If I said that marriage is becoming irrelevant in the 21st century, few in the West would push back. Marriage is no longer a cornerstone of adulthood, it’s increasingly seen as optional or even outdated. As fewer people marry and family life grows more fragmented, the social fabric weakens in ways we’re only beginning to understand. In late June, I had the opportunity to learn about and discuss this very topic at a program hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. The AEI is best known for its work on economics and public policy, but the focus of this program wasn’t on GDP, inflation, or elections. It was something more subtle and more powerful that shapes all of those other elements from the inside out. As a bonus to an already fascinating topic, I was surrounded by people who weren’t just ambitious or smart, but genuinely thoughtful; young men and women who care about tradition, responsibility, building strong families, and making meaningful lives. Different hometowns, different perspectives, but one shared sense: that something in our generation’s approach to relationships is broken, and that it matters more than people think.
In contemporary culture, marriage and family are frequently viewed through an individualistic lens, as matters of personal preference rather than shared social foundations. But the data and lived experience tell a different story: the health of marriages and families is inseparably tied to the well-being of individuals, communities, and entire nations. Across the West, marriage rates have dropped dramatically. In the European Union, the crude marriage rate declined from 8.0 per 1,000 people in 1964 to just 4.0 in 2021 (Eurostat, 2023). At the same time, divorce rates remain high. In the U.S., the share of marriages ending in divorce nearly doubled between the 1960s and 1980s, before stabilizing around 39% in recent years (TIME, 2018). Among young adults, interest in marriage is also waning. A 2022 survey found that 17% of Millennials and Gen Z respondents in the U.S. say they do not plan to marry at all, while 83% believe marriage isn’t necessary for a fulfilling relationship (Thriving Center of Psychology, 2022).
It’s true that many today see marriage as just one option among many for a committed relationship. After all, if two people love each other and share a life, why does a legal contract or public ceremony matter? But that’s precisely the point: marriage is not just a personal preference, it’s a public commitment, a formal, intentional promise that shapes how couples invest in each other and in the future. Research shows that married couples are significantly more likely to stay together, accumulate wealth, and raise children in more stable environments than cohabiting couples (Institute for Family Studies, 2023). Long-term relationships without marriage tend to be more fragile, with higher rates of dissolution and lower levels of trust and mutual planning (Pew Research Center, 2019). Marriage changes the psychological frame: it signals permanence, invites accountability, and strengthens the resolve to endure hardship together (Time Magazine, 2019).
But let’s dig deeper. It’s no coincidence that young people across the Western world are increasingly anxious, lonely, and directionless. The 2024 World Happiness Report shows that people under 30 in North America and Western Europe have experienced the sharpest declines in well-being. The United States, for the first time, has fallen out of the top 20 happiest nations, a drop driven largely by younger generations (World Happiness Report, 2024). Economic instability, climate dread, political breakdown, the digital age — these are common explanations, and they all hold truth. But they miss something more basic and human. At the root of much of this malaise lies something harder to quantify: the breakdown of love, loyalty, and long-term commitment. Marriage rates are falling. More and more young adults are aging out of their twenties without relationships, without children, and often without any vision of what family life could or should look like. This isn’t just a lifestyle shift, it’s a civilizational warning sign. The most important predictor of adult happiness is not wealth, status, or achievement. It’s love. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, an 85-year longitudinal study, concluded that the single greatest determinant of a good life is close, enduring relationships. As its former director Dr. George Vaillant put it, “Happiness is love. Full stop.” And yet the very institution most likely to sustain that kind of love is steadily disappearing.
One of the most sobering themes that emerged during our AEI seminar was the growing rift between young men and women. Gen Z has been called the loneliest generation, and with reason: according to a 2023 CDC report, nearly 1 in 3 teenage girls said they had seriously considered suicide, while young men face rising rates of isolation, addiction, and disengagement. Many young men are pulling back not just from relationships, but from work, ambition, and social life. Across the European Union, male youth unemployment (ages 15–24) remains significantly high, reaching 14.8% in April 2025 — more than double the overall EU unemployment rate. Meanwhile, educational attainment shows a widening gender gap: as of 2024, only 39% of men aged 30–34 in Europe held tertiary degrees, compared to 50% of women. This growing disparity contributes to the perception among many young men that the traditional roles they once aspired to — protector, provider, builder — are now seen as relics or even liabilities. Masculinity is often treated not as something to guide, but something to fix or suppress. Many retreat into passivity, rage, or algorithm-driven escapism.
