#745 - Brad Wilcox - Is Marriage Actually Worth It?
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Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My yesterday is brand wilcox. He's a professor of sociology, but the university of Virginia and director of the national marriage project. Many online discussions are casting doubt on the role of marriage.

Is IT actually a bad deal for men and to women? Is IT dangerous for people to get into? What does the evidence actually suggest as the life outcomes for marry people's happiness, especially in a world with rising divorces, expect to learn if marriage is a terrible idea for men in the modern era, the correlation between your marital status and financial status, what happens to man and women's bodies after they get married, why marriage rates are mining, whether cohabitation is good enough for raising children, whether you should have a print up, and much more interesting conversation.

This is a hot topic at the moment. Both sides of the internet seem to say that marriage is a very bad idea, and bradd is sticking his neck out, saying that he believes otherwise. Are very intrigued to see what the next few years of marriage rates and divorce rates have in store, whether it's going to be another counter revolution or trends will continue the way that they are.

Anyway, this monday, a brand knew three hour long podcast episode with eric weinstein goes alive. So if you're a new here or if you're a long time, listen, you might not have hit subscribed and that means you will miss the episode when IT goes. So please navigate to apple podcast or spotify and to hit the subscribe button to ensure that you don't miss episodes when they go up and so that you can support the show and so that you make me very happy. I thank you.

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But now, ladies and gentleman, please welcome bread, willcox.

What do you think about people on the internet who say that marriage is a terrible deal for men and women?

Yeah Chris, you know i've been sort of playing the marriage born for a long time and it's primarily been kind of critical focus, the left and the mainstream of media. As you know, i've kind of gone after focus a bloomberg, new york times and elsewhere.

What's kind of knew is we're getting all these voices from the online right, from the red pull right, you know like androtten and prod David who are you know saying things like imperils words that the mars a descent for men or you know in Andrew tes words that um basically um there's no return you know on marriage their zero advantage is his is terminology mama comes to getting married so we're kind of getting IT now from the left and the right here and um I think it's in some ways emblematic of the difficulties that of course comes primary from the women on the left and primary in the man the right and it's partly kind of reflection of the difficulties that a lot of Younger adults are facing in finding, you know uh, a spouse, finding a partner who would be worthy of marriage. And so let's probably kind of expression of frustration, but I think IT also kind of conveys what I call of the matters mindset, not the idea that what really matters in life is work. It's money. It's kind of building your own brand and I think in different ways these spokespeople are kind of um you know propagating this modest mindset because you they think that the real action is where um you know your work is that you where your your brand is that where your bank accounts at.

You definitely see this from the left, that women on the left, in a perhaps surprising way that you wouldn't have done fifty years ago whereby IT is all about financial security and being a boss, bitch and being independent. And I don't need no man and know if he comes to me, fine, but i'm not gonna looking for him. So that seems to be the equipment, that odd horse theory, where some elements of the right and some elements of the left end up kind of saying very similar talking points, even though they don't agree on everything else.

Yeah, no, it's striking. Is sort of how similar other message is. Mean, they're of encouraging women and men separately to kind of stay free of family incomprehension, stay free of marriage, and you to pursue individualism, to pursue money, pursue career in different ways. And at that sort of the pathway towards filming, when in fact, the data leaders always seen a very different direction.

What is happening with current marriage rights? Give me the thirty thousand full of you.

yes. So I think that certainly one of the one of the the pieces of bad news that I convey in the book, that is the marriage has come down about sixty five percent. What we're seeing now in the adult populations, just under fifty percent of folks are merits kind of you know.

that's that's a new record of new low. Where would that have been if it's at fifty percent now I just why would that have been thirty years ago, fifty years ago.

whatever seventy five percent, you know what we're talking like? You know the late sixties, early seventies, basically. So um so that's obviously a big change in recent decades.

And then we're also projecting to um you know between eighty ninety percent of folks would have been getting married you know coming of age um in you know in the seventies. You give her take where is today. We're projecting that probably more than one and four Young adults twenty days will never get married. This is going to a record demographic territory that, that we're entering into um and this means there be a lot of kind of permanent bacheller and permanent bachelor rs, at least when I comes to sort of having put a ring on IT in in this culture today.

what is driving this? We talked about you know some cultural forces that are going on and some memes and some movements and stuff like that. But from my position, they usually seem to be in reaction. It's a cope is not always there are people who genuinely believe these things, but there's a lot of people retreating into their in the city's of I have struggled to make this work. Therefore, this is the phone, sophy, that I find.

And if what you say is correct that you're going to have more people who are potentially participants of this new party than people aren't, that's going to allow IT to proferred more and get more, more popular. But like structurally, what's happening? What are the other big dynamics that are causing this increase in lack of marriage?

Yeah I think you know obviously there's an economic story here um on the one hand, as a society we can work very affluence so we don't depend upon marriage economically like we did in earlier centuries. That's that's part of the story. At the same time, the economy is kind of moved in directions that have made a whole class of men less economically valuable, less needed in today's world and to their less attractive as as husbands.

Um they're more like to get divorce if they do end up marry down the ros. So I think the fact that men who are not kind of oriented towards the information economy are struggling more um is part of the economic story. Um when IT comes to policies a lot, our policies end up kind of palliser marriage unwittingly.

Things like medical for instance. I've talked to just recently here and just I talk to we we're having a marriage of vanted a restaurant and so one of the waitresses ses engaging afterwards and he was kind of saying what SHE and her husband are together. They're not legal ally married.

I've got two kids and I got to the story, well, you know SHE gets her insurance for medicate and where they to get married, they move above that threshold um and lose access to medicate for her and for her two her two kids. So there's ways in which our public policies unintentionally canalized marriage. Culturally, I think obviously seen as big shift towards individualism since late one thousand nine hundred and sixties that have um you know made us think more about ourselves and less about others and that plays into marriage and family and obvious ways.

We've also seen a parallel shift away from religion um which is also a big factor, I think in the decline of marriage since religions are big, predict both of getting married in and staying married in having children um and then I think there's just been this kind of um I just describe really as a kind of of minus mindset where I think in part the rise of the internet, the rise of smart phones, urbanization as well as a lot of good work has been done in in in asia um from psychologist in asia. I'm just basically if many people focus a lot more on on on status and on kind of their prospects sort of in the mating sector, but less on kind of like actually putting a ring on IT and transitioning and you know having kids and having a family. So there's a kind of arrested. It's not adolescent so much as kind of an arrested sort of Young adult hood where people you know are just focusing on that sort of twenty something stage of life and not transitioning into into marriage and parent hood. Um and that's also, I think um and that's just kind of magnified you accelerated by the way, which technology is allowing people that kind of you live the life, the online life, you know instagram life um and all kind of, i'd say, kind of transient and short term values that are magnified on on platforms like instagram and attic.

