The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - UVA Professor/Sociologist Brad Wilcox Interview; Wilcox Is The Author Of New Book "Get Married"

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: UVA Professor/Sociologist Brad Wilcox Interview Wilcox Is The Author Of New Book “Get Married” Is Marriage Important For American Society? Is Marriage Key For Personal & Family Growth? Marriage Drives Wealth vs Single Individuals DC, Media & Hollywood – Anti-Family Narrative How Are Kids Of Divorce Impacted Long-Term? “Midas Mindset” – 1 in 3 Young Adults Won’t Marry Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Brad Wilcox, Professor of Sociology at UVA, Director of the National Marriage Project and Author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain and iLoveCVille.com.

Jerry Miller, I Love Seville, the pedestrian downtown mall, and a mile and change from Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia. Today's interview is one I've been very excited about. Last week on this program, the I Love Seville Show, we highlighted Brad Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and the director of the National Marriage Project. Brad Wilcox, a talented professor. In fact, I highlighted last week this man, the first engaging professor I came across at the University of Virginia, literally, in the summer after my first year.

This man doesn't age either. Wait till you see him. We're going to get to his book, and I'll give you the title. It's called Get Married, Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. And I'll give you the title. It's called Get Married, Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. In the process of highlighting this interview,

I took some tidbits that were making the rounds from the book, and I found immediately that the word marriage has become such a lightning rod for society. I want to understand why. Judah Wickhauer is the director and producer. If you could go to the studio camera and then welcome Professor Wilcox on a two-shot to the show. You are live now in front of a heck of a lot of people. The book is called Get Married, Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. Wow, what an impact it's had in such a short period of time. Right. Well, thanks, Jerry. It's great to be here. It's important to kind of underline just this sort of fundamental kind of reality, and that is that there's no group of Americans today who are less lonely, more financially secure,

or happier than married men and women. And that's noteworthy because today a lot of Americans and a lot of journalists are arguing the opposite view. And we're seeing, in my view, kind of unfortunately, that a large number of young women especially think that marriage and motherhood are not leading sort of them down the path to happiness. So my book is designed in part to kind of get the facts out there. And that is basically that most Americans, including women, are more likely to be flourishing when they're married, including with kids. We'll highlight some of the points that struck me, and then I want to take a deep dive. You've highlighted in the book that marriage is an indicator of wealth, not just wealth, but potentially generational wealth.

You've highlighted in the book that children of divorced families, especially boys of divorced families, are more likely to be incarcerated. You've highlighted in the book or mentioned this Midas mindset. And in a recent interview you did with a media outlet, you highlighted that perhaps your prediction, one in three young adults may never marry because of a Midas mindset that is focused on education, money, building a personal brand, and having a career rather than getting married and having a good family. So much I want to unpack. I'll start with an open-ended question. Talk to us about the importance of marriage as it pertains to the American society. So obviously we're literally sitting here almost in the shadow

of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, famous for, among other things, talking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When it comes to life, you know, we're seeing obviously growing deaths of despair. When it comes to liberty, we're seeing millions of Americans having difficulty realizing the American dream, the rags to riches piece of that especially. And when it comes to the pursuit of happiness, I think most importantly, we're seeing happiness rates in America come down. And what the evidence suggests to us, Jerry, is this is not about economic inequality. It's not about failing schools. It's not about race. I mean, those things are all implicated in all of this. But oftentimes, the studies tell us the number one factor driving these kinds of negative trends is either family

or marriage in particular. So on that last point, pursuit of happiness, new study from Chicago telling us that the most powerful predictor that explains why happiness has been coming down in America is that marriage is also in retreat in America. So we're having more difficulty in realizing that classic Jeffersonian pursuit, the pursuit of happiness, because fewer and fewer of us are managing to put a ring on it and to forge a strong and stable family life today in America. Questions are coming in quickly. Ginny Hu will get to your question here in a matter of moments. She's a double Hu of Thomas Jefferson's university. We have the newspaper in Richmond watching the program,

the TV station down the road watching the program right now. And we will highlight questions that are coming in very quickly. I have ones of my own before we get to that point. Let's talk about wealth. I'll go open-ended here. Marriage and building wealth and the impact that saying I do and staying married has on a bank account. You know, it's striking here again, oftentimes and unfortunately, the media is sort of sending us down the kind of wrong path. There was a story in Bloomberg that kind of ran across my Twitter platform when I was finishing up the book that said, quote, women who stay single and don't have kids are getting richer. Again, from Bloomberg, the financial news service, no less.

