marriage

New Family Study Shows Importance of Married Parenting

It has long been established, since the deeply important 1966 Coleman Report on childhood education in America, that family form and parents’ levels of involvement in raising their children are paramount in boosting child well-being and thriving. As the Coleman Report found and explained, “Studies of school achievement have consistently shown that variations in family background account for far more variation in school achievement than do variations in school characteristics.”

More recently, scholars have found the same thing. William Jeynes, professor of education at California State University – Long Beach, explains from his own research that the educational achievement gap between white, African American and Latino students “totally disappeared” when minority students have a vibrant personal faith and come from a married home where the child is biologically related to mother and father. He explains this is true even after adjusting forindividual socioeconomic status.

Jeynes explains,

The family elements that were most strongly associated with a reduction in the achievement gap were coming from a two-biological-parent family and high levels of parental involvement. These are interrelated: when two parents are present, this maximizes the frequency and quality of parental involvement. 

He adds another important benefit: serious faith. He explains,

In addition to family structure, a student’s faith also has a significant impact on his or her academic performance. Regularly attending church, or another house of worship, and defining oneself as being a very religious person yielded the most significant reductions in the achievement gap.

He asserts, “Numerous research studies have concluded that family factors are far more salient than school factors in influencing achievement.” This was true in the 1960s, and remains true today.

New research on social mobility from a non-partisan research think-tank in Washington D.C., the Archbridge Institute, adds to the finding that family formation and close parental involvement boost child well-being. Archbridge defines social mobility as “the opportunity to better oneself and those around them,” evidenced in climbing the socio-economic ladder and earning more than one’s parents.

These scholars explain that there are artificial and natural barriers to one’s social mobility. “Artificial barriers are imposed by an external authority and usually affect a class of people.” Natural barriers are different. They “occur naturally without any external imposition and typically exist at the individual level” the report states.

The artificial barriers they highlight in a person’s youth are “educational quality, minimum wage” and any “marriage penalty [policy] hindering family formation.” The natural barriers are “out of wedlock births, lack of parental engagement [and], lack of unsupervised playtime.”

In a write-up of their report for the Institute for Family Studies, the Archbridge team clarifies, “While education, entrepreneurship, and the rule of law remain critical pillars of … mobility metrics, family factors constitute the first stage where opportunity can either take root or begin to wither.” They add, “The home sets the trajectory for developing cognitive skills, character traits, and the soft skills associated with long-term flourishing.”

They find it true that “healthy family structures shape a child’s potential for mobility, and at the same time, the surrounding public policy environment can either support or impede opportunities for parents to promote a bright future for their children.” These natural and artificial factors must work in tandem to make sure children have the best opportunities. Thus, these scholars remind us, “While mitigating natural barriers remains the responsibility of parents, the removal of artificial barriers to family stability are the responsibility of each citizen.” This is why knowledge of and engagement in public policy is everyone’s civic duty. Focus on the Family offers help to families.

This Archbridge report examined which states and regions in the United States provide the most ideal environments for social mobility. They found that Utah provided the best environment and Louisiana had the worst for social mobility. The South and Mid-Atlantic regions offered the worst opportunities, and the Western Mountain and Upper Mid-Plains states offered the best opportunities.

This is simply more research documenting the previously established essential role that marriage, family structure, and daily mother/father involvement in the lives of their children has on elevating important measures of child well-being. 

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Research Shows Marriage Changes People for the Better in Newlywed Years

Research has long shown that marriage adjusts men and women’s personalities for the better through marriage. But a groundbreaking longitudinal study published in the journal Developmental Psychology demonstrates how this happens in strong ways in the first two years of marriage. It also shows how these changes affect long-term marital satisfaction. It is the first such study to examine this important dynamic in early marriage.

These researchers, working collaboratively from the University of Georgia and UCLA, explain their “findings indicate that newlywed spouses’ personalities undergo meaningful changes during the newlywed years and these changes are associated with changes in spouses’ marital satisfaction.”

They also found that these personality benefits happened within marriage, but not during the cohabiting years for those couples who had cohabited prior to marriage. This indicates that the relationally clarifying experience of marriage has an impact on how husbands and wives change and adjust that the relationally ambiguous experience of cohabitation does not provide.

These researchers found that husbands, in the first 18 months of marriage, demonstrated “significant declines in extraversion” meaning they settled down into their marital relationship, focusing on their wife and marriage. This is supported by earlier research by Nobel prize winning scholar George Akerlof who concludes, “There is no question that there is a very large difference in behavior between single and married men.” He adds that “men settle down when they get married” and “if they fail to get married, they fail to settle down.”