Talk to what are the self reports saying, you know, this is your assessment, looking at the data with your biases and all the rest of the what what are people saying when they are asked by psychologists and sociologists? Why are you not yet married? Why do you want to get married if you don't want to get married? What's the word on the ground?

There certainly are. People are saying you know that there um they're not ready for marriage yet. They are ready to kind of settle down there.

You enjoying there are twenty something years having fun. They're trying to get their job, their career kind of launched successfully. They think there's some kind of obstacle in between being married and being focused on on their work.

Um people in the lowing come strata like I mention, some of them will talk about the way in which public policy penalty zis marriage um a lot of folks say it's hard to meet someone who kind of meet their standards both in terms of you know having their stuff together. A lot of women say that men, their lives you not sufficiently you know grown up, don't have that. That's a clear sense of mission and direction, that kind of capacity to kind of you know care for themselves and care for others. You know there are men who would report to that the women lives are too materialistic or looking for you know um just a breadwinner or provider but not someone who's gonna be a partner to them. Um so they're just a whole range of different reasons that you hear from people that comes to why they're either not able to marry or why marriage is not right now appealing to them or why marriage is not even on their their longer term horizon.

And what about divorce rights? What's the what's the inside .

that divorce come? So the statistic people sort of think is still not true is that they think that one in two marriages today will end in divorce. But what we actually see in the research is it's probably closer to around forty percent, a bit north of forty percent of marriages win divorce today.

The divorce he has come down since one hundred eighty by about forty percent. IT rose dramatically from the late sixty s two thousand nine hundred and eighty, you know basically more than doubled in that era. So I think it's important you to realize is that sort of um all the time out that we saw the dorce revolution one thousand and seventies and really eighties settle down something .

that's in line with decreasing rates of marriage. So we have a selection effect going on here correctly.

The kinds of people today are getting married are more educated, their more affluent and they're relatively more religious, are also in a country like the U. S. Maybe a country to like the U.

K. Um they're more likely to have no the immigrants you know none made us right. So um in my book I talk about how asian americans are disproportionate married in the us. And we've seen a lot of immigrants coming from asia, obviously recent decades of, for instance and there were like I could be married than native born americans, but just in general, immigrants and more I could to be married in the us. Than native born americans are as well.

Yeah, that is interesting. So recent years i've seen rise in on partner americans. As well, especially Young men, thirty four percent of Young women between two thousand and nine and single, sixty three percent of Young men in that same age bracket or also a single. So it's not just a no marriage culture, is a no dating culture as well.

So we have seen dramatic declines in in all that to distort that you mention has been chAllenged by my college met well from he thinks that there's a gap between you know Young women and Young men um there but it's not quite that where Young man are more likely to be single but it's not quite that h that traumatic but still IT IT is the case that we're seeing kind of record chairs and Young at all who have not gotten married higher my Young obviously than Young women because they intend up. Mary guys are but older than they are um and we have seen evidence from people like gene twi that dating is is down um and so I talk about kind of like the closing of the american heart and folding where again we're seeing you know for twenty somethings a record of them projective never to marry more more than one and four and then when IT comes to fertility, um we think that um that they'll be you know also kind of continued declines in um in fertility in the us as well.

One of the biggest means, one of the most common means that you hear about on the internet, especially for men, but also in some regards for women, given that there so you economically more viable on their own now, is that marriage is a bad deal. financially. what? What does the day actually? So .

yes, I was striking that you know um when I was finishing up this book bloomberg had know an article I said women who get single and don't have kids are getting richer um and I kind of claim that you know women who are kind of forgoing marriage and motherhood, were you Better off and women who are married um and that's h that's not not true.

What we do see is that um women who are married are markedly more likely to be well off um and there are also much less likely to be poor. So they're eighty percent less likely be poor, even control for things like race and age and education. And they may have about ten times the assets heading into retirement you know in their fifties um compared to their their single female peers.

Um so and the story for for man is is is pretty similar IT comes to assets in once fifties um and then men earned between sort of ten and twenty five percent more um as married man, then their um their single piers um no part lets the selection effect with the kinds of men who are getting married are more likely to have the kind of ethics that would um lead to financial success. We also see a enso two from twin studies that men who are um who are who are married are doing Better financially than than their twenty who is not marry. It's pretty rigorous evidence something about marriage persae is associated with men flourishing financially.

What do you think the mechanism?

So what actually colleague of mine here uva found was that men who are married are less like going to get fired for instance um even contract for things like race and age and education SHE also found to that men who are married less likely to quit a job without having first found a replacement job. Where I seem guys just more like to say, you know that i've had IT, i'm at a here and then they're unemployed and struggling to find a job. So I think being married to make guys more print about um their approach to um you know uh their approach to defining work.

what do you say to the guys that have serious concerns? Getting married is a huge risk because she's going to leave me and take half of everything that I own and i'm gonna stock paying uh either heard life or child support or something for the rest of my life um preux um not even worth the paper that they're written on. You know I see a lot of this on in comment sections and on the internet. What's the truth and what are you taken IT?

Well, I think the tough thing about this right is it's there's a kind of mindset thing, which i'm sure you from with kind of in many years like. And so if your mindset is kind of revolving around fear, if you're thinking about the dear divorce heading into marriage in your marriage um you know you're more likely to end up getting divorce right.

So if you get a print up you know my own book indicates that folks who have premiums have lower metal and there more likely be taking the divorce is on the horizon. So it's one of those things where like if you have more than all in mindset, you know like I am fully in and and you obviously married someone who shares that that mindset where you're not talking about divorce, you're not thinking about divorce, you don't really see as an option. You're much more likely to be not just avoiding, of course, court but flourishing in your marriage because you're going to have a greater in a foundation of security and trust in your marriage.

But beyond that, it's it's worth pointing out, as they do in the book, that there are ways in which IT looks like people can kind of solidify their marriage and reduce their risk of divorce. So we see, for instance, is that people who will go on regular date nights over one study had about twenty five percent less risk of getting divorced. People who are religious, especially to attend church together, are between thirty and fifty percent and less like going to get divorced.

