You've tended to conflate marriage and monogamy here. But in modern (particularly US) society, the incredible expense of weddings means that legal marriage is almost always a formalisation of a long-standing relationship, rather than the beginning of a life partnership. I occasionally joke that it's important to delay the wedding until the kids are old enough to be flower girls/pageboys.
Marriages are more stable than other pairings, but there's huge selection bias here. If you can pay for a wedding, it's a sign that your finances are good shape, removing a major cause of relationship breakdown,
I don't know, this observation strikes me as applying only to a limited slice of contemporary US society. Sure, for the people who want their wedding to be big, grand affair, the inflated cost of modern fancy weddings (and all the ludicrous ancillary celebrations that have grown up around modern weddings, like elaborate bachelor/bachelorette trips) can serve as a constraint on marriage. But of course marriage doesn't require a big, fancy, expensive wedding, and it's not even expected among big chunks of the middle and lower classes, even today. I've been to enough small, cheap weddings over the last few years to know that couples who are having a wedding because they want to get married, rather than because they want to have a wedding, are still able to get hitched quite cheaply.
Of course, you can get married for the cost of the license fee - my wife and I did that, plus a low-key dinner for immediate family and witnesses. But that's the "limited slice" option, about as common as destination weddings at the other end of the scale.
For most Americans (and Australians), meeting the standard social expectations (a service of some kind, photos, reception with ~100 family and friends) is going to cost about $30k, before you add any trimmings. That's more than most people have handy, unless the parents can afford to pay.
The same study says the Maldives is a top 5 destination for all weddings in Europe and that 25% of French who get married take a honeymoon to Sri Lanka or the Seychelles.
The selection bias on that number strikes me as making it pretty unrepresentative.
"The Knot Real Weddings Study captured responses from 16,956 US couples married between January 1 and December 31, 2024; respondents were recruited via email invitation from The Knot and/or WeddingWire membership"
Lots of people have tested the possibility that income and other selection effects explain why marriages are more stable than other kinds of relationships, and the evidence doesn't support it.
…And in the US, couples who cohabited before marrying are much more likely to break up than those who only moved in together after getting engaged or married, regardless of income: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5956907/
In fact, cohabiting couples are *less* likely than married couples to break up in difficult macroeconomic times and places:
I don't think the UK study means what you think it means. It shows that, *controlling for income*, married people are less likely to break up than co-habitors, and people who marry without prior cohabitation (a tiny sliver of the population these days) less likely again. But my point is that people who can afford to get married are less likely to break up, Your data (plus the fact that marriage rates rise with income) is consistent with that.
No, that's wasn't your main point. That was your ending. Your main point was marriage is mostly just long cohabitation which those studies show otherwise. You pivoted to your minor, brief point.
Controlling for income is exactly what you should do if you want to test the claim that better baseline income explains why marriages last longer than cohabitations. If you control for income and the gap in stability still remains, which it does in both the UK and the US, then income is not the only driver of that gap.
1. Income explains much, though not all of the differential between married and cohabiting stabilty
2 Income is an imperfect proxy for "can afford a big expensive wedding".
I was on another thread talking about a survey which supposedly showed that 60 per cent of Americans, including lots on quite high incomes, lived "paycheck to paycheck". The interpretation was not "close to destitution" but something more like "no savings".
I'm not claiming marriage has no benefits (I'm 35 years into my own) just that it's necessary to be careful disentangling these effects
Seriously. I've directly challenged a few on how it is they seem to believe in both Christian principles AND evolutionary/darwinian ones when they're directly opposed. Their answers are not very good. Basically it's just pick whichever one is suitable to them depending on context, and ignore the other whenever it's convenient.
lmao tell me about it. in the past, you could make the argument (and people did) that female fidelity was more important than male fidelity because of paternity issues but obviously that argument holds much less water today. note i'm not saying that fidelity itself isn't important, just that very specific argument isn't
but at the same time i cannot stand these manosphere types who claim that it's fine for men to have multiple partners at a time/cheat/have a high body count because of some bullshit pretzel logic* they have to come up with. it's like dude, if you just want to sleep around with a bunch of women, just say that and spare me the mumbo jumbo about alphas or whatever
*and yes i know that the "logic" is that they're misogynists who don't think the same rules apply to men and women.