Husbands were also shown to demonstrate “a significant increase in conscientiousness” thus becoming more wife-focused, responsible, organized and dependable.

Wives also demonstrated “significant declines in neuroticism” which is clinical language for reductions in anxiety, depression, hostility, self-consciousness, impulsiveness and vulnerability to stress.

These positive changes existed for husbands and wives regardless of age, length of premarital relationship or other baseline differences.

A negative was that these researchers also found that “agreeableness” of husbands and wives declined on average, noting this as “a more maladaptive change” and that “this surprising finding is inconsistent with previous research.” They assume this could be due to adjustments in the transitional nature of marriage, going from a single and courtship posture into an established marriage life negotiation of having to consider the needs and particular desires of a spouse. They hypothesize that agreeableness would increase as the couple adjusts to one another in their married life together.

The study authors conclude, “Taken together, these findings indicate that newlywed spouses’ personalities undergo meaningful changes during the newlywed years and these changes are associated with changes in spouses’ marital satisfaction.”

A heightened sense of conscientiousness in husbands and lowered presence of anxiety in wives translated into greater marital satisfaction for the couple in the long run.

This research shows that marriage is indeed different than cohabitation in that it transforms the husband and wife in notable ways. Marriage clarifies the nature of the relationship through its solemn vows, binding legal status and public celebration before the bride and groom’s family and friends. It is helpful to observe its transformative power through good social science.

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Good Marriages Begin in Childhood

Marriage rates have been declining for decades, a tragic development with far-reaching consequences that are becoming more and more apparent with each passing year.

Not surprisingly, advocates for the sacred institution have been sounding the alarm all along. One tactic has been impassioned pleas for its importance. In fact, my colleague and friend Glenn Stanton devoted an entire book to the subject. He titled it, “Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society.”

Glenn wrote another book echoing a similar theme but with an added warning: “The Ring Makes All the Difference: The Hidden Consequences of Cohabitation and the Strong Benefits of Marriage.”

You may have read recently that the divorce rate is declining, a soundbite that strikes something of a hopeful note until you realize it’s largely because fewer people are getting married and fewer families are being formed.

But writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Leah Libresco Sargeant, a writer and speaker who studies these topics, makes an insightful observation. She suggests it’s not that young people don’t realize how important marriage is or how consequential the marital dearth trend can be. Instead, she claims they feel wholly inadequate to get married and meet the heady responsibilities of being a husband or wife:

If we want to see marriages rebound, it isn’t enough to focus on expanding blue-collar work. High-school seniors need to have more faith they can handle the duties of marriage and child-rearing. Giving them more lectures on how important marriage is won’t do it — they think so highly of the institution that they judge themselves incapable of living up to it. Kids need more time away from adult supervision, pursuing projects of their own design, with the freedom to fail and to learn.

Ms. Sargeant then gets practical:

My husband was marriageable well before he landed his first job because he’d spent his homeschooling years organizing a student Shakespeare troupe. No adult would come to the rescue when “the show must go on” — it was up to him to find a solution or inspire a peer to step up. Young men need to take ownership of smaller projects before they’re prepared to be good partners in marriage. 

Many parents lament the loss of traditional jobs that the youth of their era embraced as teenagers. These included such tasks as delivering newspapers and mowing grass or shoveling snow. Not only are physical newspapers declining or dying, but the few papers left are usually delivered in cars in the predawn dark. The neighborhood teen lawn or snow laborer now competes with crews in trucks with sophisticated equipment who can get a job done in 15 minutes.

Challenges notwithstanding, Ms. Sergeant in nevertheless correct. Young men and women need to be given hard things to do. It’s a healthy thing to be stretched and even strained. It’s also okay to flop, flail and even fail when you’re a teenager. The consequences of making mistakes when you’re young are quite low and the upside is quite high.

Moms and dads would be wise to give their children lots of chores and responsibilities like cooking and cleaning. Encourage them to advertise themselves to trustworthy neighbors. There are dogs to be walked, basements and garages to be cleaned and any number of chores to be done in the yard. You might even consider allowing them to help contribute to the family budget. Once I hit high school, my parents told me any basketball shoes or baseball and football cleats were my financial responsibility. It helped me feel grownup.

Encouraging high school age children to organize a Shakespeare troupe takes things to the next level. But you don’t have to be a fan of great literature to be similarly challenged. There is-student led Bible studies to be run, wholesome social events to host, pregame or postgame prayer gatherings after football or other sporting events.

