“Oh, don’t get married too early,” Taylor, a graphic designer from Denver, was told by friends and family growing up. “Make sure you finish college, don’t get married too young, go out and see the world and do all these other things, and don’t get too attached to anyone too quickly.”
And that is exactly what Taylor did. She spent her 20s having fun and building her career. But now, at 33, Taylor is beginning to have regrets. She looks at her older boss, who is “really beautiful and talented and friendly and outgoing” but never dates anyone because she is always too busy working late.
“And I’m just sitting there thinking like, this job isn’t worth it. None of this is worth it,” Taylor told Brad Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and author of the new book Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.
“I look back on that advice, and I’m like, you know, if I could do it again, I would actually focus on finding a husband a little bit earlier,” Taylor says.
Taylor is just one of many people, young and old, Wilcox introduces us to over the course of 11 chapters that can roughly be divided into four sections. In the first section, Wilcox identifies four groups defying the decline of marriage in the United States: the “strivers,” the “faithful,” Asian Americans, and conservatives.
Next, Wilcox breaks down what these married couples are doing right by naming the five pillars of “stable and happy unions,” as well as identifying three myths that are keeping more and more people single: the flying solo myth, the family diversity myth, and the soulmate myth. Finally, Wilcox concludes with a chapter outlining a public policy agenda to make it easier for all people to get and stay married.
Wilcox marshals reams of academic evidence to show how marriage not only helps husbands and wives become happier, healthier, and wealthier but also does the same for their children and entire communities.
But for me, the really compelling stories are those like Taylor’s, from people who bought into the “flying solo” myth that the path to happiness was staying single while young and only seeking a spouse once successful, independent, and established in life. Taylor relates how, without a spouse, she often struggles with loneliness and anxiety. “I was actually having regular nightmares, and I was really anxious, and I was always checking all the closets when I got home because I was alone,” Taylor said. Eventually, she got a dog to ease her pain.
But while Wilcox provides plenty of data showing that married couples live happier, more meaningful, better-connected lives than single people, I do wish he had found more stories celebrating the joy of growing up and old together with a person you love and who has loved you for decades.
My wife and I met when we were 18-year-old college freshmen. We started dating when we were 19-year-old sophomores, and we’ve been together ever since, some 26 years, 20 of them married. We’ve supported each other through school and career changes, through professional promotions and setbacks. But more importantly, we’ve just had tons of fun, sharing our lives and eventually expanding our love into a family.
None of this is to suggest that love is easy and that my wife was the “One” destined to be with me. In fact, Wilcox writes about this in his “soulmate” myth chapter. As Wilcox shows, true love takes sacrifice. It involves putting your relationship above your own immediate needs and desires. It requires patience. It requires compromise. And most of all, it requires work.
But oh man, is that work completely worth it.
It is not that our professional lives are unimportant. They are essential. One needs a vocation to provide for his or her spouse and family. But it is the needs of our spouses that should be informing our vocational aspirations, not the other way around. There are few more powerful motivators than wanting to provide for and protect loved ones.
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Unfortunately, as Wilcox shows, too many people see their career as the highest priority and a spouse as something you fit in after. As Wilcox notes, a recent Pew poll found that 88% of parents believe it is important for their children to have “careers they enjoy” when they are adults, while only 21% said it was important for their children to get married.
May I humbly suggest that this Valentine’s Day, and every other day, you reverse those priorities.