Folks who don't commit infidelity are more coming, less likely to get divorce. But my points is that there are things you can kind of do right and if you're not religious, the thing I would say is is um you surround yourself with couples who are stably mary. We know from the work of um the nicolas Christos at yale for instance, that if your sister gets divorced, if your best friend gets divorced in the face of kind of ordinary moral difficulties that you know most of us have, if would been married for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, whatever yds of divorce you know skyrocket. But if your sister you is stably married and is kind of navigated the inevitable chAllenges associated my life if your best friend has you know stably um remains stably married and navigated this chAllenge is successfully you're odds of getting divorce you know go way down um so there's a birds of a feather flock together thing at right, Chris and so you need to be really I think once you're married or as you're heading into marriage about picking friends who are you know with you and for you and your marriage and who are kind of you know um living the kinds of lives that lend themselves to stable families. So if you surround yourself, you or streets of networks that are more family friendly, that's also protective factor as well.

Pick your couples date night partners carefully done is the is the yeah and you .

know we've had like you know governor mark sanford, right, that republican governor in south Carina, you know, he he he was hiking the appellation trail with the story he gave to one journalist, right? Well, turns out he was in in south amErica romantic, a woman that wasn't his wife because he and his bodies would go every year on some kind of international trip that was just kind of crazy um and so I think in Marks and ford case part of the reason that he ended up divorce was he he wasn't good about picking friends who were you know gonna be kind of leading him down the the best path of marriage west.

So the obvious, I guess, criticism or question here that gets opened up is why should I, as a man or a woman, let go of these things that make me happy? I want to go to south amErica with my boys. I don't want to spend my time playing fucking back gaming or scrap or shards with this bunch of other couples.

I don't want to restrict my freedom and my opportunities to choose what I want to sleep with, who I want to go, where I want to work, how I want to leave a job when I want. All of these things sound like restrictions on my freedoms. What's in IT for me? Why should I like if, if i'm so happy doing all of these things, why? Like, what about happiness? Like, what is the happiest people from a relationship .

state to yeah I think it's important just to kind of basically stressed that yeah, getting married does mean taking options off the table, both in terms of partners, in terms of your free time, no IT does mean you're sacrificing a lot in terms of your freedom. But the point that I would make is that we are social animals at the airport les term. We're hardwired to connect, right. And so IT ends up being the case that that friendships and family relatives are the things that are most important for a sense of meaning, purpose, happiness. And there's just no question today that married men and women, especially married fathers and married mothers, are the happiest folks out there in the prime of life.

I'm looking at folks eight hundred and fifty five and you know, finding that when IT comes to reports of being kind of very happy on with your life, that um both women um and men who are married moms and dads are about twice that can be very happy with their lives compared to their single and childless peers um so that's a pretty big difference um and then what IT comes to kind of arrange of the indicators from money to career success to sexual frequency um to religious attendance to separate the healthy these are all things that predict happiness um for ordinary americans and pretty powerful ly so but none of those factors, Chris kind of compares to a good marriage. Women and men who are happily married, about five hundred and forty five percent more likely say that they're very happy with their lives. And as I looked at the data that called the gas, the general social survey kind like the gold start for you know social attitudes and behaviors in the U S.

I can't find any variable in the G S S. That predicts global life satisfaction um like a good marriage. And when i've kind of mention that statistics, the push back that I get from you know more progressive academics is well yet to select effect.

But the kinds of women and men who are happy are gonna a be happily married. But my response to that as well, you would expect them that you would see kind of a similar story playing up for, you know, like a car satisfaction indicator in the G, S S. And it's true that people who are, you know happy with their jobs are also happy with their lives.

Again, there's no factor that predicts happiness in the G. S. S. Um you know like a good marriage. We see other data sets too you know from harvard, for instance um tracking men launch inly, you know um that kind of kind of similar conclusions as well. So I think it's just kind of important to underline that. Yes, marriage requires sacrifices, lots of them um but there are major returns on on that investment for most folks. And the final people say I would say about the happiness story is that I looked at generosity and marriage a number of years ago and what I found was that having a spouse, a husband, wife who was generous towards you boosted your happiness in the marriage and ways to be, I think, you know, expected, but being generous towards your wife, generous towards your husband wasn't even Better prediction of your happiness in the marriage. And again, if that's one of the best predictors of happiness overall, I think suggests to us that kind of living for others um as long as you make a good choice and that's always a huge cavy out living for your spouse, living for your kids, living for your kid and living for your friends to an important next step these are the things obviously gives our lives meaning, direction, purpose and a sense of happiness and living for ourselves I think often is are making us miserable.

One of the things that people who are reticent about getting married or concerned about IT have the same way as the financial concern is one rolling the dice you know a um at least if i'm single, my happiness lies exclusively in the our of my own hands whether if I get into a marriage I am now my happiness is contingent on this other person and we try and do our best to screen whoever IT is and work out how crazy you're not crazy there might be but we there is a non zero chance that we get that wrong and that now means I have sacrificed um okay single tender for unhappy marry ness rolling that dies that that sort of relation in is he causes this trapeze ation for people echo .

is I need you to legitimate concern um and as as we discussed before, about forty percent of folks getting married today, they won't get divorce so IT is a major I think concern um but I think there is um you know there are two other things that I would say to that kind of person.

Number one is that nothing in life worth having you I think doesn't require a measure of risk and you know, potential for real failure in terms whether it's professional success, whether it's, you know, being a great athlete, whatever IT might be. All these things that know, I think ten, to lend their lives since the meaning, direction and happiness often require risk. And that's true, I think, for love and marriage as well.

Um the other thing that I would say too is that um even when marriages fail, and I certainly you know friends whose marriages have failed both women and men um what I also see there is often times they have kids and and in the immediate aftermath divorce that can be extraordinary ily difficult both for them and for their children。 But as they kind of move into their fifties and sixties and seventies, if if they're um deliberate about kind of continue to be a good father, a good mother, these friends that might have gotten divorce derive a tremendous sense of medium satisfaction from their relationship um relationships to with their with their kids and and then their grandkids so that's also, I think can be a kind of a consolation for folks who have gotten divorced. And I only thing I do is again, I think there are you know I talk about in the book four groups of folks who have much um greater arms of of being kind of both happily married and in from the most part stabling married in those groups are asian americans.

They are religious americans, their college educated americans and their conservative americans. And so there are things, again, you can kind of do um both as a spouse and in terms of just being kind of kind of the communities where your where your age. Is that your advice? No, i'm just saying the point I would make about of the asian finding is that, right there are certain kinds of values and certain kinds of communities, right? And so you know um what asians have is, among other things, like a king recognition, often times of how much merry matters for their kids and so that sort of conditions, how they deal with moral difficulties and chAllenges right um they tend to be surrounded by kin who are stably married um they often are kind of taking advice um from kin about who to married, especially of ously from indian um context, right so um you can if you're not asian, you can kind of take some lessons there to here, you know, uh, for your your own mural path.

how all of that data that you just come up with that to do with happiness and marital status. How robust is that? We gonna find out that this is replication crisis in in ten years as time that cause that obviously. Oh, well, that data doesn't seem to be sufficiently this so that the other how how much you able to bet that that's accurate and correct?