Many Christian parents rightly pray for their children’s spouse long before the man or woman is ever revealed. In addition to that deliberate and critical spiritual preparation, mothers and fathers should recognize the important role they play in helping their sons and daughters get ready for marriage – and it might even start by having them unload the dishwasher on a daily basis.

Best Age to Marry? Good Research Offers an Answer

Most everyone who marries intends to be married for life, for isn’t that what our marriage vows promise, to “have and to hold from this day forward, … till death do us part?”

Thus, parents and young adults ask this question quite often: What is the best age to marry?

They want to make sure that new marriages are established upon the strongest foundation of life, love, experience, and maturity.

But more people are putting off marriage until later in life. Today, the median age at first marriage in the United States is 30 for men and 28 for women. It has been rising markedly since 1960 where it was 23 for men and 20 for women. In 2000, it was 27 for men and 25 for women.

Is this delay in marriage wise? Is there an age at first marriage that is more ideal for marital longevity than others for men and women? Let’s look at what the research says.

A 2010 study conducted by Norval Glenn, a noted and now deceased sociologist of family from the University of Texas Austin, reported, “The greatest indicated likelihood of being in an intact marriage of the highest quality is among those who married at ages 22–25.” He adds that “findings do suggest that most persons have little or nothing to gain in the way of marital success by deliberately postponing marriage beyond the mid-twenties.”

A 2023 study of this question was conducted by a careful graduate student at Brigham Young University, Anne Marie Wright Jones. The scholar examined 16 marriage quality measures – things such as forgiveness, relationship communication, conflict management, relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and marital instability – relative to age at first marriage.  

She explains, “I found few significant links between age at marriage and marital quality for women or men. When statistically significant relationships emerged, they were relatively weak.” 

Marital relationship satisfaction by age at first marriage looked like this:

She adds, “Also, while most men and women were happy in their marriage, age at marriage did not significantly influence their marital happiness.” She also found that “the presence of children, are a much stronger predictor of marital quality than age at marriage.” Her data showed “little support for the widely-accepted idea that marrying in your early 20s produces lower quality marriages.”

Capstone or Cornerstone Marriages?

Widely respected sociologist of marriage Andrew Cherlin was likely the first scholar to distinguish between what have become known as capstone and cornerstone marriages. What are these?

Capstone marriages are those that take place in later 20s or 30s, as the crowning capstone on individual educational and career achievements by the man and woman. Cherlin explained this in 2004: Marriage is now more often “a status one builds up to, often by living with a partner beforehand, by attaining steady employment or starting a career, by putting away some savings, and even by having children.” Marriage as the final, celebratory cap on material and status achievement.

Cornerstone marriages are essentially marriages where a couple marries in their early 20s and the marriage serves as their foundation of building a life of further education, career establishment and having kids together. For these, marriage is the foundational cornerstone facilitating life achievement and family growth.

Cherlin adds:

Marriage’s place in the life course used to come before those investments were made, but now it often comes afterward. It used to be the foundation of adult personal life; now it is sometimes the capstone.

These are indeed two competing views of marriage in the adult life course. Is one better at establishing a long-term, healthy marriage and life than the other? Many assume capstone marriages would be stronger because they come after schooling and career are established. This does not appear to be true.

The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia released a report in 2022 which employed three reputable datasets with large, nationally representative samples to compare marital success outcomes from cornerstone and capstone marriages. The team “found little evidence that capstone marriages are more stable than cornerstone marriages.”

In fact, they found “some evidence that, on average, cornerstone or early marriages may enjoy slightly higher relationship quality than capstone marriages.”

The good folks at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) have written two very helpful articles on the positives of early adulthood marriages.

One entitled “Marry Early and Flourish Together” makes the case for the measurable benefits of early twenty-something marriages. After presenting compelling research evidence for his case, author Kasen Stephensen concludes:

By seeking marriage earlier rather than postponing it indefinitely, you’re not just avoiding the frantic musical chairs of your 30s – you’re creating the opportunity to dance through life’s challenges and triumphs with someone who loves you, supports you, and helps you grow.

The other IFS piece, by Lyman Stone and Brad Wilcox, presents “evidence suggesting that religious Americans are less likely to divorce even as they are more likely to marry younger than 30.” One leading reason is because “religious marriages in America may be more stable is that religion reduces young adults’ odds of cohabiting prior to marriage, even though it increases their likelihood of marrying at a relatively young age.”

