are going on and some memes and some movements and stuff like that. But from my position, they usually seem to be in reaction, it's a cope. And not always. There are people who genuinely believe these things, but there's a lot of people retreating into their inner citadels of, "I have struggled to make this work, therefore, this is the philosophy that I find." And if what you say is correct, that you're gonna have more people who are potentially, uh, participants-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... of this new party, uh, than people who aren't, that's gonna allow it to proliferate more and get more and more popular.
- 4:29 – 7:40
Causes of Society’s Lack of Marriage
- CWChris Williamson
But w- w- what... Like, structurally, what's happening? What are the other big dynamics that are causing this increase in, uh, lack of marriage?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. Well, I think, you know, obviously there's an economic story here. Um, on the one hand, as a society, we've kind of, we're very affluent, so we don't depend upon marriage, you know, economically like we did in earlier centuries. That's, that's part of the story. At the same time, the economy has kind of moved in directions that have made a whole class of men less economically valuable, less needed in today's world. And so they're less attractive as, as husbands. Um, they're more likely to get divorced if they do end up married, um, down the road. So, I think the fact that men who are not kind of oriented towards the information economy are struggling more, um, is part of the economic story. Um, when it comes to policies, a lot of our policies end up kind of penalizing marriage unwittingly. Things like Medicaid, for instance. I've talked to... Just recently here in Charlottesville, I talked to a, you know, we were having a marriage event at a restaurant, and so one of the waitresses was kind of engaging me afterwards, and she was kind of saying, well, that she and her husband are together, but they're not legally married. They've got two kids. I'm like, "What's the story?" Well, you know, she gets her insurance through Medicaid, and were they to get married, they'd move above that threshold, um, and lose access to m- you know, Medicaid for her and for her two, uh, her two kids. So there's ways in which our public policies unintentionally, um, penalize marriage. Culturally, I think obviously we've seen a big shift towards individualism since the late 1960s that have, um, you know, made us think more about ourselves and less about others, and that plays into marriage and family in obvious ways. We've also seen a parallel shift away from religion, um, which is also a big factor, I think, in the decline of marriage since religion is a big predictor both of getting married and, and staying married and having children.Um, and then I think there's just been this kind of, um... What I- what I just described earlier is a kind of a minus mindset, where I think, um, in part, the rise of the internet, the rise of smartphones, um, urbanization as well. There's a lot of good work that's been done on this in- in- in- in Asia, um, from psychologists in Asia, kind of just basically have made people focus a lot more on, um, on status and on kind of their prospects sort of in the mating sector, but less on kind of, like, actually putting a ring on it and transitioning into, you know, having kids and having a family. So there's a kind of arrested... It's not adolescence so much as kind of an arrested sort of young adulthood, where people, you know, are just focusing on that sort of 20-something stage of life and not transitioning into- into marriage and parenthood. Um, and that's also, I think, um... And that's just kind of magnified, you know, accelerated by the way in which technology is allowing people to kind of, um, you know, live the life, the online life, you know, the Instagram life, um, and all the kind of, you know, I'd say kind of transient and short-term values that are magnified on- on platforms like Instagram and now TikTok too.
- 7:40 – 12:07
What Normal People Are Saying About Marriage
- BWBrad Wilcox
- CWChris Williamson
What are these self-reports saying? You know, this is your assessment looking at the data with your biases and all the rest of it.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Sure. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
What- what are people saying when they are asked by psychologists and sociologists, "Why are you not yet married? Why don't you want to get married if you don't want to get married?" Wh- wh- what's the word on the ground?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, there certainly are people who are saying, you know, that they're, um... They're- they're- they're not ready for marriage yet. They're not ready to kind of settle down. They're, y- y- you know, enjoying their 20-something years, having fun. They're trying to get their job, their career kind of launched successfully. They think there's some kind of obstacle, you know, between being married and being focused on, you know, on their work. Um, people in the lower income strata, like I mentioned, some of them will talk about the way in which public policy penalizes marriage. Um, a lot of folks say it's hard to meet someone who kind of meets their standards, both in terms of, you know, having their stuff together. A lot of women say the men in their lives, you know, aren't sufficiently, um, you know, grown up, don't have that- that s- that clear sense of mission and direction, that kind of capacity to kind of, you know, care for themselves and care for others. Um, (sighs) you know, there are men who would report too that the women in their lives are- are too materialistic. They're looking for, you know, um, just a- a breadwinner or provider, but not someone who's gonna really be a- a partner to them. Um, so there's just a whole range of different reasons that you hear from people when it comes to why they're either not able to marry or why marriage is not r- right now appealing to them or why marriage is not even on their- their longer term horizon.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. And what about divorce rates? What's the- what's the insight there?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, divorces come... So the statistic people sort of think is still, you know, true is that they think that one in two marriages today will end in divorce. But what we actually see in the research is it's probably closer to around 40%, a little bit north of 40% of marriages will end in divorce today. Divorce rates come down since 1980 by about 40%. It rose dramatically from the late '60s to 1980. It, you know, basically more than doubled i- in that era. So I think what's important for people to realize is that sort of, um, all the tumult that we saw with the divorce revolution of 1970s and early '80s has kind of settled down. ..........................
- CWChris Williamson
But that's in line with decreasing rates of marriage.
- BWBrad Wilcox
C- correct. T-
- CWChris Williamson
So we have a selection effect going on here.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Correct. So the kinds of people today who are getting married are more educated, they're more affluent, and they're relatively more religious. They're also, in a country like the US, maybe a country too like the UK, um, they're more likely to have, you know, be immigrants, you know, non-natives, right? So, um, in my book, I talk about how Asian-Americans are disproportionately married in the US, and we've seen a lot of immigrants coming from Asia, obviously, in recent decades, uh, for instance, and they're more likely to be married than native-born Americans. But just in general, immigrants are more likely to be married in the US than native-born Americans are as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah, that is interesting. So, recent years have seen a rise in unpartnered Americans as well, especially young men. 34% of young women between 18 to 29 are single. 63% of young men in that same age bracket are also single. So it's not just a no marriage culture, it's a no dating culture as well.
- BWBrad Wilcox
So we have seen dramatic declines in dating, although that statistic that you mentioned has been challenged by my colleague, Nick Wolfram. He thinks that there's a gap between, you know, young women and young men, um, there, but it's not quite that... Or young men are more likely to be single, but it's not quite that, uh, that dramatic. But still, it is the case that we're seeing kind of record shares of young adults who have not gotten married, higher among young men, obviously, than young women, um, because women tend to marry guys who are a bit older than they are. Um, and we have seen evidence from people like Jean Twenge that dating is- is down. Um, and so I talk about kind of, like, the closing of the American heart unfolding, where, again, we're seeing, you know, for 20-somethings, a record share of them predicted never to marry, more than- more than one in four. And then when it comes to fertility, um, we think that, um, that there'll be, you know, also kind of continued declines in, um, in fertility in the US as well.
- 12:07 – 18:48
Is Marriage a Bad Deal Financially?
