The Case for Marriage
This new lesson comes from the book, "The Case for Marriage: Why married people are happier, healthier and better off Financially" by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher.
This post isn't a review for the book.
It is a defense for marriage. IF Iconic is going to be a hub that empowers men and women for marriage, we have to defend it from the onslaught of things it has against it in the past.
We hear about the controlling spouses, violent fighting and the slavery/prison troupes often associated with the idea of us getting married.
We often hear about the financial destruction divorced people go through and how it ruins lives.
We, more often, hear from modern influencers who think they know more that elders about the institution claiming it is outdated and unnecessary.
Yes, even though these same faces push it for others that are not straight or monogamous (funny that).
So, what then should “the Case for Marriage” look like?
I often break it down into the research and data that supports its benefits.
In other posts, I talked about what I mean by Iconic marriages and Conscious Marriages, but this here is a defense for the man/woman heterosexual marriage.
This isn't getting so much into the Christian definition but a case even between atheists, other religious observers or any straight two consenting adults that go to the United States courthouse and get a license.
Even in those cases, marriage still works.
Firstly, marriage has been proven to be more beneficial financially, for happiness and for better health. The health advantages of marriage - Harvard Health
Studies have shown, and some will be accompanying this write up, that married couples for example, have better heart health.
Second, the tax benefits to married couples filing jointly in the United States is a known fact by all tax aged American filers, another benefit even the wealthy rely on.
And, lastly, we know that children reared in two parent households fare better. Guest opinion: All children deserve the privilege of a strong household - Deseret News
Is this to say that single-parent household cannot produce well-to do kids? No.
Is this to say that singles cannot have a fulfilling life and that single career minded individuals cannot make millions or more? No.
The case for marriage is that when we look at the data, marriage has benefits.
And while we have politicians arguing for other options that can help American poor, we never see them advocate that individuals in loving and caring relationships might want to consider marriage among a list of options for their well-being.
I will not go over all the data in this book, you can get your own copy here: The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially: Waite, Linda, Gallagher, Maggie: 9780767906326: Amazon.com: Books
Yet, there are some prime points that the authors do make in presenting a counter argument in a society that does as much as if can in entertainment, music and other industries to disparage the institution.
While influencers, podcasters and others create content to make marriage look bad, there are those of us who argue that marriage can stand up to many metrics that others cannot.
And I do add this disclaimer: this book does not argue for Christian marriage. It actually just looks at marriage over the entire populace and uses quotes from other religious areas.
Myths of a Post-Marriage Culture
Let us start with 5 myths that our post-marriage (a term in the book) society has about marriage today and work through them as we build our argument for the institution:
1. "Divorce is usually the best answer for kids when a marriage becomes unhappy."
2. "Marriage is mostly about children: if you don't have kids, it doesn't matter whether you cohabit or marry or stay single."
3. "Marriage may be good for men, but it is bad for women; damaging their health and self-esteem and limiting their opportunities."
4."Promoting marriage and marital obligations put women at risk for violence
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."
The first four myths represent fears surrounding marriage, that it purely personal relation created just for the couple a lifestyle choice.
That is simply not true. Marriages effect families, communities and even a nation.
Marriages can influence companies, crumble businesses and foster churches, mosques and temples.
The damage of fear is that those that are afraid take those feelings and put them into the public through movies, policy actions and other structures projecting those ideas onto others.
I talk about fear in my first eBook: Breaking Fear.
In it I give 5 core lessons to breaking that fear which usually stops us from living in our purpose or living the life we want.
Fear is not an option.
You cannot operate in fear. Fear steals joy, crushes our future goals, bounds us to negative thinking and controls our actions.
Fear almost killed me, and we cannot live in peace with it. We must Break Fear.
The 5th myth is that it is personal. People don't share their successes because they think the things that work is only true for them.
While people who have their relationships fall apart rush to warn others of what might happen.
Funny how the bad runs to telling everyone as a warning, but the happy and content are quiet and think that their happiness is bothersome and problematic, so they do not normally share that information with others.
It is like those who mock happy relationships online.
Even on social media sites like Twitter, I have seen, some users scoff at happy couples because in their own bitterness. They often believe the couple is lying.
