Five Myths In A Post-Marriage Culture

presentation by Dr. Linda Waite

In February, 2001, Michigan Family Forum hosted a luncheon featuring Dr. Linda Waite, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and author of "The Case For Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier And Better Off Financially." Drawing from her new book, Dr. Waite talked about five myths in our "postmarriage culture." Dr. Waite says "a postmarriage culture is not one in which nobody ever makes it to the altar. Rather, it is a culture in which marriage is viewed as unnecessary, or, strictly speaking, optional—a private taste rather than a matter of urgent shared concerns." Her book, co-authored with syndicated columnist and author, Maggie Gallagher, presents a compelling case that marriage creates an environment that is beneficial to individuals and society at large.

Myth 1: "Divorce is usually the best answer for kids when a marriage becomes unhappy."

On average, children of divorce suffer a decline in their standard of living by about one-third. This is primarily because the family must now furnish two households, rather than just one.
Kids in two-parent families do better in school, largely because they have two parents who can help them with homework and maintain contact with the school. They are also one-third more likely to earn a college degree than their counterparts from one-parent and stepparent families.
Children of divorce tend to be healthier since married couples are more likely to have private health insurance, more likely to monitor their diets and children are more closely supervised by their parents, which means reduced risk of accidents.

Myth 2: "Marriage is mostly about children; if you don’t have kids, it doesn’t matter whether you cohabit or marry or stay single."

Children are not the only ones to experience a higher quality of life. Married adults have a higher standard of living because the old adage that "two can live more cheaply than one" is true. By pooling resources, couples can boost their standard of living by 30 percent over singles since some things, such as a house, can be shared. Married couples can specialize in work around the house, one working on lawn care while the other works on household chores, for example. The net result is less stress and more leisure time. Married adults enjoy better health as well. Single men drink almost twice as much as married men, are more likely to smoke and engage in behavior that increases the risk of accidents.

Myth 3: "Marriage may be good for men, but it is bad for women, damaging their health and self-esteem and limiting their opportunities."

While marriage unquestionably benefits men, the common perception is that for women, marriage brings stress, dissatisfaction and abandoned aspirations. Marriage improves the financial well-being of both men and women and new evidence points to better mental and physical health for married women as well. More money provides better health care and safer neighborhoods for married women than divorced and single women have. Additionally, like married men, married women tend to smoke, drink and engage in risky behavior less than their single and divorced counterparts.

Myth 4: "Promoting marriage and marital obligation put women at risk for violence."

When it comes to domestic violence, much of the discussion in our society assumes that domestic violence and wife abuse are synonymous. In fact, single or divorced women are four to five times more likely to be the victims of violent crimes. Even in domestic violence cases, the overwhelming majority of abuse occurs not by husbands, but by cohabiting partners, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands. Whether one is looking at dangers inside the home or outside, married women are safer than those who are not married.

Myth 5: "Marriage is essentially a private matter, an affair of the heart between two adults, in which no outsider, not even the children of the marriage, should be allowed to interfere."

Marriage changes lives and society benefits. Looking at the marriage vow, one sees that couples promise to remain faithful to one another ("forsaking all others") and to support each other financially ("with all my worldly goods I do thee endow") and emotionally ("love, honor, and cherish"). This mutual agreement to help each other "until death do us part" removes a burden from society when one looks after another. Marriage also changes our behavior in ways that make us more productive and less destructive as individuals. Society does benefit by marriage and rightly rewards married couples for that.