Get Married Young | Brad Wilcox — Transcript

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1. 0:00Well, our next talk is about getting
2. 0:02married young. And this is very personal
3. 0:05to me. This past weekend, I had the
4. 0:07experience of my lifetime. My son Pierce
5. 0:10married Carlin. They're right over here.
6. 0:13And I got to be a part of of this
7. 0:16wedding with with my son and his wife.
8. 0:20They're age 22. They're getting married
9. 0:22young.
10. 0:24You see, in 1970, 72% of our population
11. 0:28were married. And now that number has
12. 0:30dropped to near 50%.
13. 0:32So understanding marriage, the value of
14. 0:34marriage, there's lots of question marks
15. 0:35in the next generation. Should we get
16. 0:37married? Should I wait? How long should
17. 0:38I wait? And along comes the sociology
18. 0:42and professor of sociology at the
19. 0:44University of Virginia, Brad Wilcox,
20. 0:46respected researcher and sociologist,
21. 0:48writes for the New York Times and many
22. 0:51other established
23. 0:53journals that help us better understand
24. 0:56the data and where marriage is going.
25. 0:58and he writes a book called Get Married
26. 0:59Young. Get married.
27. 1:03And he makes the case for why we should
28. 1:05reconsider how we are thinking about
29. 1:07marriage, especially as parents,
30. 1:09especially as friends, and especially as
31. 1:12young adults. And so, will you join me
32. 1:14in welcoming to the stage Brad Wilcox?
33. 1:17[applause]
34. 1:36So before September 10th, to be honest,
35. 1:40I had not followed Charlie Kerr closely.
36. 1:44But after that day, the day that he was
37. 1:47killed, I learned that besides being a
38. 1:50major player in politics, Charlie Kirk
39. 1:53had also been a powerful and prophetic
40. 1:56voice on behalf of something bigger than
41. 1:58politics, the American family. I also
42. 2:02came to learn that this man, a man who
43. 2:04had never even graduated from college,
44. 2:07was possessed of a wisdom far beyond
45. 2:10most ivory tower academics. when it came
46. 2:13to our most fundamental social
47. 2:16institution, marriage.
48. 2:20One piece of family wisdom articulated
49. 2:23by Kirk especially struck me. It's good
50. 2:26to get married young. In fact, just two
51. 2:30months to the day before an assassin
52. 2:34took his life, he put it this way. Women
53. 2:37should prioritize family and children
54. 2:40way above career. They should try to
55. 2:43find their husband before they're 25.
56. 2:45They should try to get married way
57. 2:48younger. Clearly countercultural advice
58. 2:51for this day and age.
59. 2:55Now Kirk's case for 20some marriage
60. 2:58basically had three features in that
61. 3:01interview on that day. The first point
62. 3:04that he made was that this culture is
63. 3:06telling you to lean into work and
64. 3:08travel, but working for the man and
65. 3:11being able to travel to Thailand is not
66. 3:13going to bring you the fulfillment you
67. 3:16think it will.
68. 3:18The second point was you need to
69. 3:20minimize your odds of being miserable
70. 3:22and maximize your odds of being happy by
71. 3:25getting married and having kids. And
72. 3:28then thirdly, don't assume that you can
73. 3:31wait until your 30s to find a spouse and
74. 3:34start your family because if you wait,
75. 3:37you may miss out on that opportunity.
76. 3:41Now, his message
77. 3:44again is countercultural in a day and
78. 3:46age when we're hearing online and in the
79. 3:50media and in the academy
80. 3:53that life is about work. Life is about
81. 3:58kind of steering clear from the
82. 4:00encumbrances of family and instead
83. 4:02embracing education,
84. 4:05money, and especially work. I call this
85. 4:08kind of the mightest mindset in our
86. 4:10culture today. And this might mindset is
87. 4:14being broadcast on the left for instance
88. 4:17in the New York Times with a piece
89. 4:20telling women that quote married
90. 4:22heterosexual motherhood in America is a
91. 4:25game that no one wins. This from a
92. 4:27writer in Brooklyn.