Meanwhile, young women face a different but equally corrosive set of cultural pressures. They are encouraged to pursue education, independence, and professional ambition — goals that have successfully expanded women’s freedom and opportunity over the past half-century. But alongside those valuable gains, a more insidious message has emerged: that serious relationships, emotional vulnerability, or long-term commitment are threats to autonomy rather than pathways to flourishing. Career-first narratives treat family formation as something to delay indefinitely. Hookup culture normalizes emotional detachment. And the result is not empowerment, but exhaustion. What’s often lost in this narrative is that a stable partnership is not the enemy of female empowerment; rather, it’s one of its strongest allies. Contrary to the belief that marriage primarily benefits men, the data overwhelmingly show that marriage brings substantial and measurable advantages to women, too. Women in intact marriages report higher levels of happiness and mental health than their unmarried or cohabiting peers, even when controlling for income and education. A 2022 study from the Institute for Family Studies found that married mothers are significantly less likely to experience depression compared to single or cohabiting mothers, even after adjusting for socioeconomic status. Marriage also offers a powerful buffer against poverty: according to Census Bureau data, only 5% of married families with children live below the poverty line, compared to over 30% of single-mother households. For working-class women especially, marriage can mean the difference between long-term stability and chronic precarity.
But the benefits don’t stop with women themselves; they extend powerfully to the next generation of girls. Daughters raised in stable, married-parent homes are more likely to finish high school, attend college, delay sexual activity, and avoid early pregnancy. They are more likely to grow up with a stable sense of self-worth and emotional security, and to report higher levels of trust in future relationships. In other words, the conditions that most support female agency in adulthood — education, delayed childbearing, emotional resilience — are best cultivated within the structure of an intact, committed home. This is the paradox our culture often refuses to acknowledge: the very institution dismissed as outdated or patriarchal is one of the most reliable predictors of female success because it supports them economically, emotionally, and generationally.
So if Gen Z is the loneliest generation, it’s also one at war with itself. Young men and women aren’t just growing apart socially or romantically; they’re drifting apart politically, economically, and ideologically. Across much of the West, this gap is widening. A 2023 YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project survey found that in countries like the UK, Germany, and France, women under 30 are far more likely than men their age to support progressive social policies, identify with feminist values, and express distrust in traditional male roles. In the U.S., Gallup data shows the gender gap in political ideology among young adults is now the widest it has been in decades. This division runs deeper than politics. A “you did this to me” mindset has begun to take hold on both sides. Many young women, shaped by generations of hard-won progress, view traditional masculinity with skepticism or ridicule. Many young men, feeling displaced or dismissed, turn to online personalities who validate their sense of rejection through resentment and bravado.
While we are quick to laugh off terms like “male loneliness epidemic,” we must acknowledge that many young men feel undervalued or unwanted. Equally, many young women feel let down or exhausted by emotional immaturity. We must also change our use of social media, as algorithms only widen the gap: TikTok and Instagram feed young women content urging them to cut off relationships at the first sign of discomfort, while many male influencers promote detachment, control, and the normalization of pornography as a substitute for intimacy. This divide delays emotional maturity and undermines the trust and mutual understanding on which stable relationships and future families depend.