And kind of the message that came across was that basically marriage was a dead end for women financially. But Jerry, the truth could not be more of the opposite. What we see is that women who are married have higher household incomes. And as they approach retirement in their 50s, have about 10 times the assets compared to their never married peers. It's just not a question for ordinary women, of course, ordinary men as well. Getting married and staying married tends to maximize your household income and your assets as you head towards retirement. Questions. Let's get to Ginny's here. She's a double who. She's got a question for you.

I would like to know from Professor Wilcox if his research has shown of churches being shut down, how that's impacted families and the views on marriage in general. So we see when it comes to religion and family, Jerry, basically, is that there was kind of a downward tick, obviously, in religious attendance in the wake of COVID. And that's important because one of the things that my book basically underlines is that sort of we're birds of a feather who flock together. And so your family and your friends have a lot to do with how much your marriage rises or falls. So if you're kind of surrounding yourselves with people who are kind of marriage friendly, who are there with you and for you when it comes to your own family life, you're much more likely to be flourishing in your own marriage. And on average,

because we know there are exceptions, but on average, people who attend church, temple, synagogue, and the like are more likely to be stably married, happily married, sexually satisfied. And I think the most surprising thing in my new book for adults, from my vantage point, is that now we're seeing that couples who go to church together, a majority of about 65% have sex at least once a week. And by comparison, couples who are not at all churchgoing have sex less than once a week on average. And this was kind of the most surprising thing to me. So I think something about kind of being in a community that values and honors marriage and family is conducive to a better marriage and even maybe a better, surprisingly enough, sex life. Comments are coming in very quickly. Kevin Yancey in Waynesboro will get to your comments.

I got questions from Virginia Beach, the Outer Banks, Palm Beach, Naples, Florida on the docket. We'll get to them in a matter of moments. First, a few more from me. I found when promoting that you were going to be on the show today, the response was almost mixed when it came to the word marriage. Sure, totally. It's turned into such a lightning rod. Offer some perspective with your research of why it's become a lightning rod.

From our standpoint, it would seem how it's being portrayed, conveyed by not just national media, but perhaps by folks that, you know, we look up to, Hollywood, athletes, celebrities, politicians. Yeah. So I think, you know, the tragic reality today, Jerry, is that marriage has become sort of coded as like conservative or religious. And we get why that's the case to some extent. But because it's

been kind of coded in that way, because progressives are more likely to kind of embrace, you know, every new family innovation that comes down the pike, there has become a way in which, you know, liberals are more skeptical publicly about the value of marriage, and conservatives are more likely to kind of embrace it publicly. And so that is part and parcel of why marriage has become more of a polarizing issue and why a lot of people are reluctant to kind of talk about marriage in public life. And one of the things that I highlighted in The Atlantic last week was that unfortunately, from my perspective, many elites, whether it's public school superintendents

or university presidents or Hollywood bigw, or journalists who may themselves be benefiting from strong and stable marriages are reluctant to talk about marriage in their positions of influence. They're reluctant to have a curriculum in their public high school about maybe the benefits of marriage. They're reluctant to have maybe a movie kind of convey the truism about marriage being beneficial to kids. And they're reluctant in their journalistic articles oftentimes to acknowledge how much marriage matters for our kids. So that's our challenge today is that so many of our elites are what I would say talk left, but then in the privacy of their own homes, walk right. That is in kind of a pretty marriage and family-centered direction.

