Wish or command(ment)?

In his book, “Get Married,” Brad Wilcox, presents a stilted case for why “Americans must defy the elites, forge strong families and save civilization.

Waving cherry-picked data from recent surveys about a decreased interest in marriage and family, especially among younger women, Wilcox sounded the alarm.  

Citing a six-point difference in marriage interest between women and men who identify as single and childless, Wilcox places most of his emphasis on trying to establish that women are the problem. As if all they need to do is look at the data showing older married women answer the happiness surveys affirmatively. 

America, he heralds, will suffer if more women don’t heed their biological clocks.

Joining his chorus this week was NYT columnist, Nicholas Kristof. Citing Wilcox in his own call to arms for the institution because “it is worth fighting for marriage,” Kristof, it seems, is willing to go to the mattresses on his belief that married people are happier people. 

And as one woman after another tweeted to the contrary in their general direction, they “gently push back” with more unsubstantiated statistics. 

Why must everything be a fight?

The histrionics of happily married men, holding up graphs, telling women they are the problem, is nothing new. 

This is just a rehashing of conservative laments about the problems of increasing secularization in a society founded on religious freedom. 

But the only thing I can glean from this survey is that some men are willing to watch their kids on occasion, maybe coach a team here and there, and some women don’t want to risk their health and lives, and then have to manage all the other logistics while working similar hours or putting careers on hold.

Wilcox tends to spin the numbers showing there are 24 hours in a day and men and women work similar hours whether it be paid labor or domestic drudgery. 

As you look more closely at Wilcox’s insistence that married women are happiest, try to understand that none of these studies can prove the cause of that happiness is marriage without randomized pairings. And randomized pairings – despite sometimes being highlighted in reality shows like Married at First Sight – aren’t exactly a study ethical scientists would recommend. 

Removing the pro-marriage studies, social science still shows that men do better and are happier in marriage than women. Even if you think the division of labor is a petty reason it is a harbinger of other more insurmountable dissatisfaction.

And this “fight” that Mr. Kristof has recommended has me wondering, just who are we supposed to battle? Single people? Women? Will we enact laws that make it easier to marry? More difficult to divorce? Some combination of the two?

Abusive partners often use therapy to their advantage, weaponizing terminology to more effectively control their victims.

They also do the same with the courts.

So you might imagine what it looks like for women after these guys manage to jettison access to no-fault divorce. Claiming abuse for divorce will require an exemption from a court, the same way women find themselves pleading for abortion exemptions only to be rebuffed. 

 

The worst part is marriage isn’t heading for extinction. People will always be willing to enter them willingly and of their own accord and exit them for reasons that are truly none of Mr. Wilcox's or Mr. Kristof's concern.

But if recent history in politics offers any clue, what may be heading for extinction is a person’s ability to choose the direction of their lives and to change that path for themselves.