- BWBrad Wilcox
- CWChris Williamson
One of the biggest memes, one of the most common memes that you hear about on the internet, especially for men, but also in some regards for women, given that they're socioeconomically more viable on their own now, is that marriage is a bad deal financially. What, uh, what does the data actually say?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, so it was striking that, you know, um, when I was finishing up this book, um, Bloomberg had a, you know, an article, it said, "Women who get single and don't have kids are getting richer." Um, and it kind of claimed that, you know, women who were kind of foregoing marriage and motherhood were, you know, better off than women who are married. Um, and that's, uh, that's not, not true. What we do see is that, um, women who are married are markedly more likely to be well-off, um, and they're also much less likely to be poor. So they're about 80% less likely to be poor, even controlling for things like, you know, race and age and education. And then they have about 10 times the assets heading into retirement, you know, in their 50s, um, compared to their, uh, their single female peers. Um, so, and the story for, for men is, is, is pretty similar. It comes to assets in one's 50s, um, and then men earn between sort of 10 and 25% more, um, as married men than their, um, their single peers. Um, now part of that's a selection effect, where the kinds of men who, you know, are getting married are more likely to have the kind of ethic that would, um, lead to s- financial success. We also see evidence though, too, from twin studies that men who are, um, who are, who are married are doing better financially than, than their twin who is not married. So it's pretty rigorous evidence that something about marriage per se is associated with men flourishing, uh, financially.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think is the mechanism?
- BWBrad Wilcox
So what, actually, a colleague of mine here at UVA, uh, found was that men who are married are less likely to get fired, for instance, um, even controlling for things like, you know, race and age and education. Um, she also found too that men who are married are less likely to quit a job without having first found a replacement job. Whereas single guys are just more likely to say, you know, "That's it. I've had it. I'm, I'm out of here." And then they're unemployed and struggling to find a job. So I think being married just makes guys more prudent about, um, their approach to, um, you know, uh, their approach to, to finding work.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you say to the guys that have serious concerns, uh, getting married is a huge risk because she's gonna leave me and take half of everything that I own, and I'm gonna be stuck paying, uh, either her life or child support or something for the rest of my life. Um, prenups are not even worth the paper that they're written on. You know, I see a lot of this on, in comment sections and on the internet. Wh- what's the truth and what's your take on it?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, I think the tough thing about this, right, is it's, there's a kind of mindset thing, which I'm sure you're familiar with kind of in many spheres. Like, and so if your mindset is kind of revolving around fear, if you're thinking about the D word, divorce, you know, heading into marriage, in your marriage, um, you know, you're more likely to end up getting divorced, right? So if you get a prenup, you know, my own book indicates that folks who have prenups have lower marital happiness and they're more likely to be, you know, thinking that divorce is, um, is on the horizon. So I- it's one of those things where like if you have more of an all-in mindset, you know, like, "I am fully in," and, and you obviously marry someone who shares that, that mindset where you're not talking about divorce, you're not thinking about divorce, you don't really see it as an option, you're much more likely to be not just avoiding divorce court, but flourishing in your marriage, 'cause you're gonna have a greater, you know, foundation of security and trust in your marriage. Um, but beyond that, it's, it's worth pointing out, as I do in the book, that there are ways in which it looks like people can kind of solidify their marriage and reduce their risk of divorce. So we see, for instance, is that people who all go on regular date nights, um, over one study had about 25% less, uh, risk of getting divorced. Um, people who are religious, especially who attend church together, are between 30 and 50% less likely to get divorced. Um, folks who don't commit infidelity are markedly less-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BWBrad Wilcox
... uh, likely to get divorced. But my, my point simply is that there are things you can kind of do, right? And if you're not religious, you know, the thing I would say is, is, um, you know, surround yourself with couples who are stably married. We know from the work of, um, Nicholas Christakis at Yale, for instance, that if your sister gets divorced, if your best friend gets divorced, in the face of kind of, you know, ordinary marital difficulties that, you know, most of us have, if we've been married for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, whatever, um, your odds of divorce, you know, skyrocket. But if your sister, you know, is stably married and has kind of navigated the inevitable challenges associated with married life, if your best friend has, you know, stably, um, remained stably married and navigated those challenges successfully, your odds of getting divorced, you know, go way down. Um, so there's a birds of a feather flock together thing here, right, Chris? And so you need to be really, I think, deliberate once you're married or as you're heading into marriage about picking friends who are, you know, with you and for you in your marriage and who are kind of, you know, um, living the kinds of lives that lend themselves to stable families. So if you surround yourself in, you know, or surround yourself in networks that are more family-friendly, that's also a protective factor as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Pick your couples date night partners carefully then, is the, is the advice.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, and you know, we've, we've had like, you know, Governor Mark Sanford, right? You know, that Republican governor in South Carolina. You know, he, he, he was hiking the Appalachian Trail was the story he gave to one journalist, right? Well, it turns out he was in, in South America, um, romancing a woman who wasn't his wife because he and his buddies would go every year on some kind of international-... trip that was just kinda crazy. Um, and so I think in Mark Sanford's case, part of the reason that he ended up divorced was he- he had- he wasn't good about picking friends who were, you know, um, gonna be kind of leading him down the- the best path, uh, marriage-wise.
- CWChris Williamson
So the obvious,
- 18:48 – 30:42
Does the Happiness of Marriage Outweigh the Sacrifices?
- CWChris Williamson
I guess, criticism or- or question here that gets opened up (clears throat) is, why should I, as a man or a woman, let go of these things that make me happy? I want to go to South America with my boys. I don't want to spend my time playing fucking backgammon, or Scrabble, or Charades with this bunch of other couples. I don't want to restrict my freedom and my opportunities to choose what I want to sleep with who, I want to go where I want, to work how I want, to leave a job when I want. All of these things sound like restrictions on my freedoms. W- What's in it for me? Why should I... Like, if- if I'm so happy doing all of these things, wh- why... Like, what about happiness? Like, what- what are the happiest people from a relationship status perspective?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, well, I think it's important just to kind of basically stress that, yeah, getting married does mean taking options off the table, both in terms of r- romantic partners, in terms of your free time. You know, it does mean you're sacrificing a lot in terms of your freedom. But the point that I would make is that we are social animals. That's Aristotle's term. We're hardwired to connect, right? And so it ends up being the case that- that friendships and family relationships are the things that are most important for our sense of meaning, purpose, happiness. Um, and there's just no question today that married men and women, especially married fathers and married mothers, are the happiest folks out there in the prime of life. I'm looking at folks 18 to 55, and, you know, finding that when it comes to reports of being kind of very happy, um, with your life, that, um, both women, um, and men who are married moms and dads are about twice as likely to be very happy with their lives compared to their single and childless peers. Um, so that's a pretty big difference. Um, and then when it comes to kind of a range of indicators, from money, to career success, to sexual frequency, um, to religious attendance, to self-rated health, these are all things that predict happiness, um, you know, for ordinary Americans, and pretty powerfully so. But none of those factors, Chris, kind of compares to a good marriage. Women and men who are happily married are about 545% more likely to say that they're very happy with their lives. Um, and as I've looked at this dataset called the GSS, the General Social Survey, it's kinda like the gold standard for, you know, social, um, attitudes and behaviors in the US, I can't find any variable in the GSS that predicts global life satisfaction, um, like a good marriage. And when I've kind of mentioned that statistic, the pushback that I get from, you know, more progressive academics is, "Well, yeah, it's a selection effect, Brad. The kinds of women and men who are happy are gonna be happily married." But my response to that is, "Well, you would expect then that you would see kind of a similar story playing out for, you know, like a career satisfaction indicator in the GSS." And while it's true that people who are, you know, happy with their jobs are also happy with their lives, again, there's no factor that predicts happiness in the GSS, um, you know, like a good marriage. We see other datasets too, you know, from Harvard, for instance, um, tracking men longitudinally, you know, um, that come to kinda similar conclusions as well. So, I think it's just kind of important to underline that, yes, marriage (laughs) requires sacrifices, uh, lots of them, um, but there are major returns on- on that investment for most folks. And the final piece that I would say about the happiness story is that I looked at generosity in marriage a number of years ago, (inhales deeply) and what I found was that having a spouse, a husband or wife, who was generous towards you boosted, you know, your happiness in the marriage in ways that'd be, I think, you know, expected. But being generous towards your wife, generous towards your husband, was an even better predictor of your happiness in the marriage. And again, if that's one of the best predictors of happiness overall, it just, I think suggests to us that kind of living for others, um, as long as you make a good choice, and that's (laughs) always a huge caveat, um, living for your spouse, living for your kids, uh, living for your kin, and living for your friends, to an important extent, these are the things, obviously, that gives our lives meaning, direction, purpose, and a sense of happiness. And living for ourselves, I think often ends up making us miserable.