Questions coming in quickly here. We'll go to Vanessa Parkhill. This is for Professor Wilcox. She would like to know your thoughts on the way in which people meet today, online, social media, dating apps, for example, she says, and the impacts the technology has on fighting the right person and getting married. She says, I know young people who very much would like to get married and have a family who are finding it very challenging to meet someone. Yeah, that's completely the case. So obviously some people find a great spouse on a dating app, but I think in general dating apps aren't as helpful,

and really for two reasons. The first is that we see the couples who meet in person, whether it's in college like I did with my wife or in some kind of religious context, or even at the workplace, obviously, are more likely to report that they're happily married, you know, a couple of years later, once they are married. Whereas couples who meet online, or actually also in a bar or tavern, are less likely to be happily married. So that's, I think, worth, you know, putting out there. But more, I think, importantly, what we're seeing with dating apps is sort of like the most attractive people in terms of just that surface set of qualities, in terms of things like the resume and the looks, you know, are the ones that

tend to be advantaged by dating apps. And a lot of other people are disadvantaged by dating apps. And that can lead to a sense of, you know, dissatisfaction and an inability to meet people who would be good, you know, spouses for them down the road. So that's, I think, you know, in brief, some of the challenges that we see with dating apps today. UVA graduate from 2016, it looks like, from Irvine, watching in Irvine, California right now, Jonathan, he says, for Professor Wilcox, is there a correlation with students that graduated from a private school versus a public school and how they view marriage? Well, I have done research actually showing that young adults

who've come from private schools are more likely to get married and stay married and have kids in marriage. Wasn't able to look at kind of the cultural piece exactly in terms of their attitudes, but there does seem to be certainly a connection, correlation, between coming from a private school and being more likely. It could be a Catholic school, it could be a religious school, it could be a private independent school of some stripe, and being more likely, again, to succeed when it comes to marriage and family down the road. This one's coming from Nashville, where there's a lot of viewers of our content here, a lot of Virginia graduates in

Nashville. For Professor Wilcox, he highlights the incarceration when it comes to children of divorce and Jerry highlighted in particular boys. Please unpack that for us. So I mentioned kind of the most striking finding for me for adults I think in the book. When it comes to kids, the thing that really struck me the most was a finding about boys. And we find in the research for the book is that boys or young men who are coming from non-intact families where typically the dad is absent from the home are more likely to spend some time in jail or in prison than they are to graduate from college. I mean, just really pretty striking pattern there. And by contrast, boys who are being raised in an intact family with their parents,

with them and for them at home, are about four times more likely to graduate from college than they are to be incarcerated at some point. So it just kind of underlines for us how typically kids and boys in some ways in particular benefit from having their own parents, their own married parents in the home front. Now, I want to also acknowledge I was raised by a single mom. And obviously, many people who are raised in different kinds of families flourish. We know obviously Jeff Bezos.

We know Barack Obama. We're not raised in intact families. And obviously, professionally, at least, did super well. So you're talking about averages here. And it's just the point is that on average, kids are more likely to flourish when they have the benefit of a married mom and dad in their corner. We were talking off air before the show started of the impact COVID and the pandemic had on real estate values, dramatic impact on real estate values. I'm curious of how COVID, the pandemic, lockdown, more screen time had an impact on marriage,

viewing marriage, getting out and meeting people, and I don't know, perhaps a population decline, a birthing decline. So, you know, when COVID first hit, there were a lot of people who were kind of speculating that it would be leading to a dramatic increase in divorce, kind of the stresses of being at home together. And if you're kind of making assessments based upon writers from Brooklyn, I think that would be, you know, the correct conclusion. But, you know, when you look at the country as a whole, and not just at writers from Brooklyn, what you see actually is a divorce kind of came down during

