Catholic sociologist’s book sparks debate over value of marriage – Catholic World Report

A new book by a Catholic sociologist has sparked heated debate by claiming that marriage remains the fastest path to financial success and happiness for Americans.

Brad Wilcox argues in Marriage: Why Americans must defy the elite, build strong families, and save civilization (HarperCollins, 2024) that marriage protects people from loneliness through human bonding, gives them a sense of purpose in living for someone else, and provides more financial stability than remaining single.

In his book, Wilcox, a professor at the University of Virginia, presents research showing that religious believers, conservatives, Asian Americans and upwardly mobile people have the most stable marriages. He also points out the hypocrisy of America’s left-leaning elites who live conventional married lives while simultaneously extolling the freedom of single life for poorer adults.

“It is no coincidence that elite families have survived the economic and cultural changes of the past four decades relatively unscathed, while families further down the economic scale, particularly in working- and middle-class communities, have lost enormous ground,” Wilcox writes.

Some scholars have criticized the book, arguing that most modest-income Americans lack the emotional, intellectual and financial resources to benefit from marriage.

“Ethnographic studies, for example, show that the most common reasons unmarried women leave the father of their children are the husband’s violent behavior, infidelity and substance abuse,” wrote Eleanor Brown of Fordham University, June Carbone of the University of Minnesota and Naomi Cahn of the University of Virginia in the nonprofit journal The Conversation.

“In addition, parents who are not studying are disproportionately affected by income fluctuations,” added the three law professors who specialize in poverty issues. “So even though they have more money for the children together than separately, if one parent’s income drops significantly, the other parent has to decide whether to use this often meager income to support their partner or the children.”

Brown, Carbonne and Cahn noted that Mr Wilcox’s work harmonizes with the recent book by economist Melissa Kearney. The two-parent privilege by supporting the idea of ​​right-wing enthusiasts that marriage leads to better-adjusted children and prevents poverty.

They point out that despite decades of government programs to encourage marriage, “today nearly 30 percent of children in the United States live in single-parent families, compared with 10 percent in 1965.”

“The Biden administration’s expansion of the child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 helped reduce the child poverty rate – after accounting for government assistance – to a record low this year,” the professors write. “It has done more to combat child poverty than marriage promotion efforts ever have.”

Mr Wilcox said that while he agreed that a more generous child tax credit would help families, it did not come close to the “financial and practical benefits” of having a second parent in the home. He pointed to decades-old statistical trends showing that children from two-parent households were more likely to graduate from school and have stable working lives.

“No government program can make it financially and practically possible for us to have a second parent in the home,” Wilcox said in an email to Catholic World Report.

“This is the purpose of marriage: it increases the likelihood that children will remain connected to both parents on a daily basis and benefit from the full financial resources of both parents,” he added. “That is why we should promote policies that strengthen the economic, cultural and legal value of marriage to reduce the likelihood that children grow up in a dysfunctional family.”

In the book, Wilcox cites a 2021 survey that found that more than one in 10 unmarried Americans earning less than $50,000 a year cited losing government benefits as a reason for avoiding marriage. He noted that liberal tax and welfare policies penalize marriage and make it financially costly for “ordinary couples” to marry.

“Today, marriage penalties hit working- and middle-class families hardest, with incomes ranging from $35,000 to $65,000,” he notes. “They often steal between 10 and 30 percent of these families’ household income.”

Since it hit shelves in February, Mr. Wilcox’s book has sparked lively discussion in the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Free Press, the New York Times and the Catholic News Agency, among others.

In a Wall Street Journal column, Meghan Cox Gurdon called the book “an urgent polemic that brings together anecdotes, testimony and social science data to make the case for marriage in a culture increasingly hostile to it.”

She cited several examples from the book that demonstrate the general consensus against marriage.

A New York Times article praised the “freedom, self-control and self-actualization” of single life, while The Atlantic published an article titled “Arguments Against Marriage” and Time magazine ran a story titled “Having It All Without Having Kids.”

In the book, Wilcox also challenges an unlikely but growing consensus against marriage between the alt-right men’s movement and liberal feminists. While the men’s movement sees marriage as undermining masculinity, feminists fear it restricts women’s freedom.

The book comes at a time when marriage rates remain near historic lows and the country’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in over 100 years.

In November, the Census Bureau first projected that the U.S. population would shrink. The agency said deaths from Covid-19, falling birth rates and an aging population would reduce the population from a new high of nearly 370 million in 2080 to 360 million by 2100, unless immigration increased.

On April 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the national birth rate fell to a new low last year compared to 1920.

The federal agency’s preliminary analysis of birth records showed nearly 3.6 million newborns in 2023, 2% fewer than in 2022. Among women of childbearing age, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found the overall fertility rate was 54.4 births per 1,000 women, 3% fewer than in 2022.

However, Mr Wilcox argues that marriage does more than just strengthen the country’s population.

He cites research showing that men are less likely to engage in risky behavior or commit suicide when married. The same study shows that women are less likely to take their own lives when they are married and are mothers.

He stresses that marriage benefits men more than women, and also notes that marriage can motivate the growing number of working-age men without permanent employment. He points out that the proportion of men aged 25 to 55 who do not work full-time has increased from 16% in 1975 to 20% in 2019, according to federal statistics.

To illustrate his arguments, Mr. Wilcox describes several anonymous case studies of real couples, including a Catholic couple he calls “Jon” and “Maria.”

“The faith that Jon and Maria share gives the Nomosthe norms and network to protect them from the stresses and temptations that can end a military marriage,” writes Wilcox.

Personally, the author told CWR that he is “never bored” because he has several children with his wife.

“Social bonds and norms protect people,” Wilcox said. “Married parents have busier schedules than their single, childless peers.”

• Related topics at CWR: “Marry represents an urgent imperative based on data and experience” (February 13, 2024) by John M. Grondelski, Ph.D.