New research on marriage has drawn significant attention recently, leading to several widely read articles on the matter. Early last month, at UnHerd, in a piece entitled The best predictor of happiness in America? Marriage, authors W. Bradford Wilcox and David Bass write,
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.
Is that statement surprising? In an age that prizes individualism, workism, and a host of other self-centric “isms” above marriage and family, it may well be. But the reality is that nothing currently predicts happiness in life better than a good marriage.
The UnHerd authors base their conclusions on marriage and
happiness on new research
out of the University of Chicago. Looking at “The Socio Political
Demography of Happiness,” the research concluded, “Being married is the most
important differentiator with a 30-percentage point happy-unhappy gap over the
unmarried.”
On the results of the study, the researcher, Sam Peltzman declared,
Marital status is and has been a very important marker for happiness. The happiness landslide comes entirely from the married. Low happiness characterizes all types of non-married. No subsequent population categorization will yield so large a difference in happiness across so many people.
With countless amounts of anecdotal evidence, and with
decades of social
science research that shows
the same, there’s little
doubt that marriage is indeed an important “predictor” or “marker” for
happiness. However, this shouldn’t be confused with the idea that marriage is
the cause of happiness. In other words, if you’re miserably unhappy, or
even moderately so, don’t simply look to marriage to change this.
The latter conclusion is my own, based on my experiences,
knowledge, and observations of the world. However, there is research
that supports my conclusions as well. Additionally, another
article on the recent University of Chicago study—whether it means to or
not—supports my take on marriage and happiness. Ironically, this article is
written by what seems to be a rather liberal author—Olga Khazan—at the leftist
publication The Atlantic.
Miss Khazan begins her piece by citing the University of
Chicago study and concluding,
Married people are much happier than the unmarried, according to these data. Looking at those same 100 people, 40 married people will say they’re happy, and 10 will say they’re not happy. But single people are about evenly split between happy and not happy. It doesn’t really matter if you are divorced, are widowed, or have never married: If you’re not married, you’re less likely to be happy. “The only happy people for 50 years have been married people,” Peltzman told me.
This puzzles Miss Kahzan because, in her own words, “[A]fter
13 years of cohabitation, I’m currently trying to get married, and it’s not
making me very happy at all.” I have news for Miss Kahzan and all of those like
her: It is quite unlikely that marriage will do anything to increase your happiness.
Miss Kahzan’s scenario is quite telling and is a perfect
example to illustrate my conclusion on marriage and happiness. It is not the
mere act of marriage that brings, or increases, happiness. Perhaps this was
once the case in our culture, when there was a widespread, proper understanding
of what is marriage. However, in these times, where we have so perverted
the meaning of marriage, sex,
and
the like, almost certainly many of those who are looking to marriage to
increase their happiness will be sadly disappointed.
In other words, it’s those—whether they are married or not—with
the proper understanding of what is marriage who are most likely to be happy
before and after marriage. As Miss Kahzan herself admits, “marriage doesn’t
make you happy; rather, happy people get married.” She continues,
One 15-year study of more than 24,000 Germans, for instance, found that those who got married and stayed married were happier than the unmarried ones to begin with, and any happiness boost they got from the marriage was short-lived. “Most of the research indicates that the happiest couples marry, not that marriage causes happiness,” Brienna Perelli-Harris, a demography professor at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, told me over email.
So, who are these happy people? Most likely, they’re
Christians, or at least the “religious.” Again, there’s plenty of anecdotal
evidence that proves this true. As we live out our daily lives, typically those
who have a measure of faith in the One who made us are the most pleasant to encounter
and seem most content with the world around them. This is in spite of whatever
difficult circumstances they might find themselves in.
And yes, there is research that shows Christians, or at
least those who are “religious,” to be the happiest among us. In April of this
year, Christian Headlines declared
“Americans Who Believe in God Are the Happiest People in the U.S.” They based
this conclusion on a Wall
Street Journal-NORC survey and report,
A handful of strong beliefs separate those who are “very happy” from
the rest of Americans. An overwhelming majority of “very happy” people – 68
percent – say belief in God is very important to them. That’s a significantly
higher percentage than among the “pretty happy” group (47 percent) and the “not
too happy” group (42 percent).
“They tend to say belief in God is important,” The Wall Street Journal
reported of the very happy group. “Two-thirds describe themselves as very or
moderately religious, compared with less than half of adults overall.”
A 2019 Pew
Research Center study found “regular participation in a religious
community [emphasis by Pew] clearly is linked with higher levels of
happiness and civic engagement (specifically, voting in elections and joining
community groups or other voluntary organizations).” 2016
Pew research found similar results, noting that “highly religious” people
were happier than others. The “highly religious” are “overwhelmingly (95
percent) Protestant, Catholic or other Christians.”
In 2016, using data from a study by Great Britain’s Office
for National Statistics, The
Christian Post reported that, among all faith groups, Christians were the
happiest. The article declared, “Statistics from Britain's national happiness
index have suggested that Christians are among the happiest people in the
nation, while those who don’t identify with any particular religion generally
scored the lowest life satisfaction numbers.”
Christians are among the happiest people in the world, not
simply because of who we are—and not simply because we are more
likely to marry, or because of our
view on what is marriage—but because of who God is and because of all that He’s
done and will do. We’re generally a happy people because of the faith, hope, and
love, and all the other good “fruit” that permeates Christianity. Won’t you
join us?!
(See this column at American Thinker.)
Copyright 2023, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle
and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