that period. A lot of Americans sort of took the tough times as an opportunity to kind of deepen their commitment to their marriage. So I think for a lot of folks who were already married, kind of maybe COVID was maybe even a net benefit in terms of like locking in that commitment to your spouse. I think the problem with COVID, though, is it really, I think, did one more number on in-person socializing, dating, meeting people. And so my concern is, as we kind of look out in the next couple of years, we may see kind of another dip in the marriage rate that would be driven in part by COVID, but also I would say in part just by the proliferation of social media and kind of screen time that tends to inhibit that in-person socializing, in-person dating that I think is particularly valuable when it comes to finding a potential spouse? I've seen with young millennials, Gen Zers, and alphas, for example, even in my household, that the screen time is breeding almost social anxiety. We're seeing young millennials, Gen Zers, preferring to do everything on a phone digitally or on a tablet or screen digitally versus actually talking to someone on the phone. Like even my wife, I've spoken about this with my wife,

she would rather do everything through a contact form than speaking to a customer service representative and goes out of her way not to talk to somebody on the phone. Can we talk about social anxiety and the collateral damage of screen time and how it applies to marriage? Yeah. So we see obviously in general that a lot of young adults today and a lot of middle-aged adults today are spending, including me, too much time on our screens. And that does tend to inhibit those social skills, those social opportunities to kind of be with people. And as tough as it can be to kind of interact in person at times, you know, we know that we're social animals, as Aristotle said, and we're more likely to flourish when we have opportunities

to be with other people in person. So this is kind of the downside to all this. It's also the case, too, that when you see people kind of posting, you know, pictures and texts that kind of illustrate they're living their best life online, it can kind of lead to envy, a sense of, you know, fear of missing out, you know, I'm not measuring up, and that can fuel anxiety and depression as well. So there's just a way in which a lot of our screen time, a lot of

our social media isn't very good for us emotionally, and I think also tends to have a negative effect on our marriages. And we have seen and worked on in these two-year family studies that couples who spend more time on their devices, on their screens, and on social media are less likely to be flourishing in their marriages. So I think we just have to continue to work at kind of keeping those in-person interactions up. And when we get home, kind of trying to work on putting our devices like in a corner box that might be a charging box in the kitchen and letting them sit there. That's the challenge for us and for our kids as well. When I get home, that's going to be the first thing my wife says. Your guest said this.

Do it, Jerry, because I fall victim of that almost every night. Katie Pearl watching the program, she said, I met my husband on a Catholic dating app. I think a faith-based app might make a better online match because values are aligned. Then she says, on a side note, Brad's wife is a legend in the Catholic mom community. She also says, I also think the work that Brad is doing is extremely important, and we're grateful that he is doing it. Well, I thank you for those comments. And I would just sort of say, yeah, I'm a dating apps. If that's kind of the option for you, I would definitely look for an app that kind of basically fits your values. And those apps can be one way to do that.

There's also actually a UVA graduate has got a new app out called Keeper. And unlike Tinder, Keeper is aimed at people who are looking for finding lifelong love, especially marriage. So it's obviously much more geared towards making those longer-term matches, which are the ones that I'm really obviously about. Brian's watching the program. I love this comment. Jerry, you talked about this book last week, and I have since ordered it. I have some questions for your guests. He says there's four groups, Asians, faithful, strivers, and conservatives who have built strong, stable marriages by defying the me first attitude.

Can you ask your guest about this? So I think a lot of people who are kind of following the marriage story recognize that class is important in American life and that folks are better educated, more affluent, and more elected to get married and stay married. What people don't realize, there's also a cultural story playing out here. And again, Asian Americans, religious Americans, and conservative Americans in their own ways are more likely today to be getting married and either to be stably married or happily married. And that's in part because they're more likely to embrace virtues of commitment, things like fidelity and sort of seeing marriage as a lifelong commitment. It's also because they're more likely oftentimes to sort of think about the ways in which their marriage matters for their children. And that kind of conditions

the stability of their marriage as well. And then finally, they're more likely typically to have a stable male breadwinner in the mix. And yet obviously a lot's changed when it comes to women and men in marriage today. And what I do find is that whether the woman works or not outside of the home, not a big deal in terms of marital equality. But we do see, especially for married moms, that they're just markedly happier, Jerry, when their husbands are stably employed, kind of giving them that opportunity to make choices about how best to live their family lives, work lives, and just sort of giving them a sense that their husband's making an important financial contribution to their family. John Blair watching the program in Stanton. I'm curious about Professor Wilcox's view of the history of marriage.