Well, I think when IT comes to things like mars stability, there's just no I I i've looked at a lot of data when IT come until I looking at the role .

of ethnicity and asian. No, sorry, the relationship between married, whether or or not you are married or single, and your happiness in life and your life outcome .

satisfaction yeah that's again lot of dated sets. You know the G S S um the american family survey. You might as there are lot of data ts that show that there's a strong association.

Now the question is whether not is caught. I think that's the where the debate comes. So there's just no question that folks who are married are more likely to that they're satisfied their lives, report more meaningful lives and less molding. Ss, and just in england, the us, europe, it's you. It's definitely A A common story.

How does this relationship between marital status and life satisfaction, happiness? loney? Ss, how does that change across time and with age?

So I think the best story that I sign in, the best study on this, and I said I was actually from britain, or you are from. And I just what I suggest IT was a kind of like the the biggest obviously is a honeymoon kind of premium or people in their first marry, they enjoy kind of um especially kind of large premiums when IT comes to happiness.

But this particular study from the U K, which is kind of tracking women and men over time and this kind of like a midlife um peace where the premium was biggest for folks kind of in in midlife and think there are forties and fifties. Um that's I think partly because often there are chAllenges associated with raising kids um with you know changes in your obvious ly your health, your people are becoming aware of the mortality, career changes. All that kind of step is all coming out you know in your fifty often times and so I have like you know the benefit of a copilot, I think can be available for folks.

Yeah, does this strange smile shaped graph to happiness and life satisfaction of the people that are just listening? If you imagine it's not a particularly smooth smile, more like a joker joke, a smile. But if you had the beginning of life on the left, think it's probably like thirty or sixteen or something on the left and then you've got eighty on the right.

And IT does seem to really dip down. You forties, basically, most of your forties seems to be pretty rough. And then I can picks picks back up uh, through your fifties um I think i'm right in saying does at least some data that suggests the single biggest risk of suicide suicide a man aged forty to forty five is is very particular demographic of men. So specifically a game for men. I'm going to guess that being married is propac's against this uh period of lower .

mood yeah and one of the biggest factors predicting both suicide and more probably deserve despair from man is marriage. Some married guys are much less likely to and you know dying from um drinking or drugs or or suicide more directly, right? So what about .

divorced guys though?

Yeah they know they have a higher risk of all those bad things as well, definitely.

So again, we're talking about this IT seems like a bit of a theme. It's it's this risk reward ratio. I think that a lot of people are are looking at you sort of hinted at something early wrong with the site around if your sister, your best friend, gets divorced, then the likely d if you getting divorce goes up to there is definitely the sort of mystic thing that's going on.

I think motherhood, a lot of motherhood can be laid at the feet of this. If you are not around mothers, you don't see the joy that motherhood brings to mothers. Therefore, what do you see? Well, you see what everyone else sees, which is instagram, which is a trip to bali and brunch with the goals and wearing cute heals and not getting stretchMarks and all the rest of things.

So you you kind of absorb the aggregate culture as opposed to the micro culture because the aggregate culture doesn't optimize for that. You would like things aren't flashy and easily displayed on the internet. And I think that there is that you must have thought of this too, this sort of memetic nature of the art, not number of marriage being either above able, a one based on how many people are getting married. Ed, at the moment yeah I know .

I think definitely this goes back to kind of the power of the smart phone in social media and the internet. And I think one reason we have you know seen um you know um marriage come down and fertility come down in recent years is that people don't kind of fully appreciate how much um you know putting your unit can can matter in in positive ways. So there was a study done recently um that was was suggesting that today a lot of folks thanked that yeah actually then benefit from marriage but women do not um and when you look at the happiness you know story in the general social survey um what you see basically is that as I as I mention before mary moms or twice I could be um you know very happy as a single and childless women um what you see in you basically different datasets is that sixty percent of married moms so that their lives are meaningful most or all the time compared to only thirty six percent of single and childless women um they're also much more like I said that they are lonely right? So when IT comes to things like meaning lonely and happiness, which you are single, instagram or tiktok doesn't correspond to what we see in representative population surveys of men and and women.

But IT IT is difficult to convey that in a two hundred eighty character tweet or in a cool tiktok video. And IT is this interesting trade off between happiness, pleasure and meaning and satisfaction in some ways that very difficult to portray meaning and life satisfaction through a cold instagram post. It's pretty easy to show pleasure and happiness through that, or at least present pleasure and happiness through that.

So yeah, it's in that regard. I think anything and this is anything that difficult um anything which is a little bit more subtle. You know if someone can get the gains of appearing to have the thing without having to do the hard work of getting the thing they're going to optimize for that.

It's that's the problem of being online too much, right? obviously. No, there's um some work done by famous psychologist at toronto um and i'm forgetting his name right now. But it's sort of just basically talking about how um folks who are kind of experiencing both a lot of suffering, which one surprise us, but also like virtually no suffering are the worst off and folks are kind of experience kind of that middle range of suffering and actually the best after, like the most emotionally resilient kind of the best spirit. So we actually were built to some extent right to experience some degree of of pain, some degree of of you know of suffering some drum on our lives. And if all you're doing is kind of you know um eating well, drinking well, you know and spending all your day on this device you know doesn't actually end a bully you longer term is the point.

How does being married change or impact mental and physical health?

Well um yeah in terms of things like depression and anxiety tend to go down. Happiness goes up as I said before, loneliness goes down when IT comes to physical health. There are the stories is a little bit more complicated um on one indicator in particular, women and men who are marry do worse and that is their weight.

When you're married, your option market and um you you know you're can be eating IT may be eating at home more and whenever be snacking more, exit us. So you're not you're not kind of like making that same effort to you know to keep the pounds off. And so what do you see that more? But generally speaking, folks are married um are doing Better healthwise um for instance says a little neck, indicate that people um are more like IT to recover um and and do okay in the wake of you some kind of cancer diagnosis.

If you have parents older parents been to the hospital, you know you see that often times that spouse is really kind of working the nurses in doctors in ways that tend to be down to the benefit of you know her, her husband or his wife. So there's just no question that folks were married do Better on the vast majority health outcomes and live longer. Especially true for guys and they think .

it's what's to tell me to starts that eight.

eight, nine years is what what i've read in um in work done by Linda I um and magic allah er um you know that men who are stably mary live in eight hundred and nine years longer than their peers who don't get married or who get divorced um so and women who who are married live longer too but they don't enjoy the same kind of of premium as married men do that's apart what we think too because you know men who are are single are just much more likely to um you know do crazy things like grade motorway goals, getting fights in in bars on a friday or saturday night. You know what have you so um men are just more proud to engaging the kinds of risky behaviors that put them at risk of an earlier death. But married men tended to clear a lot of those behavioral .

and that must be immediate effect of loneliness here as well. I had Robin done bar show a Willy go and he was talking about this inner circle. He says that you can keep around about five friends in the inner circle, but a relationship takes up two of those five.