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that people who are reticent about getting married or concerned about it have the same way as the financial concern is, "Well, I'm rolling the dice. You know, A, um, eh, at least if I'm single, my happiness lies exclusively in the power of my own hands, whereas if I get into a marriage, I am now, my happiness is contingent on this other person. And we try and do our best to screen whoever it is and work out how crazy or not crazy they might be, uh, but we... there is a nonzero chance that we get that wrong, and that now means that I have sacrificed, um, okay singleton-ness for unhappy married-ness." Uh, rolling that dice, that- that sort of roulette spin, uh, is... It causes trepidation for people.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, Chris, and I think it's a legitimate concern, um, and as- as we discussed before, about 40% of folks getting married today will get divorced. So it's- it's- it is a major, I think, concern. Um, but I think there is, um, you know, there are two other things that I would say to- to that kinda person. Number one is that-... nothing in life worth having, you know, I think, doesn't require a measure of risk, a- and a potential for real failure, in terms of whether it's professional success, whether it's, you know, being a great athlete, whatever it might be. All these things that, you know, I think tend to lend our lives a sense of meaning and direction and happiness often require risk. And that's true, I think, for love and marriage as well. Um, the other thing that I would say too is that, um, even when marriages fail, um, and I certainly have, you know, friends whose marriages have failed, both women and men, um, what I also see though is oftentimes they have kids. And, and in the immediate aftermath of divorce, that can be extraordinarily difficult, both for them and for their children. But as they kind of move into their, you know, 50s and 60s and 70s, you know, if, if they're, um, deliberate about kind of continuing to be a good father, a good mother, um, you know, these friends of mine who have gotten divorced derive a tremendous sense of, um, meaning and satisfaction from their relationship, um, relationships too with their, with their kids and, and then their grandkids. So that's also, I think, can be a kind of a consolation for folks who have gotten divorced. And I should, one more thing I would add too is that, again, I think there are, you know, I talk about in the book four groups of folks who have much, um, greater odds of, of being kind of both happily married and, and for the most part stably married, and those groups are Asian Americans, they are religious Americans, they're college-educated Americans, and they're conservative Americans. And so there are things that, again, you can kind of do, um, both as a spouse and in terms of just being, you know, cognizant of kind of the communities where you're, you know, where you're
- CWChris Williamson
Marry an Asian? Is that your advice?
- BWBrad Wilcox
(laughs) No, I'm just saying... Um, no, the point I would make about kind of the, the Asian finding is that, right, there are certain kinds of values and certain kinds of communities, right? And so, you know, um, what Asians have is, among other things, like a keen recognition oftentimes of how much marriage matters for their kids. And so that sort of conditions how they deal with marital difficulties and challenges, right? Um, they tend to be surrounded by kin who are stably married. Um, they often are kind of taking advice, um, from kin about who to marry, especially obviously from Indian, um, contexts, right? So, um, you can... If you're not Asian, you can kind of take some lessons there too for your, you know, um, uh, for your, uh, your own marital path.
- CWChris Williamson
How... You know, all of that data that you've just come up with there to do with happiness and marital status, how robust is it? Are we gonna find out that this is replication crisis in, in 10 years time? Like, 'cause that's obviously, "Oh, well, that data doesn't seem to be sufficiently this or that or the other." How, how much are you able to bet that that's accurate and correct?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, I think when it comes to things like marital stability, there's just no qu- I mean, I've looked at a lot of datasets when it comes to, like, looking at the role of ethnicity. Um, and Asian-
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, sorry, the relationship between married, um, whether or not you are married or single and your happiness in life and your life outcome satisfaction.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Um, yeah, that's, uh, again, lots of datasets, you know, the GSS, um, the American Family Survey, you know, MIDUS, there are lots of datasets that show that there's a strong association. Now, the question is whether or not it's causal. Um, I think that's the, where the debate comes. There's just no question that folks who are married, um, are more likely to say that they're satisfied with their lives, they report more meaningful lives, and less loneliness. And just, you know, in England, the US, Europe, it's, you know, it's definitely a common story.
- CWChris Williamson
How does this relationship between marital status and life satisfaction, happiness, loneliness, how does that change across time and with age?
- BWBrad Wilcox
So I think the best story that I saw or the best study on this that I saw was actually from Britain, where you are from. And it just, what it suggested was a kind of like the, the biggest... There's, it was, there's obviously there's a honeymoon kind of premium where people when they're first married, they enjoy kind of, um, especially kind of large premiums when it comes to happiness. Um, but this particular study from the UK, which is kind of tracking women and men over time, found there's kind of like a midlife, um, piece where the, the premium was biggest for folks kind of in, in midlife, I think in their 40s and 50s. Um, that's, I think, in part too because often there, there are challenges associated with raising kids, um, with, you know, changes in your, obviously your health, you know, your, your people are becoming aware of their mortality, career changes, all that kind of stuff is all kind of coming out, you know, in your 50s oftentimes. And so to have like, you know, the benefit of a co-pilot, I think, can be really valuable for folks.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, there's this strange smile-shaped graph to happiness and life satisfaction. So for the people that are just listening, if you imagine it's not a particularly smooth smile, it's more like a joker, a joker smile. Um, but if you had the beginning of life on the le- I think it's probably like 13 or, or 16 or something on the left, and then you've got 80 on the right, and it does seem to really dip down, you know, 40s, basically most of your 40s seems to be pretty rough, and then it kind of picks, picks back up, uh, through your 50s. Um, I think I'm right in saying there's at least some data that suggests the single biggest risk of suicide, suicidality are men aged 40 to 45. It's this very particular demographic of men. Uh, so it's specifically, again, for men, I'm going to guess that being married is, uh, prophylactic against this, uh, period of lower mood.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, no, one of the biggest factors predicting, uh, both suicide and more broadly deaths of despair for men is marriage. Um, so married guys are much less likely to end up, you know, dying from, um, drinking or drugs or, or suicide more directly, right? So-
- CWChris Williamson
What about divorced guys, though?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, they, no, they have a higher risk of all those bad things as well. Definitely.