Where are you people finding these guys? I am unaware, and I watch youtube channels that are called "manasphere" I think (Chris Williamson, Loise Perry, Lex Friedman, ...). The people you describe sound like imbeciles. I cannot imagine there are many of them.
can i say that one thing that really grinds my gears is that whenever data, whether it's a poll or a nifty chart like the one in this article, people will almost always declare that what the chart is showing is because of their personal hobby horse. similar to when their candidate loses and election, some people will claim that they would have won if only they concentrated more on this very specific issue i care about.
also i'd like to point out that this survey was conducted with *12th graders*! it's entirely possible that people who said they aren't interested in marriage when they are *17* might become interested in marriage when they get older. after all, how many of us wanted to get married when we were 17? i sure as hell didn't.
edit: one last thing i'd like to say is that i've coined a new term: "romantic monogamy". meaning two people who are married or dating and are romantically exclusive to each other but have sex with other people sometimes but are not dating/romantically involved with these people
Oh yeah totally, that's why I gave seven different interpretations, because I've seen all seven perspectives argued on social media! And yes I agree it's silly to ask 12th graders about this stuff.
probably. i just like the term because i've never seen it used before and people always assume that non-monogamy always involves deep romantic feelings between all those involved.
Terms like "open relationship/marriage" usually imply emotional fidelity to the main relationship - partners may have sex with other people but typically don’t have long-term relationships with anyone else, and often keep their various partners separate. People who consider themselves polyamorous are more likely to have multiple long-term relationships, even if they have a "primary", or to be part of a "throuple" or other situation where the various partners also have relationships with each other.
You highlighted something really important that is, in my opinion, genuinely catastrophic for the institution of marriage: the absence of extended support networks. When a husband and wife are trying to do the entire job of raising kids alone, and can't rely on aunties and luxuries like ten-cousin playdates where the kids are distracted and safe for 6 straight hours so they can engage in some adult conversation, it often grinds the gears of the relationship. You're too on top of each other, you rely on each other for too many things, and you can come to resent each other.
If I could do one thing to fix modern marriages (well, apart from making men more giving, stronger, and sexier), it would be to put couples closer to family, both geographically and emotionally. Raising kids is not only difficult to do alone, but if you do, it can ruin the marriage simply by friction.
Unlike other species which are mostly monogamous, monogamous with intermittent exceptions, we have those big, complex brains. Surely we experience different psychological and cultural effects of those extra-relationship interactions, and we have a different capacity to consider and react (act on or resist urges to break those monogamous bonds.)
For me personally, monogamy is it; that’s me, full stop.
I don’t demean or disrespect those who are not monogamous, so long as they’re open and honest, and all involved are happy with their choice. I have zero respect for anyone who cheats, or where there’s a power imbalance that precludes free choice.
I’d be curious to know how durable those personal choices are, how many maintain that choice — not individual relationships, I mean the non-monogamy — through their lifetime. I know that sounds like a passive-aggressive criticism but I promise it’s not.
Yes, that's kind of where I land - I don't demean non-monogamy if everyone is a consenting adult who is on board, but I think it requires a lot of challenging emotional work to handle, and I would rather put my energy towards other pursuits.
It's wild how enthusiastic people are about "we were evolved to X", when and only when it supports their viewpoint. We were evolved to die, painfully, young.
If I was a senior in high school today, confronted with what guys my age were doing online and constantly writing about women, I wouldn't want to get married (or have anything to do with them) either.
I never had a goal to be married and if you'd asked me beforehand whether I wanted to be, I probably would have said no or "meh". I enjoy it quite a bit now that I am, but I lucked out big time on the quality of husband factor. Also even despite being very lucky and happy, I miss the excitement of my single days sometimes. A good marriage makes you healthy wealthy and wise and all that, but it's also rather boring, or at least not exciting. Though that's true if most things that make you healthy and wealthy lol. And raising kids alone is surely a path to misery, unless one has a trust fund or large inheritance for lots of hired help. The only thing worse than doing it alone would be doing it with a tyrranical net negative of a man who makes everyone's lives worse.
