U. Va. sociologist, Deseret News contributor tells BYU students marriage and families are the ultimate source of happiness
“Get married” was the message Tuesday morning for Brigham Young University students who filled the seats of the Marriott Center. At the BYU Forum address, Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology and the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said marriage plays a significant role in determining a person’s overall happiness throughout their lifetime.
Wilcox, who is also a contributing writer for the Deseret News, and who helped with the Utah law passed to protect kids from risks linked to social media, opened with the Greek myth of King Midas, famous for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold.
Initially delighted with his golden touch, Midas soon realized its curse when he turned his food, drink and even his beloved daughter into gold. Wilcox’s purpose was to show students the dangers of greed and the realization that happiness cannot be found in material wealth alone.
“This ancient fable, I think, could not be more relevant for us today,” Wilcox said, “because the new elite messaging that we’re often getting in the media, in the academy and online about work and freedom and family” portrays a Midas mindset.
“This mindset discounts the importance of marriage and family,” Wilcox added, noting that the new normal allows marriage to take a back seat to hustle culture and capital. “In other words, it’s about mammon over marriage,” he said.
Why are fewer people getting married?
Wilcox acknowledged the popular view that “marriage is often an obstacle to living your best life. You’re supposed to live your life dedicated to radical self-love.”
Media outlets like Bloomberg and The New York Times have published anti-marriage opinions by viewing the institution as a barrier to achieving your ultimate potential, he said. He also referred to social media figures like Andrew Tate, who says men in Western society do not benefit from marriage like they used to. The controversial influencer said in a 2022 interview that he believes marriage isn’t happening as often today because “many men don’t actually benefit from marriages or relationships anymore.”
Wilcox said Tate’s perspective that men should remain single, focus on building personal wealth and use women without commitment is a mindset he sees influencing his students at the University of Virginia, causing them to “become captive to this Midas mindset.”
One of Wilcox’s recent students told him college students “are definitely more focused on their education and getting their career started than getting into a serious relationship.”
The underlying idea is that although love and relationships come with uncertainties and risks, your career will always be a stable foundation.
According to Wilcox’s research, unlike the popular opinion about marriage putting a strain on finances, people who never marry have less to fall back on financially when they decide to retire.
“Both women and men heading into retirement in their 50s who are stably married have about 10 times the assets as their single female and male peers,” Wilcox said. For the average American, Wilcox continued there’s no debate that marriage allows for more financial stability than remaining financially independent and single your whole life.
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More to life than money
While receiving an education and having a career with a stable income does matter, Wilcox said marriage outdoes both when it comes to happiness.
The 2022 edition of the General Social Survey — which Wilcox called the “golden standard for barometers in the U.S.” — found that among Americans, marriage and family brought them the most happiness.
“The GSS shows that a combination of marriage and parenthood is linked to the biggest happiness dividends for women. Among married women with children between the ages of 18 and 55, 40% reported they are ‘very happy,’ compared to 25% of married childless women and just 22% of unmarried childless women,” the Institute for Family Studies reported. Wilcox is an institute scholar.
The institute added similar statistics were found for men: “Specifically, 35% of married men ages 18-55 who have children report being ‘very happy,’ followed by 30% of married men who do not have children. By contrast unmarried childless men, and especially unmarried fathers are the least happy — with less than 15% of these men saying they are ‘very happy.’ In other words, married men (ages 18-55) in America are about twice as likely to be very happy, compared to their unmarried peers.”
Wilcox emphasized that through his research looking at factors such as health, church attendance and sexual frequency, “there is no variable in the GSS that compares to a good marriage when it comes to predicting happiness.”
What makes a happy marriage?
Wilcox acknowledged many people can and do build happy and fulfilling lives without marriage. But Wilcox said recent trends in unhappiness are most significant in the population of unmarried adults.
Wilcox shared a study from the University of Chicago that found “being married is the most important differentiator with a 30-percentage-point happy-unhappy gap over the unmarried.”
Researching marriage and family across the United States, Wilcox said he found four groups who focus on having a solid, stable marriage:
Asian Americans.
Conservative Americans.
Religious Americans.
College-educated Americans.
In his book “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization,” Wilcox identifies the secret to these groups’ reason for happiness as “building strong and stable marriages by defying the me-first messages of our elites in favor of a family-first way of life.”
Happy marriages are also built on what Wilcox calls the “five C’s:”
Communion: what Wilcox calls having a “we-before-me approach.”
Children: nurturing these relationships and understanding that your children depend on you.
Commitment: understanding the importance of fidelity and trust in a marriage.
Cash: having a practical outlook on the importance of money in a marriage.
Community: Creating relationships with people who uplift and support you in your marriage.