The elite critique of the institution is that it was formed as an institution to subjugate women. What's the best argument he has about the origins of marriage as something more than an anti-female institution? So there's obviously a way in which marriage was historically patriarchal and in ways that sort of kept women down. But I think it's important to sort of underline, given that we're actually hearing continuing critiques of marriage from a lot of elite women today in the academy and especially in the media and social media as well, that on average, women are more likely to be flourishing financially today and especially emotionally today. And so I published research with my colleague, Dr. Wendy Wang,

for instance, telling us that the group of women, especially kind of in that midlife band, that 35 to 55 kind of demographic who are married with kids are the happiest women. Of course, being a wife, being a mother is stressful. It requires a lot of compromises, sacrifices, you know, a lot of hair pulling, you know, situations, obviously. But the meaning that come from having kids, the joy that come from having kids, you know, the ways in which your life is incredibly full, you know, whether it's soccer or school performances, or in our case, going to church locally at St. Thomas, just basically enriches your lives in so many ways for both men and women. And again, we don't see any group of women who are more likely to say that they're

happy in America today than women who are married with kids. And so we just got to get that fact out there. And if you're skeptical of what I'm saying here about this, you can go on the General Social Survey, the GSS, and you can run the numbers yourself about marriage, women, and happiness. Gosh, questions are coming in so fast. This guy's a popular guy. Philip Dow has this. The high prices of homes, the interest rates, and the cost of living, how are they impacting who's getting married and birthing children? I'll add to that, the American dream was white picket fence, buy a home, start a family. Are we seeing the prohibitive nature of cost of living, interest rates, and home values keeping the American dream from becoming a reality and marriage and children perhaps being impacted? Yeah, I certainly am concerned about kind of what's happening with

interest rates and what's happening with house prices, because we do know that kind of the price of homes is one of the factors that kind of conditions people's thinking about marriage, especially about having kids. And so if people can't kind of access more readily, more easily access, you know, to a decent home of their own, I think they're more likely to hesitate about both putting a ring on and especially about having, you know, one or more kids. So that's certainly from a policy perspective. I think one of our big challenges, how do we figure out ways to increase the supply of affordable housing and just make it easier for ordinary Americans to purchase preferably a single family of their home.

And that means, among other things, kind of reducing regulations and also decreasing lot size and giving people more flexibility in terms of things like adding an in-law apartment just to kind of maximize options for friends and kin who might want to live with you and help you raise your kids as well. Truly a Renaissance man, pontificating on zoning, ADUs, and parcel sizes. Brad Wilcox, crushing it right now. Judah Wickhauer, our director and producer, has a question for Professor Wilcox. So Philip Dowell asked one of the questions I was very curious about, and I appreciate your answer.

Between 2006 and 2020, the perception in younger people that marriage is vitally important has dropped something like 20%. Is that from a variety of different factors? And how do we change perceptions in that group of people so that they don't see it as something that's a throwaway? Great question. So yeah, we have seen marriage's relative value eroding in recent decades. And a lot of young adults are putting a priority on what I call the Midas mindset. That is this idea that what really matters in life is, you know, good education, more money, you know, my own brand, me, me, me, me, and then especially

like the perfect career. And what I think they don't recognize, they don't realize is that for most of us, our friendships and especially our family life ends up being the most important predictor of meaning and especially happiness in our lives. And so I'm just trying to encourage young adults to kind of refocus away from this Midas mindset and to understand and appreciate that kind of getting married, staying married, investing in your wife, your husband, your kids is for most of us the best sort of path to realizing that classic Jeffersonian pursuit. And that's of course the pursuit of happiness. Are they, are, are the young adults that you have obvious influence over, are they receptive to, to that? Yeah. Across the course of a class