This was a nice explanation, but seemed to overlook..I dunno...love! That oxytocin rush you get looking into your partner's eyes. I have read that experiments on prairie voles showed messing with their oxytocin receptors changed their bonding behavior. I feel a super deep bond with my husband. I've heard the word "demisexual" tossed around but when I read the explanation I thought--needing an emotional connection before being sexually interested? Isn't that just normal female sexuality? But alas I am probably assuming that all other humans are like me which is not necessarily true! 🤣
Yes excellent point, I didn't even get into love and how that really is the magical ingredient motivating pair bonds. (Maybe my next newsletter?). The prairie vole oxytocin research is fascinating. I have a Hormones chapter in the the Dad Brain book that gets into a bunch of that research.
Not only is it not too late, it's actually quite early - the book isn't out till June! However, might I suggest that it'd make an excellent Father's Day gift :) So no rush but I do think that anyone who is into culture/biology stuff would enjoy it. I'm planning to talk more about it in my newsletter as the pub date gets closer.
“Normal female sexuality” = not a thing! Seems like you realize this and your comment is tongue-in-cheek. But yeah, that’s not a thing. People are different.
This is such a great post; I don't usually see writing that threads this needle (we're not strictly monogamous but it's a great setup for a lot of humans nonetheless) so well
I really loved what you said about extended support networks. Whenever I think about my own anxieties (as a single, 29 year old woman) around marriage and having children and being a woman in that situation, it always comes down to the fact I think marriage as a unit of two ultimately leads to some inequality. I'm not interested in non-monogamy (lover girl here) but I think we need to talk more about the community that you build around a marriage as a society.
Interesting stuff as always. Can’t wait to get and read the book!
Most of the advantages men gain from marriage; better health, lower all-cause mortality, higher self-reported wellbeing…also appear for women, though often to a lesser degree when compared with never married peers.
As you mention, the evidence shows that relationship quality matters more for women: the benefits are stronger in good marriages and the downsides sharper in poor ones. That said, a low-quality marriage is going to be harmful for both sexes.
“But we should do more to help young people form stable relationships[…]”
Yes, but I’m coming up short on how to do that societally, other than individually (setting good examples by our own behaviours, for instance; in essence, “raising our kids right.” 😉) I’m sure I simply lack imagination, but I’m drawing a blank.
I think that generous paternity and maternity leaves are marriage-promoting, since the transition to parenthood is such a stressful time for marriages. Stronger intergenerational and community support networks...which requires some modification to the built environment and also our cultural value systems. More support for raising kids in general. Encouragement to raise boys who are empathetic and have the potential to be good partners in the future. Banning social media for teens (seriously!).
Re Hidden Ovulation: in grad school, my buddy and I stumbled upon a report that females in a primate species (cannot remember which nor where read🤷♂️) increased likelihood of ovulating some hours (2 - 3 maybe) after eating a full meal.
Was a nice ‘Just So’ story for ‘dinner and a movie’ date nights.🤓. Of course, we had some great fun imagining the savannah equivalent to ‘a movie’— couldn’t decide between watching grass grow or the Sun setting to the evening star appearance. 😎
You've tended to conflate marriage and monogamy here. But in modern (particularly US) society, the incredible expense of weddings means that legal marriage is almost always a formalisation of a long-standing relationship, rather than the beginning of a life partnership. I occasionally joke that it's important to delay the wedding until the kids are old enough to be flower girls/pageboys.
Marriages are more stable than other pairings, but there's huge selection bias here. If you can pay for a wedding, it's a sign that your finances are good shape, removing a major cause of relationship breakdown,
I don't know, this observation strikes me as applying only to a limited slice of contemporary US society. Sure, for the people who want their wedding to be big, grand affair, the inflated cost of modern fancy weddings (and all the ludicrous ancillary celebrations that have grown up around modern weddings, like elaborate bachelor/bachelorette trips) can serve as a constraint on marriage. But of course marriage doesn't require a big, fancy, expensive wedding, and it's not even expected among big chunks of the middle and lower classes, even today. I've been to enough small, cheap weddings over the last few years to know that couples who are having a wedding because they want to get married, rather than because they want to have a wedding, are still able to get hitched quite cheaply.
