If sitcoms, movies, opinion pieces and mainstream editorials were our only source of information, we’d have to conclude that marriage is a path to misery, the “old ball and chain” that only ties us down, limits our freedom and stifles our sexual fun. Many people think of marriage less as “settling down” and more as “settling,” especially young people, who are told, “You’ve got plenty of time, live a little first” (as if life ends after the wedding).
The truth, however, is that marriage is, statistically, the single best predictor of long-term happiness. Writing at UnHerd, sociologist Brad Wilcox and the Institute for Family Studies’ David Bass pointed to new research from the University of Chicago that suggests that “Americans who are married with children are now leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless.” And it’s not just a little bit happier. According to Wilcox and Bass, there is a “startling 30-percentage-point happiness divide between married and unmarried Americans.”
In other words, in America, the happiness divide and the marriage divide are largely the same. Sam Peltzman, lead researcher behind the University of Chicago paper, isolated all other factors among thousands of respondents, including income, education, race, location, age and gender. “The most important differentiator” when it comes to who is happy and who is not, he concluded, is marriage. “Low happiness characterizes all types of non-married,” Peltzman writes, whether divorced, widowed or never married. “No subsequent population categorization will yield so large a difference in happiness across so many people.”
What makes this data even more important is that, for at least the last 20 years now, Americans have been steadily getting less happy. What this data suggests is that the decline of marriage over the last several decades is a cause of the decline in happiness. As Peltzman put it to The Atlantic, in statistical hyperbole, “The only happy people for 50 years have been married people.”
Of course, happiness isn’t the only or even the best reason to get married. Many things in life carry deep meaning and significance but don’t necessarily make us happy. A life lived only for happiness is a futile “chasing after the wind.” Enduring suffering, overcoming trials and tragedy, or sacrificing time, energy or even our lives for others are all richly worthwhile pursuits that yield rewards in eternity. Certainly, loving someone and raising godly children is worth it, even if it’s not always fun. And, of course, the meaning of “happiness” is malleable.