at UVA, yes. They come in oftentimes. And I talked about this in my new book about a student whose name is Holly, recent graduate of UVA. She kind of focused really more on education and work on her personal brand rather than investing in love and marriage. Of course, also in her part, I think part of the story there was her parents had gotten divorced. So that kind of, I think, conditioned her faith in love and marriage. We have to kind of acknowledge that as a challenge for our young adults as well. And so my book is designed in part to not just to kind of underline how much marriage matters for young adults and middle-aged adults especially, but also kind of give some people some hints about how they can steer clear of divorce court and have

reasonably happy marriages most of the time. Ginny, the financial component has definitely affected our eldest child's thoughts on marriage and children. She said she just ordered your book and it sounds like she needs to get a copy for her oldest daughter as well. Sarah Hill Buchenski watching the program. I just tuned in. I've been following Brad on Twitter, on X. Important and brave work from Professor

Wilcox, she says. Thank you. Put in perspective what she means by brave work. I mean, there has been some naysayers on social that have... You know what I like about you? been some naysayers on social that have, you know, what I like about you is you're not afraid to spar on Twitter. I really appreciate that. Yeah. Over the years, I've gotten a lot of hits from the left jury and you know, that's sort of, I think to be understood given what I've said before, but now I'm getting hits from the online, right? The red pill, right?

Pearl Davis and I just last night, we're going at it about whether or not marriage is a death sentence for men. That's sort of her term. And she thinks because men often face the risk of unwanted divorce, and then some of those guys, it turns out actually a very small number of those guys end up committing suicide, that marriage is a death sentence. What she doesn't recognize and realize is that for most men today, they're not going to end up divorced. Divorce rate is well below one in two today. And it's also the case too, that suicide is still quite rare, even for guys who've gotten divorced. So a lot of her kind of naysaying about marriage is not on the mark. But again, there are folks now on the left and the right who are kind of hitting me and hitting marriage because they have one beef or another with this classic institution. I felt it myself. I totally see that. Jason Howard, watching the program, thank you for

hosting this interview. As a fellow married Catholic, it's great to see someone promoting the value of marriage in a stable family unit in 2024. Legacy Media never seems to explore this at all. Carly Wagner, huge fact there, what he's saying. Women married with kids are most likely to be happy. It makes my heart break to hear so many young women swear off having kids under the false belief that kids ruin their lives. My life honestly meant nothing until I became a mom. Don't get me wrong. I was obviously successful in terms of careers, but the second my firstborn was placed on my tummy, my entire perspective on all aspects of life instantly changed in such profound ways. I would 100% walk away from my career, from my kids and marriage every single

time. Thank you, Brad, for rebranding marriage. You are the best hope for saving the next generation. Wow. That could be a way to close. He does have a hard stop at one o'clock. What do you make of that? Are you rebranding marriage? That's the plan, Jerry. Yeah, that's the plan. Give me a little more on that. Rebranding marriage, the effort of that. Yeah, I think marriage has gotten kind of a bad reputation in recent years. And it's just important for us to realize people think that kind of taking a path away from marriage and family is the path to prosperity and happiness. But what we see in the data, Jerry, is the path to prosperity and happiness runs through what we see in the data, Jerry, is the path to prosperity and happiness

runs through marriage and family, not away from it. Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, we do have a hard stop at one o'clock. I see roughly 60 to 70 questions or comments we're not going to get to. Thank you to Brad Wilcox for joining us.

I will maybe reach out to you to see if we can get you back on the program. His book is absolutely fantastic. It's flying off the digital shelf. It's called Get Married, Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. Thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville Show on a Wednesday. We're back in the saddle tomorrow at 1230 p.m. Take care. Thanks, Jerry. at 12 30 p.m take care thanks sherry Thank you.