So what can we actually do? First, we have to recognize that this emotional and relational breakdown isn’t just sad, it’s destabilizing the foundation of our future. The growing rift between men and women is a public crisis with generational consequences. Rebuilding trust between the sexes won’t happen through lectures, policies, or dating apps. It begins with a cultural reset and it starts with us. As individuals, we need to stop seeing relationships as transactions or threats to autonomy, and start seeing them as the training ground for adulthood, empathy, and growth. That means doing the hard, vulnerable work: showing up with sincerity, learning to take rejection without resentment, and refusing the cheap comfort of algorithmic echo chambers that mock the opposite sex — and investing more in face-to-face relationships where empathy is built and nuance is possible. It means resisting cynicism, choosing patience over short-term gratification, and recognizing that intimacy is not a product but a process. For men, it may look like reimagining masculinity not as something to suppress, but to channel toward emotional and physical protection, purpose, and quiet strength. For women, it may mean recognizing that vulnerability is not weakness, and that chivalry doesn’t imply judgment of ability. After all, we need both healthy men and women to form strong families.
This brings me to the “family diversity myth” we discussed at the AEI. Contrary to the modern perception that family can mean whatever we want it to mean, its structure is a critical determinant of child development, supported by decades of sociological and economic research. Children raised by both a committed mother and father consistently show better outcomes. This is not because of rigid gender roles, but because mothers and fathers contribute distinct and complementary strengths. Sociologists have observed that fathers typically engage in boundary-testing, physically stimulating play such as roughhousing and “tickle and toss” games that foster resilience, risk assessment, and social navigation. Mothers, by contrast, are more likely to provide soothing, protection, and emotional regulation, helping create a strong internal world. These roles are vitally synergistic. Their combined presence offers developmental advantages that neither parent can fully replicate alone.
When this structure is disrupted, children face measurable disadvantages. According to McLanahan and Sandefur’s landmark study (Growing Up with a Single Parent, 1994), children from single-parent households are roughly twice as likely to experience poverty, behavioral problems, and lower academic performance compared to peers raised by married biological parents. More recent data from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS, 2023) shows that boys raised in non-intact families are more likely to end up incarcerated than to earn a college degree by their late twenties. In contrast, boys raised by their married biological parents are nearly 20 percentage points more likely to graduate from college than enter the criminal justice system.
Beyond that, marriage also provides an unparalleled layer of economic security for children. Pew Research (2023) reports that married households in the United States hold ten times the median wealth of unmarried ones. This wealth gap stems not only from two incomes but from shared expenses, long-term planning, and the social and legal stability marriage affords. Despite this, cultural and policy trends are moving in the opposite direction. Nearly one in three young adults in the West may never marry, and one in four may never have children. Meanwhile, many family policies prioritize individual parental support while minimizing the importance of marital stability, often treating long-term relational commitment as optional or irrelevant. Pop culture reinforces this trend, frequently portraying single parenthood as a symbol of strength and independence, while downplaying its long-term developmental and economic costs. This is not an argument for a one-size-fits-all family model, nor a judgment of those who raise children under difficult circumstances. But the research is unequivocal: stable, two-parent families, especially those formed by married biological parents, offer children the greatest likelihood of success across virtually every measurable domain.
One of the most important takeaways from our seminar was how deeply our worldview shapes relationships. It turns out that what people expect from marriage, what they think it’s for, can determine whether or not it survives. And no worldview offers a more time-tested framework for resilient relationships than faith. Religious couples across denominations tend to report higher levels of marital satisfaction and lower rates of divorce. In religious communities, marriage is not solely a romantic ideal to pursue. It’s a vow to grow into. It’s not about seamless compatibility but about covenant.
Brad Wilcox illustrates this difference powerfully in his book Get Married. He contrasts the “soulmate model” of marriage with what he calls the “family-first” approach. The soulmate model says marriage should be an emotionally intense, ever-fulfilling connection with your ideal partner; someone who understands you completely, meets your emotional needs effortlessly, and makes you feel alive. It’s the Hollywood version of love. The problem is, it breaks down the moment real life hits. Wilcox points to Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling memoir, as a prime example. Gilbert famously leaves her husband because their intimacy has faded and the “magic” has disappeared. She travels the world searching for passion and freedom, believing that if marriage no longer feels exciting or emotionally fulfilling, it must be wrong. But this approach sets people up for disappointment. Love fades and returns. Stress, children, illness, and age all change the nature of a relationship. If your standard is “this should always feel amazing,” you’re almost guaranteed to walk away the first time it doesn’t. This also sheds light on why the “soulmate” she meets in Bali at the end of her journey is the same man Liz Gilbert left eight years later, after meeting her next “soulmate.”