So if you have a partner, significant other, you've maybe only got space for three other people. But the most common answer at the moment when people are asked, how many close friends do you have to call on an emergency is zero. That's not the average, but it's the most common.

It's more common than any other number is zero. Think the number of men who say that they have no close friends triple, no, uh, five x from three percent to fifty percent, from nineteen and ninety to twenty twenty. So, you know, in the wake of this atomized individualized bleep sib punk, twenty seventy seven hell scape, having one person that's always going to be in your boat with you rowing seems like A A pretty good fallback.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, there's there certain tainted been sociologists and psychologists who who want to to to talk up the virtues of living single. And obviously, not everyone in a single is doing badly. Playing folks are doing great and playing folks who are married or miserable, but on average and that's because for hardware to connect people who are married and more likely to be um to be flourishing. And that's that sort of the every story .

what rodders wanting kids have in encouraging people to get married. Have you been able to pass out? Someone early on knows that they want kids, therefore, they get married in order to be able to have kids. Is is that like a predictor?

yes. I think we do see today in a more secular world, people are less motivated to kind of get married now just for religious reasons or kind of legitimate their relationship in terms of living together, what not. So I think once they begin to think about having kids, um they're more like I think about doing that, the context of marriage, wanting to come to give their kids the gift of of merry parents and we see even you know um in north n europe or marriage is sort of much more optional that after year after the first child or before the first kid as folks kind of um think about parent hood or they want to kind of give their kids that you know that experience of mary parents um you they'll get married so I think they're still wait in which people who are kind of more child centers um think about marriages as the ideal place to bear and rear kids and of course they're right there. Just no question that kids are more likely be benefit when their parents are married than kids were another um you know other .

situations what impact to kids have on marriage marriage success and then unhappiness.

说 so um there is no question that um kind of having a baby is a hugely stressful thing for couples um and so you do see more quality dip， especially off after the first child comes along. Um but I think what often happens is that kind of couples reach a kind of equal librarian you know some six months, year, whatever IT might be after that you know the baby comes and they began to adjust to this new um this new creature in this new reality.

Now I think this this adjustment can be harder for people who have spent a very long time living without children because kids do take a lot of time and energy and effort and you know that can be obviously extremely difficult and frustrating in different ways. So I think um the transition to parent hood is certainly a chAllenge. Um but what's interesting, the Chris, is that there was a lot of research before kind of two thousand that indicated that parents were less happy than their childless peers.

And since two thousand, we've seen that relationship switch so that parents today are happier than childless adults and of course, no group of parents are happier than married parents. So again, you kind of look, when you look at the general social survey, what you find is that the happiest group of women and men, pretty, the kind of in midlife, instead of thirty for his fifties, are married parents. And I think what's happening here in part might be that charmless adults um have fear of those sort of resources, social resources or connections you know school connections, sports connections for folks are religious religious connections that tend to flow from being a parent.

So I will lot of kids and my days are are often very busy. I can be stressed out, but I I never lonely. You know, I am going to, you know, basketball practice.

I'm dropping off kids at school in the morning, you know, going to church with with a family on sunday morning, you know. So there's all this social stuff happening, seems the logic that's worth kind of noting. And my peers saw a single and childless, you know they don't have those child related activities. Um and then when I comes to just kind of like free time too, like you you can't spend you know too much time on a device if you're halfway decent husband, wife, father, mother, right that's .

getting married or having kids is a anti phone use technology totally totally .

saying I think so. I think you know the rise of smart phones um and screen less know decade or so I think maybe and I need haven't seen any really good evidence on this apology, is that you know married parents may be less likely to um in get sort of sucked down that electronic rabbit hole then folks saw a single jealous what .

about the reverse relationship? All of the differences in outcomes for kids from married versus not married home. You know, there's a lot of people that would say, what I don't need to get married in order to be able to raise a child is useless.

It's just a piece of paper. In any case, look at how many people get divorced. What's even the point yeah .

there's been I think really since the ninety seventies, Chris, with dramatic rise and divorce and non mental children, a lot of folks have been kind of making the argument that what matters for kids is not you know their parents marriage um but you just know getting love and maybe money as well so kind of what matters for kids is not it's not marriage but it's it's money and you know and a loving family that can take many different forms that I was raised by a single mom and I think I turned IT OK.

My sister turned IT. Okay, you many kids turn out, okay, you know, from different family forms, but i'm also socialists to and an average. What I can tell you is that kinds are I could flourish educationally, socially and emotionally when they have the benefit of mary parents.

I think, you know, in my book, probably the most striking statistics that I came up with, just kind of running the numbers with my colleague, Wendy wong, is that we find in the national loggable survey of youth that Young men today in amErica are more like to spend some time in prison or in jail before theyve turned thirty um then they are to graduate from college if they're from any kind of not intact from me and by contrast, you know guys from intact families are you know about four times more likely to. Graduate from college that they are to land in prison or in jail. That's kind of probably the most dramatic statistics and just gives you a sense of like how much um a sibling marry. Family matter is socially and emotionally, especially for for our kids.

I've been a fan of you're twitter, a quite violent some of the stuff that i've seen over the last couple of years, I think, from you. Young black women from intact two parent families are more likely to graduate from college, thirty six percent. This is Young White women from one parent families.

Twenty eight percent Young black men from intact two parent families are less likely to be incarcerated. Fourteen percent than Young White men from one parent families. Boys who grew up apart from their biological father are about two times more likely to land in prisoner jail by age thirty.

Fatherlessness is a Better predict of incarceration, then race or growing up poor. And ninety five percent of upper income mums are married. Seventy six percent of middling commons are married, and thirty five percent of lowering commons are married. So fascinating.

Yeah, these are these statistics and it's important I think to um just remind folks that you know often times um the biggest privilege that kids have is not how much money their parents make but whether or not their their parents are married in a decent relationship. But it's important to think about that cabin port, acknowledge that kind of a decent marriage or great marriage is the best context for archives.

What role does political affiliation ation have here with seeing an increasing amount of data talking about, uh, Young jennie jane boys, uh, skin swing aggressively, right? And that the girls are kind of going left. But what we get into the older age brackets, what's the political affiliation role?