Of course, you can get married for the cost of the license fee - my wife and I did that, plus a low-key dinner for immediate family and witnesses. But that's the "limited slice" option, about as common as destination weddings at the other end of the scale.
For most Americans (and Australians), meeting the standard social expectations (a service of some kind, photos, reception with ~100 family and friends) is going to cost about $30k, before you add any trimmings. That's more than most people have handy, unless the parents can afford to pay.
https://www.theknot.com/content/average-wedding-cost
The same study says the Maldives is a top 5 destination for all weddings in Europe and that 25% of French who get married take a honeymoon to Sri Lanka or the Seychelles.
The selection bias on that number strikes me as making it pretty unrepresentative.
"The Knot Real Weddings Study captured responses from 16,956 US couples married between January 1 and December 31, 2024; respondents were recruited via email invitation from The Knot and/or WeddingWire membership"
I didn't see anything about Europeans or the Maldives, just checked the budget. It looks about right to me.
Lots of people have tested the possibility that income and other selection effects explain why marriages are more stable than other kinds of relationships, and the evidence doesn't support it.
In the UK, cohabiting couples with kids are twice as likely to break up as married parents: https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/married-poor-more-stable-than-unmarried-rich/
…And in the US, couples who cohabited before marrying are much more likely to break up than those who only moved in together after getting engaged or married, regardless of income: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5956907/
In fact, cohabiting couples are *less* likely than married couples to break up in difficult macroeconomic times and places:
https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/2/6/197
I don't think the UK study means what you think it means. It shows that, *controlling for income*, married people are less likely to break up than co-habitors, and people who marry without prior cohabitation (a tiny sliver of the population these days) less likely again. But my point is that people who can afford to get married are less likely to break up, Your data (plus the fact that marriage rates rise with income) is consistent with that.
No, that's wasn't your main point. That was your ending. Your main point was marriage is mostly just long cohabitation which those studies show otherwise. You pivoted to your minor, brief point.
Thanks for explaning my thinking to me. I'll call on you next time I need clarification on such things.
Controlling for income is exactly what you should do if you want to test the claim that better baseline income explains why marriages last longer than cohabitations. If you control for income and the gap in stability still remains, which it does in both the UK and the US, then income is not the only driver of that gap.
I take your point, but
1. Income explains much, though not all of the differential between married and cohabiting stabilty
2 Income is an imperfect proxy for "can afford a big expensive wedding".
I was on another thread talking about a survey which supposedly showed that 60 per cent of Americans, including lots on quite high incomes, lived "paycheck to paycheck". The interpretation was not "close to destitution" but something more like "no savings".
I'm not claiming marriage has no benefits (I'm 35 years into my own) just that it's necessary to be careful disentangling these effects
im not going to spend more than $1500 on my wedding just like my parents didnt spend more than that before me
Funny how men are evolutionary biologists when it comes to male fidelity but strict Judeo-Christian moralists when it comes to female fidelity.
Seriously. I've directly challenged a few on how it is they seem to believe in both Christian principles AND evolutionary/darwinian ones when they're directly opposed. Their answers are not very good. Basically it's just pick whichever one is suitable to them depending on context, and ignore the other whenever it's convenient.
Saying whatever the fuck suits them or “wins the argument” without reference to any deeper personal principle is very male coded.
I cannot understand anything you say. I suspect you are referring to males who have yet to become men.
lmao tell me about it. in the past, you could make the argument (and people did) that female fidelity was more important than male fidelity because of paternity issues but obviously that argument holds much less water today. note i'm not saying that fidelity itself isn't important, just that very specific argument isn't
but at the same time i cannot stand these manosphere types who claim that it's fine for men to have multiple partners at a time/cheat/have a high body count because of some bullshit pretzel logic* they have to come up with. it's like dude, if you just want to sleep around with a bunch of women, just say that and spare me the mumbo jumbo about alphas or whatever
*and yes i know that the "logic" is that they're misogynists who don't think the same rules apply to men and women.
