A leading University of Virginia sociologist and Institute for Family Studies founding research fellow has launched a full-court press in the media to encourage our nation and the world to reconsider the richness of marriage for our personal lives and the good of society.
Professor Brad Wilcox’s new book, Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization, draws from and presents a lifetime of committed academic research exploring all the ways marriage makes life better for everyone.
Dr. Wilcox is a strong Christian believer and has been a long friend to Focus on the Family and we are excited about the launch of this important book.
His tour de force through the mainstream press started last week with a major piece in the Wall Street Journal encouraging young people to reject the soulmate myth that romance and warm feelings are sufficient to forge happy and enduring marriages.
The very popular soulmate view of marriage – the idea that there is one perfect match out there for each us and our purpose in life is to find that solitary lucky charm – is problematic in reality because “it offers a view of marital love that is hard to sustain –one focused on the ebb and flow of romantic feelings.” While the “romance-as-the-center-of-all” view can be attractive and exciting, this perspective “can make it more difficult for husbands and wives to embrace a richer, more stable and ultimately more satisfying idea of marriage, beyond the me-first spirit of soulmate love.” Wilcox is correct.
Wilcox forcefully confronts “the awfulness of elite hypocrisy on marriage” in The Atlantic. What is that hypocrisy? He uses an illustration from one of the large sociology courses he teaches at the University of Virginia.
Chock full of elite students who generally take a more liberal view of life, he used class time for his students to take an anonymous online poll asking whether marriage is essential for having babies. He queried his 200-plus room full of students, asking them how many believe society should elevate one form of family over others. About 75% said we should not because all freely chosen family forms are equally valid.
Professor Wilcox followed that up with a more personal question: “Do you personally plan to finish your education, work full-time, marry, and then have children?”
Among these elite liberal students, there was no diversity at all. A full 97 percent said “yes” to this question. And 99 percent of them said their elite parents would “freak out” if they announced at Thanksgiving they had become unwed parents. The overwhelming majority of these exceptional and left-leaning students come from intact families.
Wilcox is illustrating that elites talk “left” about family, but act “right” when it comes to their own personal choices. This is because they know what is good for them.
Wilcox also has a big article over at Bari Weiss’ very influential The Free Press, where he takes down the misguided message Andrew Tate is spewing to billions of young men that marriage is a sucker’s bet. Tate explained on a recent podcast, “I don’t think many men actually benefit from marriages or relationships anymore” because he falsely believes they do better living as narcissists making money, bedding women, and playing with their toys. That is not what women are looking for, nor what any thriving society needs.
The data is very clear on this, and Wilcox presents it in spades in Get Married. According to the 2022 General Social Survey,
Married men ages 18–55 are also more likely to be “very happy” (34 percent) than their peers who are not married (13 percent). Meanwhile, 23 percent of unmarried women ages 18–55 say they are “not too happy” with their lives, compared to 13 percent of married women.
Wilcox adds, “And no, just living together doesn’t cut it. That’s because cohabitation is less committed, more unstable, and generally less happy than marriage.” A wealth of data consistently demonstrates that the married among us are living their best lives.
UnHerd, the popular British online magazine, also featured a write-up by Professor Wilcox explaining how marriage serves humanity richly as the most effective protector against the pressing scourge of loneliness which has been declared by some a public health emergency. He also talks about Get Married over at the Next Big Ideal Club explaining five reasons why everyone should get married.
Dr. Wilcox also discussed his new book with Beverly Hallberg on the SheThinks podcast of the Independent Woman’s Forum, which you can watch here:
Both Christianity Today and The National Catholic Register published helpful and illuminating reviews of Get Married in their pages. The CT review explains, Wilcox is “pulling off an admirable feat: leading a secular institution [on leading marriage research] without compromising his Christian values or reducing his work to a ‘fringe’ project only valued inside the church.” Professor Wilcox has done this masterfully for at least two decades and his influence is only growing.
Wilcox also appeared on the Valentine’s Day edition of the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox Nation as well as on EWTN News Nightly show.
Dr. Wilcox will also be talking with Jim Daly in early March for his ReFOCUS podcast to air in the coming months.
You can order Professor Wilcox’s important, groundbreaking book which launched on Valentine’s Day here.