- 30:42 – 38:48
The Mimetic Nature of Marriage
- CWChris Williamson
So again, we're talking about this, it seems like a, a bit of a theme. It's, it's this risk-reward ratio I think that a lot of people are, are looking at. You sort of hinted at something earlier on with the stat around if your sister or your best friend gets divorced, then the likelihood of you getting divorced goes up too. There is definitely, uh, this sort of memetic, um-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yes. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... thing that's going on. I think motherhood, a lot of motherhood can be laid at the feet of this. If you're not around mothers, you don't see the joy that motherhood brings to mothers. Therefore, what do you see? Well, you see what everyone else sees, which is Instagram, which is a trip to Bali and a brunch with the girls and wearing cute heels and not getting stretch marks and all the rest of the things. So you, you kind of absorb the aggregate culture as opposed to the micro-culture, because the aggregate culture doesn't optimize for, like, things that aren't flashy and easily displayed on the internet. Uh, and I think that there is, that, uh, you must have thought of this too, this sort of memetic nature of the R naught number of marriage being either above or below one, based on how many people are getting married at the moment.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. No, I think definitely this goes back to kind of the power of the smartphone, social media, and the internet. And I think, um, one reason we have, you know, seen, um, you know, uh, marriage come down and fertility come down in recent years is that people don't kind of fully appreciate how much, um, you know, putting a ring on it can, can matter in, in, in positive ways. So, there was a study done recently, um, that was sort of was, was suggesting that today a lot of folks think that, yeah, actually men benefit from marriage, but women do not. Um, and yet when you look at the happiness, you know, story in the general social survey, um, what you see basically is that, as I, as I mentioned before, married moms are twice as likely to be, um, you know, very happy as, uh, single and childless women. Um, what you see in, you know, basically different datasets is that 60% of married moms say that their lives are meaningful most or all the time, compared to only 36% of single and childless women. Um, they're also much more likely to say that they're lonely, right? So, when it comes to things like meaning, loneliness, and happiness, what you're seeing on Instagram or TikTok doesn't correspond to what we see in, um, representative population surveys of, uh, men and, and women.
- CWChris Williamson
But it, it is difficult to convey that in a 280 character tweet or in a cool TikTok video. And it, there's this interesting trade-off between happiness, pleasure, and meaning and satisfaction in some ways, that it's very difficult-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to portray meaning and life satisfaction through a cool Instagram post. But it's pretty easy to show pleasure and happiness through that, or at least present-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... pleasure and happiness through that. So yeah, it's, uh, in that regard I think anything, and this is anything that's difficult, um, anything which is a little bit more subtle, you know, if, if someone can get the gains of appearing to have the thing without having to do the hard work at getting the thing, they're going to optimize for that. It's, it's very ...
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right, and that, that's the problem with being online too much, right, Chris? Obviously, you know, there's, um, some work done by a famous psychologist at Toronto, um, and I'm forgetting his name right now. But it's sort of just basically talking about how, um, folks who are kind of experiencing both a lot of suffering, which wouldn't surprise us, but also like virtually no suffering, are the worst off. And folks who kind of experience um, kind of that middle range of suffering are actually the best off. They're like the most emotionally resilient, kind of the best in the spirit. So, we actually were built, to some extent, right, to experience some degree of, of pain, some degree of, of, uh, you know, of suffering, some drama in our lives. And if all you're doing is kind of, you know, um, eating well, drinking well, you know, and spending all your day on, on, on this device, you know, doesn't actually end up well for you longer term, is, is, is the, is the point.
- CWChris Williamson
How does being married change or impact mental and physical health?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, um, yeah, in, in terms of things like depression and anxiety tend to go down. Happiness goes up. As I said before, loneliness goes down. Um, when it comes to physical health, there the story is a little bit more complicated. Um, on one indicator in particular, uh, women and men who are married do worse, and that is their weight. Right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BWBrad Wilcox
When, when you're married, you're off the market. And, um, you're-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BWBrad Wilcox
... you know, you're, you tend to be eating at, maybe eating at home more and whatever, maybe snacking more, et cetera. So you're not, you're not kind of like making that same effort to, you know, to keep the pounds off. And so we do see that more. But generally speaking, folks who are married, um, are, are doing better health-wise. Um, for instance, studies have looking at ... indicate that people, um, are more likely to recover, um, and, and do okay in the wake of, you know, some kind of cancer diagnosis. If you have parents, older parents, um, been to the hospital, you know, um, you see that oftentimes that spouse is really kind of working the, the nurses and doctors in ways that tend to redound to the benefit of, you know, her, her husband or, uh, his wife. Um, so there's just no question that folks who are married, um, do better on the vast majority of health outcomes, and live longer, especially true for guys. They think it's eight-
- CWChris Williamson
What, you know, what's the-
- BWBrad Wilcox
you know, eight ...
- CWChris Williamson
... tell me, tell me the stats then.
- BWBrad Wilcox
E- eight, nine years is what I've, what I've read in, um, in work done by Linda Wade, um, and Maggie Gallagher. Um, you know, that men who are stably married live eight to nine years longer than their peers who don't get married or who get divorced. Um, so, um, and women who-... who are married live longer too, but they don't enjoy the same kind of, of premium as married men do. Um, that's in part we think too because, you know, men who are, are single are just much more likely to, um, you know, do crazy things like ride motorcycles, get in fights in, in bars on a Friday or Saturday night, you know, what have you. So, um, men are just more prone to engaging the kinds of risky behaviors that put them at risk of an earlier death. But married men tend to steer clear of a lot of those behaviors.
- CWChris Williamson
And there must be a mediating effect of loneliness here as well. Uh, I had Robin Dunbar-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... on the show a while ago, and (clears throat) he was talking about this inner circle. He says that you can keep around about five friends in the inner circle, but a relationship takes up two of those five slots. So if you have a partner, a significant other, you've maybe only got space for three other people. But the most common answer at the moment when people are asked, "How many close friends do you have to call on an emergency?" is zero. That's not the average, but it's the most common, it's more common than any other number, is zero. Think the number of men who say that they have no close friends tripled... No, uh, 5X'd from 3% to 15% from 1990 to 2020. So, you know, a- a- in the wake of this atomized, individualized, bleep, bleep, Cyberpunk 2077 hellscape, having one person that's always going to be in your boat with you rowing seems like a, a pretty good fallback.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, that's right. I mean, there's, you know, there's certainly been sociologists and psychologists who, who wanna sort of talk up the, the virtues of living single. And obviously, not everyone who's single is doing badly. Plenty of folks are doing great, and there are plenty of folks who are married who are miserable. But on average, I think that's because we're hardwired to connect, people who are married are more likely to be, uh, (clears throat) to be flourishing. And, uh, that's, you know, that's sort of the average story.
- CWChris Williamson
What role does wanting
- 38:48 – 43:23
The Role of Desiring Children in Marriage
- CWChris Williamson
kids have in encouraging people to get married? Have you been able to parse out someone early on knows that they want kids, therefore they get married in order to be able to have kids? Is, is that, like, a predictor?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, I think we do see today in a more secular world, um, people are less motivated to kind of get married, you know, just for religious reasons or to kind of, you know, legitimate their relationship, you know, in terms of living together, whatnot. So, I think once they begin to think about having kids, um, they're more likely to think about doing that in the context of marriage, um, wanting to kinda give their kids the gift of, of married parents. And we see even, you know, um, in Northern Europe where marriage is sort of much more optional, that after... yo- either after the first child or, you know, before the first kid, you know, as folks kind of, um, think about parenthood or they wanna kinda give their kids that, you know, that experience of married parents, um, you know, they'll get married. So, I think there's still a way in which people who are kind of more child-centered, um, think about marriage as, as the ideal place to bear and rear kids. And of course, they're right. There's just no question that kids, uh, are more likely to be benefiting, uh, when their parents are married than kids who are in other, um, you know, other situations.
- CWChris Williamson
What impact do kids have on marriage, marriage success, and then on happiness as well?