Well, Christ, when IT comes to marriage, a lot of folks in the media and the academy understand and appreciate that, you know, education and money matter. The folks who are college educated folks were in the upper middle class bracket are more likely today to get married and stay married. What they don't realize that is it's not just class, it's also culture.

So a majority of of college gate of americans in the U. S. And at eighteen forty five bracket are mary, but also a majority of folks who are religious, a majority of folks who are conservative.

Where is the majority folks were not religious or not married, and majority folks were either self I did as moderates or liberal or not married as well. So when i'm saying to you, Chris, is that it's both class and culture today that predict who is getting married and who is staying married. Now on the set of politics, point more concurrently. What we see is that for single adults, about one five yn adults under the age of thirteen um are not going to be able to find someone, at least right now who kind of shares their ideological commitments on. And so what that means more concretely to is that you know um liberal women are gonna have um difficulty, often times fighting enough liberal men and conservative men who are single are going to find you or have difficulty finding enough conservative women um who are kind of sharing this.

There's an increase in an unprepared ness of people to date across the air as well. I saw you tweet about that.

yeah. And so I think the hard thing about this too right is that I think um particular that comes to serve how you think about work and family and how you want to organize the division of labor in your own household. You know how much you think it's important for moms to care for Young children, for instance, or for you know for men to to be good bread winners? Um couples who are not in the same page on those issues really struggle. So what I would say to couples who are dating is um it's fine to date someone who doesn't share your politics, but you know it's really important to kind come to um roughly common ground when IT comes to thinking about how you want to raise your kids and divide up working family because those things are very reissued for couples today um once they have children .

yeah so you could have somebody who doesn't share your tile political ideology but does agree with you about how family life should be set up inside of the house and that might just make for spicy thanksgiving day dinners. But outside of that, the structure of how all of this stuff is put together is interesting.

I had A A conversation with a friend to, i'm not gonna me, but this was the controversial thesis, which they have no intention of sharing publicly, that the current dating in mating crisis is good in overall cultural evolutionary terms. Many are called to propagate their genes beyond the demography pinch point fewer chosen. Whoever manages to propagate their family in the face of a structured y anti natalist, anti culture. We'll manage to do do so by virtue of having developed strong enough immune response to toxic messages as celebrate clog is good because IT screams out at propensity for fanaticism amount of the gene pool .

that's from calle sagan yeah I mean, I don't mean that I will say there I think is that i'm consider as you know but I think um and I was to acknowledge that you know in the last uh seven years there are plenty of of things that conserve s um you know canon should um be concerned about in their own tribe, right?

I think what progressives don't appreciate though is that they have their own chAllenges and their try, right? And I think what for for progressives their their biggest chAllenges surround marriage and family and so we do see you know in my book and elsewhere some evidence someone that comes to um getting married and having children that kind of malays are a gap between conservatives and liberals um in their live od of getting married and having kids um but that that gap is growing ing because I think progressives for a wide number of different reasons are um less oriented towards marriage and less oriented towards hood um and they have fewer of the kind of the norms you know that would sort of steer them into marriage in the first place and then allow them to sort of um you more easily navigate marriage in the second place. So one kind of example of what i'm talking about is we've seen, for instance, um in recent years growing kind of interest in polyamory or support for polyamorous and less kind of support for like the classic marriage norm that you should be faithful in marriage. We see in the in the you know in the data in the general social survey that couples who were husband and wife who believe that you know um that sex outside of marriage is always wrong are more likely to be happily married um and I certainly see you know they're also more another days, it's the more stability. So I think the chAllenge for progressives is that some of the newer ideas, some of the newer norms of kind of filtered into their into their tribe, into their camp in recent decades are ones that are kind of profoundly um either are profoundly entire nusha and anti nato um and so that's a chAllenge I do not think progressives have fully kind of wrap their heads around and is the way which alive their newer commitments are making IT more difficult for them to to find a spouse, to prioritize getting married and then they have .

a family yeah and also a good chunk of data that suggests people who are left of santa are more unhappy. Presumably this could be done whilst controlling for marital status as well. So you have someone whose will view or psychology or lifestyle predispose them to being less happy than their centrists and right of center counterparts.

IT also discourages them from getting precisely the kind of union that seems to be very robust and improving the level of happiness. And then for the people who were doing IT, you know, for the the movement, because I want to be sort of a good liberal, whatever, whatever that means, because political orientation is moderately genetically herriton, like all of our traits are. If you are someone who genuinely cares about propagating liberal ideology long term, but you are anti alist in your pho, sophy, you are creating a dying future for the physical hy that you say that you care about, which is this.

So it's still, as far as I can see, that because also people left to set up reject behaviour genetics largely of a lot of the time. That is a hammer blow that I think hasn't hit yet properly. And I think that if people on the left fully understood and realized that they would have a different approach.

So um a couple of things I would take response to that. One is that um I have looked at the sort of gap and happiness between conservative and liberals and do fine that a large minority of that gap can attributed to differences in the likelihood of being married and the likelihood of being happily married.

So that's that's certain ly a real thing that there is a kind of considers are happier in general and part of the reason they're happier in general are more likely be married the first place and then happily married the second place and their they're progressive peers. Um and in terms of kind of like the long term implications as well as I think I will see the one flying the limit for conservatives is that many of their kids end up you know kind of leaving the you know um the tribe once they hit you know Young at childhood. And so there are plenty of obviously progressives out there who raised in conservative or religious homes who are now you know um no longer conservative and or no longer religious. So that's where we do get obviously kind of new waves of progressives and new waves of more secular folks kind of emerging um but again, what's striking about some newer data on marriage and fertility ties that the gap seems to be growing between conservative and liberals in ways that might have long term plica for the ideological makeup of a place like the united states.

Yeah, so one of the things that we haven't necessarily spoken about here is the dynamics. When IT comes to choosing a mate, what's the soul mate myth?

So the stomach myth is this idea that what really matters when IT comes to love and marriage is finding someone who kind of fits you perfectly and is gonna make you happy and fulfill almost all of the time. And it's a very responsive view of love marriage. It's one that you kind of get in, you know, sometimes tell your swift songs. Gs, it's one that you can get in plenty of movies.