93. 4:30But we're also, of course, now hearing
94. 4:31this message from precincts in the
95. 4:33right, from people like Andrew Tate, who
96. 4:36are telling us that there is zero
97. 4:39statistical advantage for guys when it
98. 4:42comes to marriage, encouraging them to
99. 4:44kind of steer clear of putting a ring on
100. 4:47it. And of course, when I speak to
101. 4:50ordinary students at the University of
102. 4:51Virginia, students like Holly, I also
103. 4:54hear them articulating this kind of
104. 4:56modest mindset. So Holly said to me, for
105. 4:59instance, she said, ' UVA students are
106. 5:01definitely more focused on their
107. 5:02education and getting their career
108. 5:05started than getting into a serious
109. 5:08relationship. The thought process is
110. 5:10relationships and love are risk, but you
111. 5:13always have your career and success to
112. 5:15fall back on. Okay, so putting a lot of
113. 5:17faith in career and success. And what we
114. 5:20see is that she is by no means an
115. 5:22outlier in survey after survey. In Pew
116. 5:26surveys, for instance, what we're seeing
117. 5:27is that young adults are kind of putting
118. 5:29their faith in especially work over
119. 5:33investing in getting married and having
120. 5:35kids. And again, the idea here is the
121. 5:38path to a meaningful and happy life runs
122. 5:41away from marriage and family,
123. 5:44especially when you're in your 20s.
124. 5:46But Charlie Kirk had a different view
125. 5:49about all this. In that interview, he
126. 5:52said that people who say they're very
127. 5:54unhappy are young men with children,
128. 5:56without children. Okay? And so he was
129. 5:59giving us a message that was very much
130. 6:01running against that New York Times
131. 6:04writer from Brooklyn. And by the way,
132. 6:05they're always from Brooklyn.
133. 6:08Yeah.
134. 6:10I got this, for instance, when I was
135. 6:11talking to young women and men across
136. 6:13the US. I'm thinking of, for instance, a
137. 6:15woman named Taylor who lives in the
138. 6:17Rocky Mountain West. She's in her
139. 6:19mid-30s now. and she was told in her 20s
140. 6:22this. She says, "Oh, don't get married
141. 6:23too young. Go out and see the world and
142. 6:25do all these other things and don't get
143. 6:28too attached to anyone too quickly." She
144. 6:31said, "You know, I look back on that
145. 6:32advice and I'm like, you know, if I
146. 6:34could do it again, I would actually
147. 6:36focus on finding a husband a little bit
148. 6:39earlier." And she also told me that kind
149. 6:42of today she feels like her life quote
150. 6:44doesn't have a ton of meaning right now.
151. 6:47Okay. And she again is by no means an
152. 6:49outlier in the data. My colleagues in I
153. 6:52at the Institute for Family Studies have
154. 6:54found that young women who are not
155. 6:56married are more than twice as likely to
156. 6:59be not happy as this figure here
157. 7:01indicates. And much the same story
158. 7:04applies to men. They're also more than
159. 7:06twice as likely not to be very happy uh
160. 7:09if they're unmarried compared to their
161. 7:1120 something peers who are married. And
162. 7:15then more constructively, Charlie Kirk
163. 7:17also said
164. 7:19or asked, I should say, who are the
165. 7:21happiest women in America? And they are
166. 7:23married women with children is what he
167. 7:26said. And once again, someone who wasn't
168. 7:29formally tutored in family sociology was
169. 7:33right on the money. Because what the
170. 7:35data tell us again is that women in
171. 7:38their 20s and 30s who are married with
172. 7:39kids are marketkedly more likely to be
173. 7:42very happy than their peers who are not
174. 7:44married and don't have children.
175. 7:47Moreover, when you kind of look at the
176. 7:49story for men, it's much the same story.
177. 7:53In fact, Kirk once observed that for men
178. 7:55getting married amounted to a kind of
179. 7:58death. He said, "It's the death of the
180. 8:00bachelor mindset.
181. 8:02It's the death of the wandering eye.
182. 8:05It's the death of I get to do what I
183. 8:07want to do. It's the death of playing
184. 8:09video games until 1:00 a.m. And it's the
185. 8:12birth of a man,
186. 8:15a man who now finds [clears throat]
187. 8:16meaning, direction, and purpose in
188. 8:18something larger than himself, his
189. 8:21family. And he was right in terms of the
190. 8:24data.
191. 8:25And I think the most provocative claim
192. 8:27that he made on that day, again, just
193. 8:29two months before he was killed, is that
194. 8:32if you don't have kids before the age of
195. 8:3430, there's only a 50% chance, a one in
196. 8:38two chance that you'll have kids. And
197. 8:40this was kind of a radical claim in a
198. 8:42day and age when the median age at first
199. 8:45marriage for men is about 30 and almost
200. 8:4829 for women.