- BWBrad Wilcox
So, um, there's no question that, um, kind of having a baby is a hugely stressful thing for couples. Um, and so you do see marital quality dip, especially off, you know, after the first child comes along. Um, but I think what often happens is that kind of couples reach a kind of equilibrium, you know, some six months, a year, whatever it might be, after the, you know, the baby comes and they begin to adjust to this new, um, this new creature and this new reality. Now, I think this, this adjustment can be harder for people who've spent a very long time living without children, um, because kids do take a lot of time and energy and effort. And, you know, they can be obviously extremely difficult and frustrating in different ways. So I think, um, the transition to parenthood is certainly a challenge. Um, but what's interesting though, Chris, is that there was a lot of research before kind of 2000 that indicated that parents were less happy than their childless peers. And since 2000, we've seen that relationship switch so that parents today are happier than childless adults. Um, and of course, no group of parents are happier than married parents. So again, when you kinda look, when you look at the general social survey, what you find is that the happiest group of women and men, um, particularly kind of in midlife, in sort of 30s, 40s, 50s, are married parents. And I think what's happening here in part might be that childless adults, um, have fewer of those sort of resources, um, social resources, or connections, you know, school connections, sports connections, for folks who are religious, religious connections that tend to flow from being a parent. So, I have a lot of kids and my days are, are often very busy, and, you know, I can be stressed out, but I'm, I'm never lonely, you know. I, I'm going to a s- you know, basketball practice, I'm dropping off kids at school in the morning, you know, going to church with, with the family on Sunday morning, you know, so there's all this social stuff happening. I'm saying as a sociologist, it's- that's worth kind of noting. And my peers who are single and childless, you know, they don't have those child-related activities. Um, and then when it comes to just kinda, like, free time too, like, you just, you can't spend, you know, too much time on a device if you're a halfway decent husband, wife, father, mother, right? So I think that's also-
- CWChris Williamson
So you're saying that, that ge- getting married or having kids is a anti-phone use technology.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Totally.... totally saying that. I, I think, so I think, you know, the rise of smartphones, um, and screens in the last, you know, decade or so, I think maybe, and I haven't... I, I need to, I haven't seen any really good evidence on this, but my hypothesis is that, you know, married parents may be less likely to, um, get sort of, uh, sucked down that electronic rabbit hole than folks who are single and childless.
- 43:23 – 46:31
Being Raised by Married Parents
- CWChris Williamson
What about the reverse relationship? What are the differences in outcomes for kids from married versus non-married homes? You know, there's a lot of people that would say, "Well, I don't need to get married in order to be able to raise a child. It's useless. It's just a piece of paper in any case. Look at how many people get divorced. What's even the point?"
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. I, there's been, I think, really since the 1970s, Chris, with the dramatic rise in divorce and non-marital childbearing, a lot of folks have been kinda making the argument that what matters for kids is not, you know, their parents' marriage, um, but, you know, just, you know, getting love and, and maybe money as well. So kinda what matters for kids is not a... is not marriage, but it's, it's money and, you know, and a loving family. And that can take many different forms. Now, I was raised by a single mom, and I think I turned out okay, and my sister turned out okay. You know, many kids turn out okay, you know, from different family forms. But I'm also a sociologist, and on average, what I can tell you is that kids are more likely to flourish, you know, educationally, socially, and emotionally when they have the benefit of married parents. I think, you know, in my book, probably the most striking statistic that I came up with, just in kind, kinda running the numbers with my colleague Wendy Wong, is that we find in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that young men today in America are more likely to spend some time in prison or in jail before they turn 30, um, than they are to graduate from college if they're from any kind of non-intact family. And by contrast, you know, guys from intact families are, you know, about four times more likely to graduate from college than they are to land in prison or in jail. So, that's kind of the, probably the most dramatic, um, statistic. But it kinda just gives you a sense of, like, how much, um, a stably married family matters socially and emotionally, and especially for, uh, for our kids.
- CWChris Williamson
I've been a fan of your Twitter for quite a while, and some of the stuff that I've seen over the last couple of years, I think, from you... "Young Black women from intact two-parent families are more likely to graduate from college, 36%, versus young White women from one-parent families, 28%."
- BWBrad Wilcox
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
"Young Black men from intact two-parent families are less likely to be incarcerated, 14%, than young White men from one-parent families. Boys who grew up apart from their biological father are about two times more likely to land in prison or jail by age 30. Fatherlessness is a better predictor of incarceration than race or growing up poor. And 95% of upper-income mums are married, 76% of middle-income mums are married, and 35% of lower-income mums are married." So fascinating.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, these are the statistics. And it's important, I think, to, um, just remind folks that, you know, oftentimes, um, the biggest privilege that kids have is not how much money their parents make, but whether or not their, their parents are married and in a decent relationship. Uh, it's important to kind of add that caveat. Important to acknowledge that kind of a, a decent marriage or a great marriage is, is the best context for o- our kids.
- 46:31 – 55:19
How Political Affiliations Impact Marriage
- CWChris Williamson
What role does political affiliation have here? We're seeing an increasing amount of data talking about, uh, young Gen Z, Gen A boys, uh, skewing (laughs) , skewing aggressively right, and that the girls are kind of going left. But when we get into the older age brackets, what, what, what's the political affiliation role?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, Chris, you know, when it comes to marriage, a lot of folks in the media and the academy understand and appreciate that, you know, education and money matter. The folks who are college-educated, folks who are in that upper middle class bracket are more likely today to get married and stay married. What they don't realize though is it's not just class, it's also culture. So, a majority of, of college-educated Americans in the US in that 18 to 55 bracket are married, but also a majority of folks who are religious, um, and a majority of folks who are conservative. Whereas the majority of folks who are not religious are not married, and the majority of folks who are either self-identified as moderates or liberal are not married as well. So, what I'm saying to you, Chris, is that it's both class and culture today that predict who is getting married and who is staying married. Um, now on the sort of politics point more concretely, what we see is that for single adults, about one in five young adults under the age of 30, um, are not gonna be able to find someone, at least right now, who kinda shares their ideological commitments. Um, and so, what that means more concretely too is that, you know, um, liberal women are gonna have, um, difficulty oftentimes finding enough liberal men. And conservative men who are single are gonna find, you know, or have difficulty finding enough, um, conservative women, um, who are kind of sharing their ide-
- CWChris Williamson
And there's, there's an increase in, uh, an unpreparedness of people to date across the aisle as well. I saw you tweet about that.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. And so I think the hard thing about this too, right, is that I think, um, particularly when it comes to sort of how you think about work and family and how you wanna organize the division of labor in your own household, you know, how much you think it's important for moms to care for young children, for instance, or for, you know, for men to, to be good breadwinners, um, couples who are not on the same page on those issues really struggle. So, what I would say to couples who are dating is, um, it's fine to date someone who doesn't share your politics, but, you know, it's really important to kinda come to, um, roughly common ground when it comes to thinking about how you wanna raise your kids and divide up work and family, 'cause those things are, are very real issues for couples today, um, once they have children.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, so you could have somebody who doesn't share your particular political ideology, but does agree with you about how family life should be set up inside of the house, and that might just make for spicy Thanksgiving Day dinners, but outside of that, the structure of how all of this stuff is put together is interesting. I had a- a-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... conversation with a friend who I'm not gonna name, but this was their controversial thesis which they have no intention of sharing publicly, that the current dating and mating crisis is good in overall cultural evolutionary terms. Many are called to propagate their genes beyond the demographic pinch point. Few are chosen. Whoever manages to propagate their family in the face of a structurally anti-natalist, anti-culture, will manage to do sh- do so by virtue of having developed strong enough immune response to toxic messages. A celibate clergy is good because it screens out a propensity for fanaticism out of the gene pool. And that's from Carl Sagan.