Where are you people finding these guys? I am unaware, and I watch youtube channels that are called "manasphere" I think (Chris Williamson, Loise Perry, Lex Friedman, ...). The people you describe sound like imbeciles. I cannot imagine there are many of them.
can i say that one thing that really grinds my gears is that whenever data, whether it's a poll or a nifty chart like the one in this article, people will almost always declare that what the chart is showing is because of their personal hobby horse. similar to when their candidate loses and election, some people will claim that they would have won if only they concentrated more on this very specific issue i care about.
also i'd like to point out that this survey was conducted with *12th graders*! it's entirely possible that people who said they aren't interested in marriage when they are *17* might become interested in marriage when they get older. after all, how many of us wanted to get married when we were 17? i sure as hell didn't.
edit: one last thing i'd like to say is that i've coined a new term: "romantic monogamy". meaning two people who are married or dating and are romantically exclusive to each other but have sex with other people sometimes but are not dating/romantically involved with these people
Oh yeah totally, that's why I gave seven different interpretations, because I've seen all seven perspectives argued on social media! And yes I agree it's silly to ask 12th graders about this stuff.
Romantic monogamy - surely that already exists?
𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘺 - 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴?
probably. i just like the term because i've never seen it used before and people always assume that non-monogamy always involves deep romantic feelings between all those involved.
Terms like "open relationship/marriage" usually imply emotional fidelity to the main relationship - partners may have sex with other people but typically don’t have long-term relationships with anyone else, and often keep their various partners separate. People who consider themselves polyamorous are more likely to have multiple long-term relationships, even if they have a "primary", or to be part of a "throuple" or other situation where the various partners also have relationships with each other.
i certainly prefer those terms to "non-monogamy" which is too broad for my tastes
I know more people who are less interested in marriage and kids in their 30s than at 18
You highlighted something really important that is, in my opinion, genuinely catastrophic for the institution of marriage: the absence of extended support networks. When a husband and wife are trying to do the entire job of raising kids alone, and can't rely on aunties and luxuries like ten-cousin playdates where the kids are distracted and safe for 6 straight hours so they can engage in some adult conversation, it often grinds the gears of the relationship. You're too on top of each other, you rely on each other for too many things, and you can come to resent each other.
If I could do one thing to fix modern marriages (well, apart from making men more giving, stronger, and sexier), it would be to put couples closer to family, both geographically and emotionally. Raising kids is not only difficult to do alone, but if you do, it can ruin the marriage simply by friction.
Yes, exactly!
Totally agree - moving far away from my parents and sibling was very fun before kids, but seemed like a big mistake after.
Unlike other species which are mostly monogamous, monogamous with intermittent exceptions, we have those big, complex brains. Surely we experience different psychological and cultural effects of those extra-relationship interactions, and we have a different capacity to consider and react (act on or resist urges to break those monogamous bonds.)
For me personally, monogamy is it; that’s me, full stop.
I don’t demean or disrespect those who are not monogamous, so long as they’re open and honest, and all involved are happy with their choice. I have zero respect for anyone who cheats, or where there’s a power imbalance that precludes free choice.
I’d be curious to know how durable those personal choices are, how many maintain that choice — not individual relationships, I mean the non-monogamy — through their lifetime. I know that sounds like a passive-aggressive criticism but I promise it’s not.
Yes, that's kind of where I land - I don't demean non-monogamy if everyone is a consenting adult who is on board, but I think it requires a lot of challenging emotional work to handle, and I would rather put my energy towards other pursuits.
It's wild how enthusiastic people are about "we were evolved to X", when and only when it supports their viewpoint. We were evolved to die, painfully, young.
Learning about the Is-Ought fallacy feels like a superpower. More arguments, especially in pop-evolutionary psychology, rely on this.
If I was a senior in high school today, confronted with what guys my age were doing online and constantly writing about women, I wouldn't want to get married (or have anything to do with them) either.