In fact, someone told me that I am bragging when I talked about my husband. I often use my own relationship as an example so as to not hurt anyone else.
And they said that they are just waiting for me to get divorced to show that my fairytales are untrue!
Rude!
But I get it. We don't see people who are happy as authentic. People lie on social media, lie at gatherings and in gossip sessions we hear the rumors.
We always start every marriage talk with warnings of the ups and downs as if there aren't ups and downs in everything else, we do in life.
As if marriage is not supposed to have these cycles of change and growth.
Most people who are bitter say things like people only stick in relationships because they "Have nothing better to do" or "why not"?
That is a negative mindset and of course you would think marriage is bad if that is where your head is at!
We aren't fostering that negativity here.
While we do caution often.
But Iconic is a place of hope. We will talk often to make sure we foster healthy, successful and thriving marriages to shift our homes and communities to its best self.
One just has to make that effort.
There are pages 205-247 of this book that provide more references, and a Bibliography of the resourced information that helped these women make the case for marriage.
There are tons of data to sort through from years of research and study.
So, it is not merely the authors opinions or personal experience that drives this book but sound logical conclusions from a hypothesis.
"When society as a whole helps support marriage as an institution, we are all better off." (pg. 186)
Society is affected by good and bad marriages. Right now, the divorce rate is rising. And people will turn to the government to do something about it.
We do not need them if we can course correct ourselves.
But to the topic: How is marriage a benefit? Here are some examples:
1. Marriage boosted both men's and women's mental health. Becoming Married and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of a Cohort of Young Adults on JSTOR
2. Marriage integrates men into the community, conforming more to social rules than cohabiting counterparts. An unmarried mother's boyfriend posed a particular danger with 27 times more likely to commit abuse.
3. Children in marriages are healthier. Mothers are less likely to drink, and children are more closely supervised, found in a New Zealand study.
4. Getting Married is financially beneficial in that just pooling together resources increases one's wealth by 12 to 14% at age 30 and by 30% by age 75 by economist Launces Kotlikoff and Ania Spivak
5. Better Sex. When combining both sex and satisfaction, the sexual advantage of marriage becomes more pronounce in the National Sex Survey. Men that were married had a wide margin of better sex with their wives at 48% compared just to cohabitators at 37%. There is a sexual power of commitment. For women, commitment sex is better sex. Women have a stronger incentive, because of pregnancy, to make sure that their partners care for them.
6. Married Parents are Better. More money, time enough for love, stronger family bons, less social capital, less abuse, less crime and delinquency, etc. Each of these are a separate second in the book, that is how profound it is.
7. Violence is the issue not marriage. While people tend to believe that domestic violence increases in marriage erroneously classifies domestic violence as a family matter rather than a morally character issue that is prevalent and any other violent crimes. This means that a person that is violent will do so married or not.
This is not an exhaustive list. The idea is that there is enough data that supports the case for marriage than does not.
Each of the ideas offered can even be broken down further throughout the week for us to discuss more.
These are found to be true through statistical data and research not by individual case by case situations. We can all point to our own, or someone else's situation that did not work for them.
The point here again, isn't to chastise the failed relationships or those who chose to be single.
It is to strengthen the idea that marriage is a viable option for those who want to try.
As we begin to defend and then promote marriage as an institution that can help individuals and society as a whole, when we study all the data marriage wins by every metrics.
Again, people can win without it.
But those of us who chose to get married and want to live our lives as couples can do it successfully.
Society just thrives on the drama and the issues surrounding it.
As we continue to teach, train and assist those who want this for themselves realize that it is not perfect.
Everything involving humans has the possibility to fail.
And humans are MORE vocal about our issues than our successes. Humans are more inclined to tell you about their failures than their wins.
And if you dig deeper, the many issues arise tend more to do with the people we chose to marry not so much with marriage as an institution itself.
Remember, you and your mate can do this.
And also remember, in everything you do Be Iconic.
Iconic is a new newsletter to empower men and women to have successful marriages that thrive for a meaningful legacy.
The marriage stats are not good in the United States and around the world.
And we aim to change that.
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