- BWBrad Wilcox
(laughs) Y- yeah, I mean, the only thing that I will say there, I think, is that, you know, I- I- I'm conservative as you know, but I think, um... And I- I would certainly acknowledge that, you know, in the last, uh, seven years, there are plenty of- of- of things that conservatives, um, you know, uh, can and should, um, be concerned about in their own tribe, right? I think what progressives don't appreciate though is that they have their own, um, challenges in their own tribe, right? And I think what... For- for progressives, their, some of their biggest challenges surround marriage and family. And so we do see, you know, in my book and elsewhere, some evidence when it comes to, um, getting married and having children that kind of not only is there a gap between conservatives and liberals, um, in their likelihood of getting married and having kids, um, but that that gap is growing, because I think progressives for a wide number of different reasons are, um, less oriented towards marriage and less oriented towards parenthood, um, and they have fewer of the, kind of the norms, you know, that would sort of steer them into marriage in the first place, and then allow them to sort of, um, you know, more easily navigate marriage in the second place. So one concrete example of what I'm talking about is we've seen, for instance, um, in recent years, growing kind of interest in polyamory or support for polyamory, and less kind of support for like the classic marriage norm that, um, you should be faithful in marriage. And yet we see in the- in the- you know, in the data, in the general social survey, that couples who, or husbands and wives who believe that, you know, um, that sex outside of marriage is always wrong are more likely to be happily married. Um, and I certainly see, you know, there are also more... In other datasets they're more stably married. So, I think the challenge for- for progressives is that some of the newer ideas, some of the newer norms that have kind of filtered into their- into their tribe, into their camp in recent decades are ones that are kind of profoundly, um, either the l- well are- are- are l- profoundly anti-nuptial and anti-natal. Um, and so that's a challenge that I don't think progressives have fully kind of wrapped their heads around, and that is the way in which a lot of their newer commitments are making it more difficult for them to f- you know, to find a spouse, to prioritize getting married, um, and then to have a family.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and also, uh, there's a- a good chunk of data that suggests people who are left of center are more unhappy. Presumably, this could be done whilst controlling for marital status as well. So you have someone whose worldview or psychology or lifestyle predisposes them to being less happy than their centrist and right of center counterparts. It also discourages them from getting precisely the kind of union that seems to be very robust in improving their level of happiness, and then for the people who are doing it, you know, for the- the movement because, "I want to be sort of a good liberal," whatever- whatever that means, because political orientation is moderately genetically heritable like all of our traits are, if you are someone who genuinely cares about propagating liberal ideology long term, but you are anti-natalist in your philosophy, you are creating a dying future for the philosophy that you say that you care about which is this sort of... I- it's still as far as I can see that... Because also people left of center reject behavioral genetics largely or a lot of the time. Um, that is a hammer blow that I think hasn't hit yet properly, and I think that if people on the left fully understood and realized that, they would have a different approach.
- BWBrad Wilcox
So, um, a couple of things I would say in response to that. One is that, um, I have looked at the sort of gap in happiness between conservatives and liberals and- and do find that, you know, a large minority of that gap can be attributed to differences in the likelihood of being married and the likelihood of being happily married. So that's- that's certainly a real thing that there is a kind of... Conservatives are happier in general and part of the reason that they're happier in general is they're more likely to be married in the first place and then happily married in the second place than their- their progressive peers. Um, and in terms of kind of like the long term implications of all this, I think the- obviously the one fly in the ointment for conservatives is- is that many of their kids end up, you know, kind of leaving the- the- you know, um, the tribe once they hit, you know, young adulthood. And so there are plenty of obviously progressives out there who were raised in conservative or religious homes who are now, you know, um, no longer conservative and/or no longer religious. So that's where we do get obviously kind of new waves of progressives and new waves of more secular folks kind of emerging. Um, but again, what's striking about some of the newer data on marriage and fertility is that the gap seems to be growing between conservatives and liberals in ways that might have long term implications for the ideological makeup of, um, a place like the United States.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So one of the things
- 55:19 – 1:01:44
Are Soulmates a Real Thing?
- CWChris Williamson
that we haven't necessarily spoken about here are the dynamics when it comes to choosing a mate. What's the soulmate myth?
- BWBrad Wilcox
So the soulmate myth is this idea that what really matters when it comes to love and marriage is finding someone who kind of fits you perfectly, and who is gonna kinda make you happy and fulfilled almost all of the time. Kind of it's a sy- it's a very romanticized view of love and marriage. It's one that you kind of get in, you know, sometimes Taylor Swift songs. It's one that you can get in plenty of movies. It's one that you get in books like Eat Pray Love, right? And so, um, the problem, of course, with this, with this idea, with what I call the soulmate myth is that we know just physiologically, the butterflies, Chris, fly away within a few months or within a year or two of, you know, of either dating or, or marrying someone. Um, there's just kind of like, there's physiologically a high when you first meet someone, when you first connect with someone. Um, and a lot of those hormones just kind of like, you know, go away after a period of time. And so that, that sort of that magic that you first experience in a romantic relationship begins to dissipate. Um, and so the challenge is how do you kinda move beyond that and recognize that there are other things that connects you to that person? So I think having a, you know, um, a more realistic view of marriage that, yes, you kind of try to cultivate the romance in your, um, in your relationship, and that's why regular date nights are really valuable, for instance, but you also recognize that marriage is about more than just those feelings. Um, it's about things like money, things like companionship, things like kids. Um, but beyond that, I would say it's, it's a kind of a, a recognition that love is about not feelings, but seeking the good of the other. And so couples who kind of have that, I think, richer view of marriage, um, one that's not as romanticized, are more likely not just to kinda go the distance to avoid divorce court, um, but they're also more likely to enjoy a higher quality marriage 'cause they just have a richer view of what marriage is all about. And they're not as sort of, um, you know, uh, likely to be, um, susceptible to the ebbs and flows of, of those romantic feelings, um, you know, in a relationship.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you see Mia Khalifa-trended, I think it was about two or three months ago on TikTok for saying, um, "Marriage is nothing special. It's a piece of paper, and if the person that you are with isn't helping you grow, then it is time for you to move on."
- BWBrad Wilcox
I didn't see that particular comment, but a- again, I think this is the hard thing for people who are kind of, who have that mentality to wrap their heads around. If that's your view, then your odds of failing at marriage are extremely high, but if your view is instead that you love this person and that you're committed to this person and that you will the good of this person, um, you know, come hell or high water, um, your odds of, of making it are extremely high.
- CWChris Williamson
But the-
- BWBrad Wilcox
A- a- and your o- but, and your odds of actually being happy with, in the, in the marriage and in life more generally m- are gonna be high too most of the time.
