Get Married

A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read

What's the recipe for happiness? If you listen to liberal elites or red pill influencers, you'd say it's making money, living for yourself, and staying single without kids**—and you'd be wrong. Nothing predicts happiness better than a good marriage.**

According to new research by the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox, our kids and communities—not to mention our civilization as a whole—are much more likely to flourish when the state of our unions is strong. Despite this, record numbers of Americans are not succeeding at getting or staying married.

In this hard-hitting book, Wilcox reveals the anti-family messages and policies coming out of Hollywood, Washington, the media, academia, and corporate America that have weakened marriage. Along the way, he knocks down a number of myths they've propagated. He reveals:

• Both men and women who get and stay married accumulate much greater wealth than people who don't marry.

• Married men and women with families report more meaningful lives, compared with their single and childless peers.

• Couples who take a "we-before-me" approach to married life—by, for instance, sharing joint checking accounts—are happier and less divorce-prone than couples who do not.

• Couples who forge "family-first" marriages—characterized by frequent date nights, family fun time, and chores done with the kids—enjoy the happiest marriages.

Wilcox spotlights four groups—Asian American, Conservative, Faithful, and Strivers—who have built strong, stable marriages by defying the me-first messages of our elites in favor of a family-first way of life.

This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why, even as fewer men and women tie the knot, America's most fundamental institution matters for our civilization more than ever. And for men and women looking to establish strong, stable, and happy unions for themselves and their children, Get Married reveals the road forward.