Erika Kirk to Women: Don’t use the government to put off marriage.
Young women shouldn’t rely on the government to put off getting married, Erika Kirk cautioned at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit this week.
DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Kirk in lieu of her late husband, Charlie, who had been scheduled to appear. A gunman assassinated the conservative leader in September.
Sorkin asked Kirk her opinion on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who won 75% of New York voters between 18 and 29 years old last month. Charlie, Sorkin noted, built significant popularity with the same demographic.
Kirk, a former Manhattanite, reflected on struggling to survive alone in the big city.
“I think there’s a tendency, especially when you live in a city like Manhattan, where you are so career driven, [to] look to the government as a form of replacement for certain relationships,” she mused.
“What I don’t want to have happen is young women in the city looking to the government as a solution to put off having a family or marriage because they’re relying on the government to support [them] instead of being united with a husband.”
Kirk’s comments compliment decades of research showing marriage benefits people more than almost any other social institution — including the government.
Married people experience better physical and mental health outcomes than their unmarried counterparts, due, in part, to the way marriage compounds wealth. Married couples tend to live in nicer housing, eat healthier food and have access to better healthcare — the same essentials Mamdani’s campaign promised to make less expensive.
But marriage confers more than mere economic benefit. Between 1975 and 2018, roughly one-third of married people reported feeling happy on the U.S. General Social Survey, compared to just 13% of cohabiting people and 2% of unmarried people.
The social support married people enjoy over single people could help explain the disparity in happiness between the two groups. A recent study of nearly 5,000 single adults in the U.S. and Japan concluded, “Married Americans reported the most family support, which helped boost their well-being.”
In contrast, the study found single Americans “often feel isolated and unsupported, particularly when it comes to emotional guidance and support.”
Kirk experienced the happiness differential herself. She had been all-in on pursuing a career when she met Charlie.
“Charlie essentially plucked me out of the New York City orbit and was like, ‘No, I have a healthier way of viewing things and looking at life,’” she told Sorkin. “And he was right.”
She continued:
Too few single women, particularly on the left, hear experiences like Kirk’s. Professor Brad Wilcox, a sociological expert on marriage and family, believes young liberal men and women do not benefit from the same pro-family messaging young conservatives do.
“Progressive messaging that devalues, denies and deconstructs the value of family life and celebrates solo living in recent years is leaving its mark on the hearts, minds and lives of young liberals,” Wilcox and research fellow Grant Bailey write in the Institute for Family Studies, citing troubling articles like “Married heterosexual motherhood in America … is a game no one wins” (The New York Times) and “Divorce led me to my happily ever after” (The Washington Post).
Popular and liberal media further portray family as uniquely burdensome for women.
“Being free of family encumbrances … is often held up as an important pathway to living a meaningful and happy life for women,” Wilcox and Bailey explain.
Lies like these steer single women — and men — away from one of their best statistical chances at happiness and fulfillment. The testimonies of women like Erika Kirk help correct the record and encourage family formation over dependence on the government.
All Christians should follow her example.
Additional Articles and Resources
Marriage and Parenting Are Now Partisan Issues, With Liberals Falling Behind
Research Shows Marriage Boosts Well Being
Are Men or Women More Likely to Be Married?
New Research Shows Married Families Matter More Than Ever
Why You Should Care About the Growing Positive Power of Marriage
Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being
New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium
Cohabitation Still Harmful – Even as Stigma Disappears
Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Women
Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men.
Yes, Married Mothers Really Are Happier Than Unmarried and Childless Women
Marriage and the Public Good: A New Manifesto of Policy Proposals
