Marriage Still Matters

During the 2024 U.S. election campaign, Vice President JD Vance was widely condemned for calling various Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and for saying that people without children lack a real stake in the country’s future.

While there is no need to insult childless people, the reality is that marriage and family formation are critically important for individual and societal wellbeing. It’s a point we need to talk about more in Canada.

Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell, staff at the Canadian think tank Cardus, reenergize the Canadian conversation about marriage and the family with their new book I…Do? Why Marriage Still Matters. They say that, “This book is ultimately an effort, using social scientific research, to initiate a conversation about reimagining what marriage is and why it still matters.”

Mrozek and Mitchell hope to promote a public conversation about marriage and highlight its importance in a world where marriage has become “nice but wholly unnecessary.” Highlights include clear social scientific research, helpful frameworks for understanding different views of marriage, and a brief prognostication on the future of families. Some reflections on the natural foundations of the family would round out the book, but the authors seemed intentionally focused on summarizing evidence while leaving aside religious or philosophical arguments about the nature of the family.

Research

A recent survey found that over half of Canadians believe marriage is unnecessary and nearly half think that marriage has become obsolete. But God’s design of marriage is the foundation for family life, and stable families are the foundation of the surrounding community. Significant social problems have been linked with broken families. Mrozek and Mitchell convincingly show, using social-scientific research, that marriage is best for men, women, children, and society as a whole.

Married men are much more likely to remain involved in family life. Marriage also increases happiness, health, and financial well-being. Marriage is also important for children, as children do best when they grow up with a married mother and father.

By contrast, cohabitation before marriage increases the risk of divorce. Risk of abuse for children greatly increases if they live with unrelated adults. Men from separated common law relationships are less likely than divorced men to keep contact with their kids. Overall, 23% of couples in Canada live in common law relationships, though that number is skewed by exceptionally high rates in Quebec, where 36% of couples live common law.

Frameworks

The book explores two very different conceptions of marriage: the soulmate model and the institutional model. The soulmate model is individualistic and looks for emotional satisfaction from marriage. It looks for someone to “complete me.” Permanency is secondary. Soulmate marriage, then, results in a more fragile commitment.  In the soulmate model, the wedding itself becomes a platform for self-expression.

Mrozek and Mitchell emphasize marriage as an institution. Institutions, they write, are “a bundle of formal and informal rules, social norms, legal and natural rights, and obligations.” Institutions help to mitigate certain problems and involve much more than personal self-fulfillment. They meet needs outside of the control of any one person. Sociologist Brad Wilcox writes of the institutional model that it “seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy into a permanent union.” The institution of marriage meets the needs of individuals, family, and society.

How our society views marriage isn’t just an academic question. It has real consequences. In a brief section on same-sex marriage, the authors note that without a soulmate model of marriage, where marriage is mainly about love and companionship, our society would not have contemplated same-sex marriage because it would not fit into marriage as an institution. The redefinition of marriage illustrated the societal shift to considering the ‘rights’ of adults in relationships rather than considering the needs of children for stability found in homes with a married mother and father. Such a shifting framework opens the door to allow other forms of marriage such as polygamy as well.

The book also contrasts the cornerstone view with the capstone view of marriage. The average age of marriage in North America today is just over thirty for men and just under thirty for women. The cornerstone view of marriage is one where those who get married seek to build their lives around marriage. Earlier marriage is a foundation on which to build a family, acquire joint assets, and more. By contrast, the capstone view sees marriage as coming after you’ve achieved certain career and financial milestones. Many factors contribute to declining marriage rates in North America, but the authors note that, “If marriage is viewed as a destination rather than a starting point, it will remain out of reach for some who desire it.”

Looking Ahead

Mrozek and Mitchell argue that Canada needs to rebuild a healthy marriage culture. Canadian politicians are especially reticent to discuss the importance of marriage and the family, even when compared to politicians in other individualistic countries like the US and UK. Addressing marriage and the family through public conversations is an important part of prioritizing the institution. Additionally, the predominant view of marriage in Western culture has shifted dramatically away from the institutional and cornerstone views. But marriage is not only taught through conversations, whether by politicians or anyone else. The authors note that “healthy marriage is caught as much as taught. It needs to be modeled in order to thrive.” Parents need to see themselves as the first teachers who show their children what healthy relationships look like.

Despite the obvious benefits of marriage, which are laid out clearly in the book, the authors admit that marriage is rarely perfect or easy. They acknowledge difficulties even within good marriages and the tragic reality of bad marriages and divorce. They write: “We shouldn’t look for marriage stories in the rom-com or Disney fairy tale section; rather, marriage is more like a Tolkien-style adventure. Happy-clappy, romanticized versions of marriage are proving to be inadequate in the face of the inevitable challenges and hardships couples face.” They go on to note that “‘here be dragons’ is a better leitmotif for telling a better story about marriage than ‘you complete me.’” The challenging adventure then leads to more growth, strength, and fulfillment. This perspective complements an institutional model of marriage, where there are duties and obligations, and the institution is not simply for self-fulfillment or meeting one’s own needs.

With regard to public policy, the authors caution humility about its limits in forming a healthy marriage culture. The state does not have the primary responsibility for improving marriage and family, but it does have an important role to play. While not providing many clear policy prescriptions, the authors say, “the state needs to have a clear rationale concerning how it defines marriage and where and why it asserts itself in this domain.” Mrozek and Mitchell also think policymakers should participate in public conversations about the benefits of marriage.

The Foundations of Marriage

The authors say up front that “while we come to the topic of marriage as Christians, we do not make theological arguments in the book.” Instead, they are trying to use social scientific evidence to help readers understand the importance of marriage as a public good.

This is a helpful clarification and an understandable approach to persuading a broader, non-Christian audience.  However, the authors could have taken a little more care in how they present the nature of the institution of marriage. They rightly say that marriage is not a government creation, but elsewhere they imply that society created the institution of marriage. For example, they write, “Humans are wired for pair bonding. The idea that vulnerable men and women need each other in different ways is a central reason why human beings created a way of living together that we would eventually call marriage.” The problem with emphasizing the societal component is that if society created marriage, society can also uncreate it or fundamentally change it, as many are trying to do today. While society may profoundly shape people’s perception of marriage, it cannot fundamentally change the institution of marriage.

Rather, marriage was created by God as an institution before government (or society as we know it) existed. That is ultimately the reason why marriage and a biblical family structure work best; God created it to work that way. This has further implications for policy proposals and conversations about other issues such as divorce or same-sex marriage. It allows us to have a clear indication of right and wrong, rather than simply better and worse.

Conclusion

Social science evidence for marriage is valuable in helping Christians, Canadians, and policymakers understand what works best. The facts and research also help us make a public case for supporting marriage and the natural family structure. But we also need to understand why marriage works. We want policy to move in a direction that is best for those around us, and it is no coincidence that God’s design is what works best. Rather, God’s design and what works best always go hand in hand.

Stable families are critically important, not just to the members of a particular family, but to society as a whole. I…Do? includes helpful discussions about the reasons for the decline of marriage and clearly outlines why we need to revive the conversation about marriage and family. Canadian culture and policymakers would do well to pay attention to the importance of marriage and its impact on so many other issues in our society.