It's one that you get in books like e pray, love, right? And so um the problem, of course, with this with this idea, with what I call a so my myth is that we know just physiologically the butterfly Chris fly away within a few months or within a year or two of I know of either dating or or marry someone just kind of there's physiologically high when you first meet someone, when you first connect with someone. And allow those harmon's just kind of like you go away after a period time and so that that sort of that magic that you first experience, romantic relationship begins to dissipate. Um and so the chAllenges, how do you kind of move on that and recognize that there are other things that connects you to that person. So I think having you know um a more realistic view of marriage that yes, you kind of tried to cultivate the romance in your um in your relationship and that's why a regard date nights are really viable for instance but you also recognize that marriage about more than just those feelings. It's about things like money, things like component ship, things like kids um but beyond that, I would say it's it's a kind of A A recognition that love is about not feelings but seeking the good of the other and so couples who can have have that I think Richard review of marriage um one that's not as romanticized are more likely not just kind of go the distance to avoid divorce court um but they're also more likely to enjoy a higher quality marriage because they just have a rich review of what marriage is all about and they are not as sort of um you know likely to be a suspect ble to the ABS and flows of of those romantic feelings um you know in a relationship did you see me a kalifa .

trended I think that was about two or three months ago on tiktok for saying marriage is nothing special it's a piece of paper and if the person did you are with isn't helping you grow that IT is time for you to move on I didn't see .

that particular common, but I think I think this is the hard thing for people who who have that mentality to wrap their heads around. If that's your view, then your odds of fAiling at marriage are extremely high. But if your view is instead that you love this person and that you're committed to this person and that you will the good of this person um you know come hello high water um your odds of of making IT are extremely high but and your dad is actually being happy with in the in the marriage and in life more generally are gonna high to most of the time the problem is that .

we are not able IT is very difficult to make ourselves believe something we can make yourselves do things all the time you can stay in a marriage there are millions and billions of people probably would have stayed in unhappy marriages. But believing that marriage is not supposed to be what a recent guest taught me is the confluence era.

For as long as you can benefit me and I can benefit you, this relationship works into the moment that that stops happening, the confluents is gone and that what we don't need to take about. So it's all well and good saying. Look, the thing that is best for you is to believe that marriage is supposed to be more than just about this confluence or about the butterflies or whatever. But we are in extra ly linked to the culture and the cultural moment and the memes and the trends that we find ourselves in extricating ourselves from that is difficult.

Completely agree with you. I think the chAllenge here, Chris, and this is why my book subtitle defy the is, is part of the the subtitle, right? And you know, i've gotten push back on that from folks, while the elite are actually the ones who are, you know, more likely today to get more in the first place and to be stably made in the second place.

And and my own date indicates to be recently happy, right? And that's I thinking part because they talk left and walk right. Often times they talk left, walk right.

What I mean believe is yeah .

you know so there's you know they don't live the kind of individualist lives that they kind of propagate in on twitter or they are heading up the school board or you know um in some kind of mainstream media publication, they actually the more likely to sort of honor some of these older traditions that tend to reinforce strongly marriages in their private lives um so know so for instance, you know I mentioned like that the importance of felt that would be one example or we could talk about, you know, for instance, join checking accounts.

These things are linked to happier marriages, more simple marriages. They're even have experimental evidence is really fascinating. Study in the university found that couples who are rally assigned to join accounts and then other couples who were assigned to separate accounts. Um you the folks who were signed to joint accounts did much Better in the first years of marriage and those who were signed to the you know the individualist kind of more you know often I think elite kind of strategy that we're hearing today was a lot of the traditions that we have about know marriage and family kind of grow up for reasons that there was a kind of service utility to them, a wisdom to them that emerged. So yeah I think the chAllenge is that culturally you have to defy many of the lead messages that are more individualism um more me first kind of thinking um you know both in in media then online and social media today and if you can kind of steer clear of a lot of that me first thinking a lot of me first um norms you know in your marriage and more I could have flourish in your marriage and to have happily narrate husband or or wife you know on the journey.

How important is main income and providers ship when IT comes to being an eligible mate? obvious. Ly, this is one of the the metal means of the internet. And you know, I tried to sort of mean IT into existence with an idea of the tall girl problem that such a economic success among the Young women means that there is an ever decreasing pool of eligible mates for them in the male side but how just how important is IT like what is the what what makes them happy? What do they want?

There's just no question that um that men sort of status bread winners is very important in both kind of predicting entry into marriage miral stability and neural quality, although its has changed in recent years, is kind of in this in this way. So what i'm kind of seeing in the more recent data is it's not necessarily sort of who earns how much money in the marriage so much as he is, he is stably employed full time. okay.

That's what seems to predict um for instance, mural quality and meral stability in important ways. Um and what I found was that kind of the precise division of who and what was not as important predicting her moral happiness as a husband. Some previous research on this topic and when IT comes to divorce we see is that when he loses her job, there is no effect on the stability of their marriage. This has worked done by social kills at harvard and society there but when he loses his job, his risk of divorce increases and the divorce increases risk by about one third. So there is something about kind of that stability um that sense of identity from man that comes from full time employment, respect that off, I think accused them from their wife and when he doesn't have that full time job, it's just much more I going to be a problem both and kind of getting a relationships started and sustained um so I think people don't appreciate that there is still as a very gender story when IT comes to work in marriage and that story is that women are looking for and respect men who have um you know a decent job and men who are not employed you know full time or I think you just having much greater difficulty even today and still you know navigating marriage successfully.

Do you have you said you might have quite a few kids as some .

of them sons are they all goes I daughters .

um so I don't know how well they are but at at some point your sons are going na begin dating they're onna enter the dating market given the current world of men's advice and the current state of the dating environment yeah what are you going to tell your sons or what would you tell a struggling Young guy who reads too much of the internet about how to be as eligible of a mate to the opposite sex as they can be well.

Chris, interesting. You know one of things that I would say both in my to my sons were just a Young men and I do say Young men more generally um is that there are a lot of complaints that we're getting. You know there is an acquisition of my kind of theses in your times recently from you journalists and you were saying there's just any good men out there and so know my response to that kind of ideas and there are some legitimate concerns we have to understand why why aren't you finding enough good men out there?

I think it's part because we're not of giving Young men enough kind of concrete advice about what is appealing and attractive to women um and so one of the things that I find also in my chapter on gender is that women are happier when you know um they're rating the men realized to be physically stronger right so um so what I would say to Young man who understood kind of in dating and getting marry is that you get in shape physically um i'm not not as guess i'm not big athlete but I swim regularly um and so if you're not like an you know you can find things you know to do, run, swim by, go to the gym whatever but get in decent physical shape that's one thing that I would say um to them because women do value um you know physical strength from the value guys who are who are can take care of themselves physically. That's that's one thing that I would say um I would say also kind of have a sense of mission in life. You I wanted do this job wise IT doesn't matter what IT is really I don't think but just to have like a clear sense of like i'm learning this thing to do this job and that might change over time.