Finally, noted University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus has also persuasively made a case for wisdom of early marriages. In 2009 he contended:

If a young couple displays maturity, faith, fidelity, a commitment to understanding marriage as a covenant, and a sense of realism about marriage, then it’s our duty – indeed, our pleasure – to help them expedite the part of marriage that involves public recognition and celebration of what God is already knitting together. We ought to “rejoice and delight” in them, and praise their love (Song of Sol. 1:4).
Conclusion

Marriage is vitally important. Society cannot function without it, literally. So, founding new marriages on a strong foundation is essential, not just for the couple, but for the community.

There are compelling reasons why early twenty-something marriage can be wise for young, mature couples of serious faith who have the support of their parents. It can serve as a helpful and empowering cornerstone for a long, prosperous and rewarding life of growing together. It can also serve as a witness and encouragement to others who are considering marriage but believe the growing societal script that they are “too young to marry.”

Afterall, ask any couple who has been married fifty years or more, and you are likely to hear a story of an early twenty-something marriage that served as their own cornerstone launching pad for the successful and rewarding life they now live.

Related Articles and Resources

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.

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New Research Shows Marriage and Fatherhood Regulate Male Sexual Energy

Did you know that when men marry according to God’s design and become fathers, nature is aligned in such a way that it lowers their testosterone (T) levels in helpful ways? Men with lower T tend to be more focused on their duties toward marriage and family as it lowers libido, aggression and infidelity risk. This increases nurturing behaviors and long-term pair-bonding. The Daily Citizen reported on this larger body of research last year.

But new research conducted by scholars from the University of Notre Dame have shown that this reduction in T induced by marriage and fatherhood remains for years, even decades and is maintained with the addition of more children into one’s family. A data graph from this study demonstrates that partnered men (P) with one or more children have the lowest T levels among peers in other familial settings or being single.

These scholars explain, “Specifically, we found that partnered men living with older children, particularly two or more, had lower testosterone than single men and partnered men not residing with children.” The effect size was notable. They add, “This is among the first evidence showing lower testosterone in … fathers with older children, specifically.”

They also explain, “In our analysis of young-to-middle aged U.S. men, we found that partnered men, including those residing with children, did not have increased risk of clinically-low testosterone compared to single men not living with children.” This means that T reduction for married fathers is at ideally helpful levels and not harmful to health and well-being.

These researchers explain that “fathers with lower testosterone engage in more nurturant, direct care of children and have higher quality relationships” with their wives.

There has been a good bit of research published on this question over the last 20 years.

A 10-year follow-up study of over one thousand 30 to 60-year-old men published in 2017 observed how T declined as men entered into marriage and lived as husbands, as opposed to just comparing married with unmarried men. These men were part of a long-term health survey in Denmark. The research team reports, “We observed that men who went from unmarried to married experienced the largest decline in circulating T levels over a ten-year period.” Men newly divorced experienced increased T levels as they found themselves back “on the market.”

A 2015 study in the journal Evolutionary Psychology found that outside of marriage “men in polyamorous relationships (with multiple committed partners) have greater levels of testosterone than those in monogamous relationships.” Wives settle men down, but multiple women as partners have the opposite effect. And the more permanent and long-term the relationship, the lower the T levels, compared to single men. This study also explains, “Further findings suggest that fathers have lower levels of testosterone than non-fathers independently of relationship status, and that pair-bonded fathers demonstrate lower levels than pair-bonded non-fathers.”

A 2011 study, conducted by the author of this new Notre Dame study, demonstrates how testosterone levels properly fluctuate for men through the life-course of seeking a mate, living as a settled-down married men, then as a father:

Using longitudinal data, these results demonstrate that high T not only predicts mating success (i.e., partnering with a female and fathering a child) in human males but that T is then greatly reduced after men enter stable relationships and become fathers.

 One of the earlier efforts to study this phenomenon, a 2002 Harvard paper published in Evolution and Human Behavior, established that controlling for age, married fathers have markedly lower T levels compare to their unmarried peers and slightly lower levels compared to married men without children.

This chart shows the distinction:

In a 2006 Canadian study, investigators state bluntly that their data “suggests that the relationship between T and partner status is only seen in individuals who are interested in, and partner with, women.” Very interesting.

Men do not tend to settle other men down. Wives and mothers do this for men because female sexuality and biology are more family focused. George Gilder explains this in his critically important work, Men and Marriage: “The crucial process of civilization is the subordination of male sexual impulses and biology to the long-term horizons of female sexuality.”

This influential exchange between men and women is something that family health and longevity require. Research from leading universities around the world tell us this happens at a very intimate and invisible hormonal level between husband and wife.

We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.