- CWChris Williamson
The problem is that we are not able... It is very difficult to make ourselves believe something. We can make ourselves do things all the time. You know?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You can stay in a marriage. There are millions-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... and billions of people probably-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... that have stayed in unhappy marriages, but believing that marriage is not supposed to be what a recent guest taught me is the confluence era. For as long as you can benefit me and I can benefit you, this relationship works, and at the moment that that stops happening, the confluence is gone and therefore we don't need to stick about. So it's all well and good saying, "Look, the thing that is best for you is to believe that marriage is supposed to be more than just about this confluence or about the butterflies or whatever," but we are inextricably linked to the culture and the cultural moment and the memes and the trends that we find ourselves in and extricating ourselves from that is difficult.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Completely agree with you. I think the challenge here, Chris, and this is why my book is subtitled Defy the Elites, that's part of the, the subtitle, right? And, you know, I've gotten pushback on that from folks saying, "Well, the elites are actually the ones who are, you know, more likely to, to get married in the first place and to be stably married in the second place," and, and my own data indicates to be reasonably happy, right? And that's I think in part because they talk left and walk right oftentimes, right? They talk left, walk right. So what I mean by that-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a luxury belief. It's a, um...
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. The, they, you know, so there's, you know, they don't live the kind of individualistic lives that they kind of propagate in, you know, on Twitter or if they're heading up a school board or, you know, um, in some kind of mainstream media publication. They actually, they're more likely to sort of honor some of these older traditions that tend to reinforce strong and stable marriages in their private lives. Um, so, you know, so for instance, I, you know, I mentioned like the, the importance of fidelity. Um, that would be one example. Or we could talk about, you know, for instance, joint checking accounts. These things are, are linked to happier marriages, more stable marriages. They even have experimental evidence, this really fascinating study at Indiana University found that couples who are randomly assigned to joint accounts and then other couples who are randomly assigned to separate accounts, um, you know, the, the folks who were assigned to joint accounts did much better in the first years of marriage than those who were assigned to the, you know, the individualistic kind of more, you know, often I think elite kind of strategy, um, that we're hearing today. Whereas, you know, kind of a lot of the traditions that we have, uh, about, you know, marriage and family kind of grew up for reasons that there was a kinda social utility to them, um, a wisdom to them that emerged. So yeah, I think the challenge is that culturally you have to defy many of the elite messages that are more individualistic, um, more me first kinda thinking, um, you know, both......in, in media and then online and social media today. And if you can kind of steer clear of a lot of that me-first thinking and a lot of those me-first, um, norms, you know, in your marriage, you're more likely to flourish in your marriage and to have a happily married husband or, or wife, you know, um, on the journey.
- 1:01:44 – 1:04:02
The Importance of Male Income in Marriage
- BWBrad Wilcox
- CWChris Williamson
How important is male income and provider-ship when it comes to being an eligible mate? Obviously, this is one of the, the meta memes of the internet and, you know, I tried to sort of meme it into existence with an idea of the tall girl problem, that socioeconomic success amongst young women means that there is an ever-decreasing pool of eligible mates for them in the male side. But how, just how important is it? Like, what is it... What, what makes women happy? What do they want?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, there's just no question that, um, that men's sort of status as breadwinners is very important in both kind of predicting entry into marriage, uh, marital stability, and marital quality. Although it's, it has changed in recent years kind of in this, i- in this way. So, what I'm kinda seeing in the more recent data is it's not necessarily sort of who earns how much money in the marriage so much as it, it's he is stably employed full-time. Okay? That's what seems to predict, um, for instance, marital quality and marital stability in important ways. Um, and what I found was that kind of the precise division of who earns what was not as important in predicting her, uh, marital happiness as it has been in some previous research on this topic. Then when it comes to divorce, what we see is that when she loses her job, there is no effect on the stability of their marriage. Um, this is work done by Sacha Kilwell at Harvard in sociology there. But when he loses his job, his risk of divorce increases, um, I mean, their divorce increases risk by about one-third. So, there's something about kind of that stability, um, that sense of identity, I think, for men that comes from full-time employment, uh, the respect that often, I think, accrues to 'em from their wife. Um, and when he doesn't have that full-time job, um, it's just much more likely to be a problem, both in kinda getting a relationship started and sustained. Um, so I think people don't appreciate that there still is a very gendered story when it comes to work and marriage, and that story is that women are looking for and respect men who have, um, you know, a decent job, and men who are not employed, um, you know, full-time are, I think, you know, just having much greater difficulty even today in still, you know, navigating marriage successfully.
- 1:04:02 – 1:09:59
Brad’s Advice to His Sons
- BWBrad Wilcox
- CWChris Williamson
Do you have... You've said you m- have quite a few kids. Are some of them sons? Are they all girls?
- BWBrad Wilcox
I have sons and daughters, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool. Um, so I don't know how old they are, but at, at some point, your sons are gonna begin dating. They're gonna enter the dating market. Given the current world of men's advice and the current state of the dating environment-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
...what are you going to tell your sons, or what would you tell a struggling young guy who reads too much of the internet about how to be as eligible of a mate to the opposite sex as they can be?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, Chris, it's interesting. You know, one of the things that I would say both to my, to my sons, but just to young men, and I do say to young men more generally, um, is that, you know, there are a lot of complaints that we're getting. You know, there was a, a critique of my kind of thesis in New York Times recently from, you know, a journalist, and she was saying, "There just aren't any good men out there." And so, you know, my response to that kind of idea is I think there are some legitimate concerns, but we have to understand the why (laughs) . Why aren't you finding enough good men out there? I think it's en part because we're not kinda giving young men enough kinda concrete advice about what is appealing and attractive to women. Um, and so one of the things that I find also in my chapter on gender is that women are happier when, you know, um, they're rating the men in their lives to be physically stronger, right? So, um, so what I would say to young men who are interested kind of in, in dating and getting married is that, you know, get in shape physically. Um, I'm, you know, I'm not a, I'm not... As you might've guessed, I'm not a big athlete, but, uh, I swim regularly. Um, and I... So if you're not, like, an athlete, you know, you can find things, you know, to do. Run, swim, bike, w- go to the gym, whatever. But get in decent physical shape. I think that's one thing that I would say, um, to them, because women do value, um, you know, physical strength, and they value guys who are f- who are, um, can take care of themselves physically. That's, that's one thing that I would say. Um, I would say also kind of have a sense of mission in life. You know, "I'm, wanna do this job-wise." It doesn't matter what it is, really, I, I don't think, but just to have like a clear sense of like, "I'm, I'm learning this thing to do this job." And that might change over time, and that's fine. But to have a sense of like professionally, like, you, you wanna do something, and you have like a plan and a purpose, basically. That extends, of course, too, to things that are of a more civic character. I think women also kind of have a tremendous respect for guys who are, you know, volunteering, um, in, in their communities as well. Um, and they wanna... Same thing applies to religion. You know, i- if, if, you know, um, if you're in that religious, uh, subset. So I think a sense of mission matters as well. Um, and then I would also say, um, to young men that when it comes to, uh, dating, to really take the initiative initially. Um, I ask my women in my large family classes at UVA, kind of, "What's your preference, you know, when it comes to that first date? Um, is it that you take the initiative to ask someone out on a date or that he, he takes the initiative?" And about 80% of the women in my classes, I've got large classes at UVA, would say it's their preference that he takes the initiative. It's a sign of his interest in them, and it's also a sign of, like, his willingness to, um, to engage in risk in healthy ways as well. So, um, so I would, you know, talk to young men about kinda the importance of taking initiative, the importance of having a sense of mission, um, especially when it comes to sort of, you know, something related to, you know, school or work, depending upon their stage of life, um, and the importance of kind of being in decent physical shape. 'Cause these are all things that women appreciate, and I think we're not telling men enough and adolescent males as well that, you know, "You've gotta get off the Xbox."...you've gotta get off your phone. Um, you've gotta get out there and, and hit the gym or do something, get more serious about your studies or your skills, you know, your training, um, tech, whatever it might be. Um, you know, get a job and, and make a mark. And if you do those kinds of things and develop competencies, obviously, in certain kinds of areas, then you will garner the respect and the interest of, um, women in your milieu.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I mean, it's the competence that women, I think, largely are looking for. You know, if you were to just ask someone, "Would you rather have a competent or an incompetent partner?" Not clarifying in what domain, uh, by how much. Like, who wants to be with a useless partner that doesn't have any agency, that doesn't have any intentionality, that, that isn't able to enact change that they want in any a- area of their life, or even in specific areas of their life? Like, if you're unable to get in shape, it identifies that-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
...in some regard, you aren't competent at being able to control your own body and your own physicality. If you aren't able to hold down a job, it shows that you aren't competent at being able to show up on time or be reliable or be disciplined or be whatever the thing is. And it... Jordan Peterson was on the show a couple of months ago, and he said women use wealth as a proxy for competence. It's not the wealth that they're after. It's just the most reliable, rough-hewn rubric signal that they can find to say, "Here is a rank order starting with fucking Elon Musk," or whoever's at the top now, some Arab sheik, and, and, and going all the way down. Uh, here is a rank ordered list of 3.5 billion men, and, and you can work out a, a, a kind of a competent... It's the best video game ever made. It's the best video game ever made.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. I think a keyword you mentioned there is, uh, Chris, agency. And I think there's so much passivity among young men today and among teenage boys today. Um, way too much screen time, way too much video games. And, and at a certain point, um, you know, women notice that and it, it's a, it's a big turnoff, especially when it comes to marriage, because they want a guy who has a sense of agency and who exemplifies that in his life in a variety of different domains.