That's fine, but have a sense of like professionally like you you want to do something and you have like a plan at a purpose basically that make sense, of course, tota things that are of a more civic character. I think women also kind of have a tremendous respect for guys who are you know volunteering um in in their communities as well um and they want the same thing applies to religion you know if if if you know if you're not religious subset so I think a sense of mission matter as well um and then I would also say um to Young men that when IT comes to dating to really take the initiative initially, I ask my women and my large family classes at uva kind of watch your preference you know when IT comes to that first day. Um is that that you take the initiative to ask someone out the date or that he he takes the initiative.

And about eighty percent of the women in my classes i've got large classes at eva would say they are province that he takes initiative. It's a sign of his interest in them and it's also a sign of like his willingness to um to engage in risk and healthy ways as well. So um so I would talk a Young man about kind of importance of taking initiative, the importance of having a sense of mission um especially when he comes to something about IT to school or work to make on their stage of life um any importance of kind of being in decent physical shape because these are all things that women appreciate and I think we're not telling man enough and adolescent miles as well that you you've got ta get off the x box. You've gotta off your phone um you've gotta out there and and hit the gem or do something get more serious about your studies or your skills, you know your training um tech, whatever IT might be you know get a job and and make a mark. And if you do those kinds of things and develop competencies obviously in certain kinds of areas, then you will gona the respect and the interest of women in your menu yeah I mean it's .

the competence that women, I think, largely looking for you. If you to just ask someone, would you rather have a competent or incompetent partner not clarifying in what domain, by how much, like who wants to be with a useless partner that doesn't have any agency, that doesn't have any intentionality that that isn't able to enact change that they want in any area of the life, or even in specific areas of their life, like if you are unable to get in shape.

IT identifies that in summer regard, you aren't competent of being able to control your own body and your own physicality. If you are not able to hold down a job that shows that you are competent being able to show up on time or be reliable or be disciplined or be whatever the thing is. And IT Jordan Peterson on on the show a couple of months ago, and he said, women use wealth as a proxy for competence is not the wealth that thereafter is just the most reliable rough e rubrics signal that they can find to say he was a wrong gorder. Starting with fucking in elan moscow, who ever at the top, now some arab shake and going all the way down here is a recorded list of three point five billion men. And and you can work out kind of a competent, it's the best video game I made, the best video game ever made.

Yeah, I think a key word you mention is a this agency. I think there's so much passivity among Young men today and among teenage boys today. Wait too much screen time, wait too much video games and and at a certain point um a women notice that and it's it's a big turnout, especially when he comes to marriage because they want a guy who has a sensitive agency and who exemplifies that in his life in a variety of different domains.

What do you think about most of the advice coming out of the manos ha? Obviously, there is this huge a market for speaking to men. Um as you've identified, we're not necessarily telling men the right things.

Is the manos here getting anything right? Or what are the things that IT gets most wrong? What do you wish that you could set of punish from IT?

Yeah and I certain things some of things we have talked about just the last few minutes are articulated in different ways by people like jorn, Peterson and androtten. I think what's problematic is that on parts of the manual here is a very kind of self centers, self oriented approach to masculinity.

Prick people like obviously, there's also kind of there's a way which women are talked down um and you know are um described in very degrading or demeaning or or negative ways um so I think I can cultivate a certain sense of of suspicion, needless suspicion. The part of them not obviously all we are both women them out to be discerning because there are people out there who are bad actors or you've got vices are going to make them bad spouses or there's just not a good fit for a particular person. And you you have to kind of figure out, do you have the capacity for friendship with this person? Do they have some key virtues that will make them a good husband, a good father, a good wife and a good mother? Um but I think parts of the manifest here are painting and obviously overly negative view of women and marriage um and are encouraged men to be selfish in ways that will make them you bad romantic partners and reduce s of succeeding in marriage as well which .

ultimately result in them dying on average nine early and this again this is the .

problem Davis and and and do not really acknowledged or appreciate is that yes, marriages a risk, no doubt, but the guys who are not married today, never married and guys were divorced are just much more likely to be especially if you're not color educated or not kind of doing well professionally. You know at the top of some game um they're just much more I could to be floundering and you know end up um yeah sad, lonely um and vulnerable to these test of despair.

What about from a woman side is not something that I often see coming from the right, from anybody sort of right, a far left um bits of dating advice for women, you know women who want to get married, who want to find a partner, who want to be discerning with their make choice, but who also know that in opposed me to world men may be more reticent about approaching them, maybe more concerned about they maybe don't have quite the same, uh, like patriarch fuel h agency that perhaps our great grandfathers would have done um what do you say to women when he comes to attracting, selecting male partner?

So I think for both Young man and yang men, I would certainly say you, given the chAllenges of people are facing today, is number one if you have you know friends who are kind of um wise and designing and roughly your age or a little bit older, even you know a lot older or just let that be know that you're interested in getting married and have kind of you know do the sort of mating .

game you crowd source .

the potential of match making know I regular introduce students that I knowledge didn't getting married or Young ult you know to one another just so you that that can be fruitful um I think so you know letting IT be known to people you trust, judgment, trust um I think if you've have a religious bone in your body um go to church, synagogue, temple, whatever um the folks are in those communities are much more marriage minded and the folks who are not and that that's worth of you know taking seriously if you have any kind of religious interest to background um I would say also kind of for women in particular. Kind of given the fact that a lot of guys are worried about the me too you know suspicion um you know signaling with a with a smile, uh with a compliment, with extra attention. Cultivating .

receptivity is a hugely overlooked uh, way of doing this I was reminded of the um I guess that would have been the the aristocracy during the renaissance. A drop a handkerchief you need a non verbal queue equivalent of dropping a handy chief yeah all that I think is is .

viable and then know some folks are just not can have any any success in person right? And so you know I certains know folks were happily married today who made up you know on some dating service. But just be kind of discerning about the service you pick.

So I see tender is probably not the best option. Um there are you newer sites um that are kind of cultivating a more you know marriage oriented approach um that are accessible um online, for instance, you know that can um you know um be helpful. So I think if you're going to seek out um a dating site, no pick one um that is oriented towards marriage or oriented towards serious relationships.

Red wilcox blades in gentman bread i've been a massive fan of your work for a long time. I'm really glad that you've dug in into the deepened dock mckey data that sort of born all of this stuff out. Where should people go? They want to learn more about your work in the book and keep up to date with what you do. Where should they go?

They can type and get married. And then you know um go to harper for the book. I'm on twitter, voc x ifs and then on on the web, often times that famous studies, that org as well. There are three places to to look me out.

Brad, I really appreciate you. Thank you for the day.

It's great to be with your good Chris. thanks. Rather me on there are brad bocog ifs and then on on the web often times that famous studies at org as well. There's are three places to to to look me up.

Brad, I really appreciate you. Thank you for the day.

It's great to be with for your crist. Thanks, raven. Me on.

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