201. 8:50And what was striking too I think about
202. 8:52this claim was that I actually hadn't
203. 8:53seen that statistic myself and yet he
204. 8:55was again right on the money. My
205. 8:58colleagues and I at the Institute for
206. 8:59Family Studies have just kind of run the
207. 9:01numbers and we do see that women who
208. 9:04reach 30 without starting a family do
209. 9:07indeed have only about a 50% chance of
210. 9:10having kids.
211. 9:12So again, the idea here is that the
212. 9:14longer you wait,
213. 9:16it looks like the more you're putting
214. 9:18your odds of forming a family at serious
215. 9:20risk if you're kind of pushing into uh
216. 9:23the 30s. And this is not just kind of a
217. 9:25story for women, it's also a story for
218. 9:29men.
219. 9:31Men like Scott for instance, another guy
220. 9:33in his mid-30s. Now to be clear, in his
221. 9:3620s, Scott played the field, but as he
222. 9:40is now kind of hitting his mid30s,
223. 9:44it seems to him that marriage and family
224. 9:46are beyond his reach. Now, to be sure,
225. 9:49by the standards of kind of the mightest
226. 9:50mindset, he should be fine. He's got a
227. 9:53college degree from Clemson, an engaging
228. 9:56career, and a sixf figure salary. But
229. 10:00these educational and professional
230. 10:02accomplishments are not enough for him.
231. 10:05He said, "You know, I've got degrees on
232. 10:07my wall. I've got accomplishments and
233. 10:09certificates, but it doesn't mean
234. 10:11anything in the end is what he said to
235. 10:13me. I have to get up every day and look
236. 10:16in the mirror and realize I'm alone. I
237. 10:19have nobody." So Scott's struggling with
238. 10:22a kind of toxic mix of loneliness,
239. 10:24meaninglessness, and sadness. And to be
240. 10:26sure, there are plenty of happy singles
241. 10:28out there, and there are plenty of
242. 10:30miserable marrieds out there. But on
243. 10:32average, the rise we're seeing across
244. 10:35this country in the share of young
245. 10:38adults who are single means that more
246. 10:40and more Americans on average are
247. 10:43failing at that classic American
248. 10:46pursuit, the pursuit of happiness. The
249. 10:49pursuit of happiness. We can see here
250. 10:52for instance that not only our growing
251. 10:54share of single women kind of reporting
252. 10:57unhappiness but that's especially true
253. 11:00for young men across this country again
254. 11:03young men like Scott.
255. 11:06So when one is kind of making the case
256. 11:09as Charlie Kirk was and as I am today
257. 11:12for younger marriage, it's important for
258. 11:14us to be completely honest about I think
259. 11:16the biggest risk
260. 11:18and that risk of course is about the
261. 11:20risk of divorce.
262. 11:24All right, it's missing. And what we see
263. 11:26in the data here is that it is the case
264. 11:29that young adults who are getting
265. 11:31married in their early 20s do have an
266. 11:34elevated risk for divorce. But there's
267. 11:36one important exception to that pattern
268. 11:40and that is that young adults in their
269. 11:42early 20s who get married and attend
270. 11:44church together see marketkedly lower
271. 11:47levels of divorce. It's kind of a note
272. 11:48of encouragement I think particularly
273. 11:50for this audience here uh this morning.
274. 11:57So to sum up here, I think the best
275. 12:00social science tells us that elites in
276. 12:02the media, in the ivory tower, and
277. 12:06online who counsel us to focus on work
278. 12:10and money and freedom from family have
279. 12:13got it wrong. The real path to living a
280. 12:16meaningful and happy life doesn't run
281. 12:19away from marriage and family. It runs
282. 12:21right towards it. So I would encourage
283. 12:24all of you both for yourselves, maybe
284. 12:27for your young adult children, maybe for
285. 12:29people in your congregations to reject
286. 12:31the minus mindset. And then if you are
287. 12:34single and in your 20s and fortunate
288. 12:38enough to find a mate who's also a good
289. 12:40friend, do like Charlie Kirk did.
290. 12:44Get married,
291. 12:46have children, build a legacy, pass down
292. 12:50your values, pursue the eternal, and
293. 12:53seek true joy.
294. 12:56Thank you. [applause]