I never had a goal to be married and if you'd asked me beforehand whether I wanted to be, I probably would have said no or "meh". I enjoy it quite a bit now that I am, but I lucked out big time on the quality of husband factor. Also even despite being very lucky and happy, I miss the excitement of my single days sometimes. A good marriage makes you healthy wealthy and wise and all that, but it's also rather boring, or at least not exciting. Though that's true if most things that make you healthy and wealthy lol. And raising kids alone is surely a path to misery, unless one has a trust fund or large inheritance for lots of hired help. The only thing worse than doing it alone would be doing it with a tyrranical net negative of a man who makes everyone's lives worse.
This was a nice explanation, but seemed to overlook..I dunno...love! That oxytocin rush you get looking into your partner's eyes. I have read that experiments on prairie voles showed messing with their oxytocin receptors changed their bonding behavior. I feel a super deep bond with my husband. I've heard the word "demisexual" tossed around but when I read the explanation I thought--needing an emotional connection before being sexually interested? Isn't that just normal female sexuality? But alas I am probably assuming that all other humans are like me which is not necessarily true! 🤣
Yes excellent point, I didn't even get into love and how that really is the magical ingredient motivating pair bonds. (Maybe my next newsletter?). The prairie vole oxytocin research is fascinating. I have a Hormones chapter in the the Dad Brain book that gets into a bunch of that research.
I think this book would be a good Christmas gift for my husband (and maybe I'll read it too!) Will it be out in time? Is it too late to preorder?
Not only is it not too late, it's actually quite early - the book isn't out till June! However, might I suggest that it'd make an excellent Father's Day gift :) So no rush but I do think that anyone who is into culture/biology stuff would enjoy it. I'm planning to talk more about it in my newsletter as the pub date gets closer.
Father's Day it is!
“Normal female sexuality” = not a thing! Seems like you realize this and your comment is tongue-in-cheek. But yeah, that’s not a thing. People are different.
Maybe I could have said, a normal and common form of sexuality!
This is such a great post; I don't usually see writing that threads this needle (we're not strictly monogamous but it's a great setup for a lot of humans nonetheless) so well
I really loved what you said about extended support networks. Whenever I think about my own anxieties (as a single, 29 year old woman) around marriage and having children and being a woman in that situation, it always comes down to the fact I think marriage as a unit of two ultimately leads to some inequality. I'm not interested in non-monogamy (lover girl here) but I think we need to talk more about the community that you build around a marriage as a society.
Interesting stuff as always. Can’t wait to get and read the book!
Most of the advantages men gain from marriage; better health, lower all-cause mortality, higher self-reported wellbeing…also appear for women, though often to a lesser degree when compared with never married peers.
As you mention, the evidence shows that relationship quality matters more for women: the benefits are stronger in good marriages and the downsides sharper in poor ones. That said, a low-quality marriage is going to be harmful for both sexes.
Yes, exactly. Women benefit from marriage too, but I think their upside is a little smaller and their downside is a little bigger.
“But we should do more to help young people form stable relationships[…]”
Yes, but I’m coming up short on how to do that societally, other than individually (setting good examples by our own behaviours, for instance; in essence, “raising our kids right.” 😉) I’m sure I simply lack imagination, but I’m drawing a blank.
I think that generous paternity and maternity leaves are marriage-promoting, since the transition to parenthood is such a stressful time for marriages. Stronger intergenerational and community support networks...which requires some modification to the built environment and also our cultural value systems. More support for raising kids in general. Encouragement to raise boys who are empathetic and have the potential to be good partners in the future. Banning social media for teens (seriously!).
In a way, then, it’s more “But we should do more to help young people maintain stable relationships[…]”?
True!
I find it strange how this platform is filled with liberal feminists! Thank you for being one of the good ones, Mrs. Saxbe.
Fascinating article! I loved all of the primate comparisons and evolutionary research
Re Hidden Ovulation: in grad school, my buddy and I stumbled upon a report that females in a primate species (cannot remember which nor where read🤷♂️) increased likelihood of ovulating some hours (2 - 3 maybe) after eating a full meal.
Was a nice ‘Just So’ story for ‘dinner and a movie’ date nights.🤓. Of course, we had some great fun imagining the savannah equivalent to ‘a movie’— couldn’t decide between watching grass grow or the Sun setting to the evening star appearance. 😎
Great read