Shocker: People Who Will Stay Together Longer More Likely to Marry

Our "friends" at the Institute for Family Studies published another marriage-seller piece, this one by Harry Benson, who is Research Director of the UK-based Marriage Foundation.

After all, marriage rates have been falling across the developed world since the 1970s.

Good.

Cohabitation has become normalized.

Shacking up is almost as bad as marrying. Don't do it, guys.

People talk about long-term committed couples and relationships as the equivalent of marriage.

What makes something marriage, if not committing to be together?

Unfortunately, this trend away from marriage is most pronounced among the poorest families who need stability most, having the least financial resources to fall back upon.

"Stability." Mexican standoffs ARE stable.

Poor people aren't marrying because women seek precious metals. They think they can do better, so they hold out.

So do we need marriage?

I didn't.

What I want to do is restore your confidence in marriage.

BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! Don't do it, guys.

I want to reassure you that the statistics continue to show that families who marry tend to have better outcomes, both adults and children, both rich and poor alike.

Better outcomes how? Better outcomes for whom? Reality: People who are doing better in life are able to attract and keep a (better) spouse. Signing a bad state contract doesn't magically make things better, especially not for men.

In a study the Marriage Foundation conducted of UK families, we found that 75% of parents who were married when their child was born were still together as a couple when their children reached age 15. Compare that to just 31% of parents who stayed together having cohabited but never married.

How many of those cohabitating couples truly had two people who really, really wanted to be parents with each other? Reality: People religious enough to wait until they marry to have children or who marry because they are expecting are so religious they are less likely to divorce.

In another study of 14-year-olds in the UK, we found that family breakdown—the absence of a father in the house—was the single biggest factor influencing teenage mental health.

Dad cane be there without a terrible state contract.

More remarkably, regardless of whether families stayed together or split up, having parents who were married when their child was born was linked to fewer mental health problems in boys.

Reality: Crazy people are less likely to have a wedding, and more likely to pass along their mental illness to their boys.

Moreover, in a survey we did last year of 2,000 adults who were either married now or who had been married at some stage, one in three couples said they wouldn’t have stayed together through their first 10 years or so if they hadn’t been married.

"Get married so you can STAY miserable!"

What is it about being married that makes a difference? Well, I think marriage involves three necessary things that are only options for couples who cohabit.

In other words, people can still do these without a terrible state contract, and even without having a ceremony.

First, marriage necessarily involves a decision.

So does moving in together, especially if it is planned. Or being a supposedly exclusive relationship without living together. Or being in an ongoing relationship without supposed exclusivity or living together.

Second, marriage necessarily involves a plan.

Ditto.

Third, marriage necessarily involves the support of others who affirm the choice we’ve made, and also makes us accountable for our decision and plan.

Family and friends can be destructive or supportive regardless of whether there is a terrible state contract involved, regardless of whether there was a ceremony.

You can, of course, have all these things—decision, plan,  support—in a cohabiting relationship. And it’s important to acknowledge that one in three cohabiting parents do well, staying together while they bring up their children. But these psychological ingredients are not automatically there if couples don’t marry in the same way that they are if they do.

Basically, he's saying you're more likely to play mind games if you marry. This whole essay is pretty much a lot of words that translate to "I extol marriage." So what?

But whether they achieve it or not, almost everybody still wants to get married someday, perhaps because deep down we know the psychology behind it is so strong.

Nope. There are a lot of people who want something they're never going to get. Some of them are willing to settle, because they have this dung constantly being shoveled their way.

Marriage does something to us.

It sure does! It transfers my earnings away and takes away my freedom.

How about doing what I do and tell people to:

Make decisions

Plan

Support their family and friends

...instead of telling them to sign a terrible state contract?

Notice, also, if you don't want to have children, this essay gives you zero reason to marry.

People who are more likely to stay together longer and more likely to marry. It isn't so much that a terrible state contract keeps them together, although I'm sure there are people miserably stuck in that Mexican standoff with the state. And, of course, being so romantic, this guy said he and his wife wouldn't have stayed married if not for the state essentially pointing a gun at them.

Should You Legally Marry If You Want Children?