In contrast, the family-first model sees marriage as a partnership rooted in something more durable than feelings: shared responsibilities, long-term planning, and mutual commitment. It’s not that emotional connection doesn’t matter; it does. But it’s built through shared work and weathered storms, not in spite of them. That bond, tested and deepened over time, becomes the real love story. Religious and conservative couples are more likely to embrace this family-first perspective. Not because they lack romance or passion, but because their view of marriage includes sacrifice, duty, and faith in something beyond themselves. When marriage is seen not just as personal fulfillment but as a sacred responsibility, anchored in a shared faith or higher purpose, it becomes more resilient. Of course, faith doesn’t guarantee a good marriage. But it offers a sturdier foundation. A religious view of love teaches that feelings fluctuate, but promises endure. That the work is the beauty. That being “easy to love” was never the goal; being faithful was. At its core, marriage is not about perfection. It’s about becoming. It gives you someone to become better for. Someone to build with. Someone to love even when it’s hard, and to be loved by when you least deserve it.
In contrast, a perpetual state of moral outrage, uncertainty, and crisis-thinking, as is common in many progressive spaces, can take a serious emotional toll on individuals and families. And therein lies the paradox: reclaiming a life of commitment and shared purpose that asks more of you than self-expression can be profoundly liberating, not limiting.
Wrestling with the critique of modern individualism was one of the most difficult parts of my week at AEI. I’ve always valued autonomy and self-expression, the freedom to pursue my own path. So when I heard arguments suggesting that individualism might be part of the reason for the breakdown of modern relationships, I bristled. It felt like a dismissal of personal freedom, the very thing many of us were raised to see as sacred. But as the conversations unfolded, I started to see the unintended consequences of this cultural shift. Since the rise of expressive individualism in the 1970s, divorce rates nearly doubled, and marriage became less stable, less expected, and more focused on personal fulfillment than shared purpose. The message was clear: be true to yourself, even if that means walking away. But over time, I realized something crucial: individual flourishing and marital commitment are not in conflict, they can actually reinforce one another. A strong marriage doesn’t erase your identity; it shapes and strengthens it. It gives you a reason to grow, someone to become better for, and a stable foundation from which to take risks, create, and contribute. If we take rational self-interest seriously, as many individualists do, then marriage offers one of the best long-term investments we can make. It builds emotional resilience, offers consistent support, and challenges us to live beyond momentary desires. I haven’t stopped believing in the value of personal autonomy. But I’ve come to see that freedom without structure often leads to fragmentation. Marriage, rightly understood, isn’t the end of selfhood, it’s the context in which the self matures.
We live in a world that doesn’t necessarily reward this perception. That treats commitment like confinement and idolizes independence. That confuses detachment with strength. But beneath that noise, something quieter is stirring. There are still young people, my peers, who want more. Those who are not content to drift. Those who choose love over fear, duty over distraction, purpose over passivity. People who want to raise children, build homes, and better themselves. Who understand that the future isn’t something we inherit, it’s something we shape. And that marriage and family are still the most powerful ways we do it. That, more than anything else I learned during my week at AEI, is what gives me hope.
What now? For all the talk of liberation and progress, we’ve forgotten that real freedom isn’t found in isolation; it’s found in rootedness. In commitment, purpose, and love that endures. We need to recover a vision of marriage not as a capstone to personal achievement, but as a cornerstone for building a meaningful, resilient life; something to grow from, not something to reward ourselves with after everything else is in place. Marriage isn’t a cage; it’s a covenant that liberates. It creates the space where individuals can become their strongest, fullest selves, not by drifting alone, but by building something with and for others. After all, strong families don’t just protect individuals, they hold up entire communities. They create trust, pass on values, nurture resilience, and raise the kind of citizens who can carry a civilization. A society grounded in stable marriages and committed parents is a society much harder to fracture, manipulate, or erase.
So get married. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s good. Do it because sovereignty is worth protecting, and strong families are its first and fiercest defenders.