- 1:09:59 – 1:12:14
Is the Manosphere Getting Anything Right?
- BWBrad Wilcox
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think about most of the advice coming out of the manosphere? Obviously, there is this huge, uh, market for speaking to men, uh, as you've identified. We're not necessarily telling men the right things. Is the manosphere getting anything right? Or what are the things that it gets most wrong? What do you wish that you could s- sort of-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Well, I-
- CWChris Williamson
...expunge from it?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah. I mean, I certainly think some of the things we've talked about just in the last few minutes are articulated in different ways by people like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate. I think what's problematic is that on parts of the manosphere, it's a very kind of self-centered, self-oriented approach to masculinity, particularly people like Andrew Tate, obviously. Or, or... And there's also kind of a, there's a way in which women are talked down, um, and, you know, are, um, described in very, you know, degrading or demeaning or, or negative ways. Um, so I think it can cultivate a certain sense of, um, of suspicion, needless suspicion on the part of men. Now, I... Obviously, we all have... we all have... both women and men have to be discerning, because there are people out there who are bad actors, um, or who've got vices that are gonna make them bad spouses, or, or they're just not a good fit for a particular person and, and, and you. And you have to kind of figure out, do you have the capacity for friendship with this person? Do they have some key virtues that will make them a good husband, a good father, a good wife, and a good mother? Um, but I think parts of the manosphere are, are painting an, obviously an overly negative view of women and marriage, um, and are encouraging men to be selfish in ways that will make them, you know, bad romantic partners and, uh, reduce their odds of, of succeeding in marriage as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Which ultimately results in them dying on average eight or nine years earlier, being more likely-
- BWBrad Wilcox
Death and despair, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
...to commit suicide, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Right, alcohol abuse. And, and this is... Again, this is what Pearl Davis and, and Andrew Tate don't really acknowledge or appreciate is that, yes, marriage is a risk, no doubt, but the guys who are not married today, never married, and guys who are divorced, um, are just much more likely to be... especially if they're not college-educated, if they're not kind of doing well professionally, you know, at the top of some game, um, they are just much more likely to be floundering and to, you know, end up, um, yeah, sad, lonely, um, and vulnerable to these deaths of despair.
- 1:12:14 – 1:15:16
Dating & Marriage Advice for Women
- CWChris Williamson
What about from a woman's side? It's not something that I often see coming from the right, uh, or from anybody sort of, uh, (laughs) right or far left, um, bits of dating advice for women. You know, women who want to get married, who want to find a partner, who want to be discerning with their mate choice, um, but who also know that in a post-MeToo world, men are maybe more reticent about approaching them. They're me- maybe more concerned about... They, they maybe don't have quite the same, uh, like, patriarchy-fueled, uh, agency that perhaps our great-grandfathers would have done. Um, what do you say to women, uh, when it comes to attracting, selecting a male partner?
- BWBrad Wilcox
So, I think for both young women and young men, I would certainly say, you know, given the challenges that people are facing today is, number one, if you have, you know, friends who are kind of, um, wise and discerning and roughly your age or a little bit older, or even on... you know, a lot older, kind of just let it be known that you're, that you're interested in getting married and have them kind of, you know, do the, the sort of mating game. You know, per-
- CWChris Williamson
Crowdsource the potential mate.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Ma- matchmaking, you know, is, is... You know, I, I regularly introduce students that I know are interested in getting married or young adults, you know, to one another, just so... a- and, you know, that's... that can be fruitful. Um, I think... So m- you know, letting it be known to people you trust, uh, judgment you trust. Um, I think if you have a religious bone in your body, um, go to church, synagogue, mosque, temple, whatever. Um, the folks who are in those communities are much more marriage-minded than folks who are not. And that, that's worth kind of, you know, taking seriously if you have any kind of religious interest or background.... um, I would say also kind of for women in particular, kind of given the fact that a lot of guys are worried about the Me Too, you know, suspicion, um, you know, signaling with a s- with a smile, uh, with a compliment, with extra attention, you know, you're-
- CWChris Williamson
Cultivating receptivity is a hugely overlooked, uh, way of doing this. I was reminded of the, uh, uh, I guess it would have been the, the aristocracy during the Renaissance would, uh, drop a handkerchief. Uh, you know, you need a non-verbal cue equivalent of dropping a handkerchief.
- BWBrad Wilcox
Yeah, all that I think is, is valuable. And then, you know, some folks are just not going to have any, any success in person, right? And so, um, you know, I certainly know folks who are happily married today who met on, you know, on some dating service. But just be kind of discerning about the service you pick. So obviously, Tinder is probably not the best option. Um, there are, you know, newer sites, um, that are kind of cultivating a more, you know, marriage-oriented approach, um, that are accessible, um, online, for instance, you know, that can, um, you know, uh, be helpful. So I think if you're gonna seek out, um, a, a dating site, you know, pick one, um, that is oriented towards marriage or oriented towards serious relationships.
- CWChris Williamson
Brad Wilcox,
- 1:15:16 – 1:16:00
Where to Find Brad
- CWChris Williamson
ladies and gentlemen. Brad, I've been a massive fan of your work for a long time. I'm really glad that you've dug into the, uh, deep and dark murky-
- BWBrad Wilcox
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... data that's sort of born all of this stuff out. Where should people go? They wanna learn more about your work and the book and, and, and keep up to date with what you do. Where should they go?
- BWBrad Wilcox
Uh, they can type in Get Married, and that'll, you know, um, go to Harper for, for the book. Um, I'm on Twitter @BradWilcoxIFS. And, uh, then on, on the web oftentimes at familystudies.org as well. Those are three places to, to, uh, to look me up.
- CWChris Williamson
Brad, I really appreciate you. Thank you for today.
- BWBrad Wilcox
It's great to be with you, Chri- Chris. Thanks for having me on.
- CWChris Williamson
If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.
Episode duration: 1:16:00
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