It Goes In Cycles: Push For “Early Marriage” Makes the Rounds AGAIN Lately, Because of Marriage-Idolater, Singleness Shaming Brad Wilcox (Feb 2022)

It Goes In Cycles: Push For “Early Marriage” Makes the Rounds AGAIN Lately, Because of Marriage-Idolater, Singleness Shaming Brad Wilcox (Feb 2022)

Late night talk show host Johnny Carson used to have this joke that there’s only one fruit cake in the United States, nobody wants it, so they pack it up and mail it to another family the next Christmas; it’s the same fruit cake, in endless circulation.

I was reminded of that Johnny Carson anecdote when this odious Brad Wilcox penned piece on early marriage popped up a couple of months ago, was picked up by Wall Street Journal, then made its way ’round conservative Twitter.

As I said in older posts about conservative dating books aimed at women, like here or here, (where women are told, “You’re still single because you’re not Codependent enough! Stop following liberal, feminist advice, and ditch the self confidence and boundaries, and start acting like a Door Mat again, because MEN ARE ATTRACTED TO DOORMATS, being a doormat is feminine!”), topics like that one runs in cycles.

Every few years, you can count on conservative women releasing new “anti-feminist” dating advice books chock full of codependency marketed as being a sure-fire way of getting a husband, and you can also count on conservatives every so often, either releasing “pro early marriage” books and articles, or, with every news release of birth rates falling, or declining marriage rates on the increase, more of their fear mongering, anti-singleness articles.

So this newest crop of conservative sites eagerly repeating this latest Wilcox “Get married really young!” propaganda is no surprise.

I am going to guess that is what happened, that Brad Wilcox, of National Marriage Project, released an initial commentary, or one of his wonky “studies,” and then, other Christian, marriage-worshipping outlets (such as “Christianity Today” magazine) pick up on it and run with it, so pretty soon, for about a week, you start seeing all these “Benefits of marrying young!” headlines sprouting up all over your Twitter feed.

It’s so barfy.

It’s not just online magazines and newspapers publishing these “pro early marriage” editorials, but your Christian “nobodies,” (some of whom work as preachers), who tend to lean “complementarian,” have been tweeting about the topic, and shaming single women into marrying and marrying young.

They show no regard for 1 Corinthians 7, which states it’s better to remain single than to marry, nor do they seem to recall that Jesus, the founder of their faith, never married and never had (biological) children, nor do they show regard for the quotes by Jesus which presented “spiritual” family to be on par with, or more important than, biological family (see those towards the end of this post).

I will see if I can round up some of the tweets, articles I’ve seen lately about this and put them in this post.

This entire situation is just so bizarre, for several reasons.

In earlier commentary, I’ve seen some of these marriage-pushers seemingly upset by news reports that more and more young people (and some older adults) are NOT having sex prior to marriage any longer!

Conservatives, whether secular or religious, used to respect and defend the concept of remaining a virgin until marriage, but no more.

Here’s a rough time line, as it seems to me, of the conservative abandonment of defending sexual purity:

In the last 15 or so years, the Christian conservatives gave in, recognized that a lot of singles are having pre-marital sex, so they quietly accepted it, so they began to writing all these noxious, “well, that’s OK, God will forgive you of fornicating!” articles,
to when the progressive Christian women on Twitter started bitching a few years back about how horrible they found “purity culture,” Christian pastors and authors moved on to actually appease them by  downplaying the importance of virginity and celibacy (see, for example, Tim “We’re All Virgins Now” Challies), to lately, they’ve even been out right expressing sadness or frustration that single Christian women don’t want to knowingly marry a porn addicted Christian man to sadness or upset that adults aren’t having sex prior to marriage as much any more.

It’s also weird how these obscenely pro-marriage conservatives and Christians will grasp on to any little, tiny sliver of where they perceive pro-marriage points to be made and then hammer people over the head with them.

For example, in this latest “study,” Wilcox and others of his ilk grabbed tightly on to some study finding that people who marry young but who DO NOT cohabitate first are likely to stay married longer and not divorce.

So… out they trot these breathless think pieces stating,

“Hey, look, young ‘uns who marry young but who don’t live together prior to marriage stay married longer! So do it, young people, do it – get married now, now, now, now! Just don’t share an apartment together first!!!”

A conservative lady on Twitter,  Allie Beth Stuckey (tweet link), said in regards to this report:

My favorite thing is when researchers “discover” things the Bible has been saying for thousands of years
— end quote —

I do think the Bible teaches that pre-marital sex is sinful, but no where does the Bible imply or suggest that it’s a command of God for all people to marry and at what age if they do.

I have more commentary way below all the links and excerpts below, so please read on (or at least scroll towards the bottom, thanks).

I think this is the piece that got excitedly commented upon by all the marriage-worshipping conservatives that started it all; published Feb. 5, 2022 (note the authors):

(Link): Too Risky to Wed in Your 20s? Not if You Avoid Cohabiting First

Research shows that marrying young without ever having lived together with a partner makes for some of the lowest divorce rates
By Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone

(Link – Not The Bee site):  SHOCKING: Experts discover a secret to marital happiness that’s only been known to anyone in history who ever read the Bible (Re: Wilcox Article About Marrying Young)

(Link – Christianity Today magazine):  Research: Religious Americans Less Likely to Divorce

Recent data suggests that faithful young adults can marry in their 20s without increasing the risk of separation.
by LYMAN STONE AND BRAD WILCOX | DECEMBER 14, 2021 

This Stonestreet guy is also at BreakPoint. He’s written some pieces I disagree with before, such as this one. He wrote another one which I kind of agreed with, I guess, that one is here.

(Link): Marry Early, but Don’t Live Together First by John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander – article originally published at BreakPoint

Feb 23, 2022
By John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander

New data is poking holes in what’s become a prominent cultural myth. “When it comes to divorce,” write Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone in The Wall Street Journal, “the research has generally backed up the belief that it’s best to wait until around 30 to tie the knot.” This is because the divorce rate is generally lower for those who wait to wed.

Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women by David Ludden (Hint: Male Entitlement is Involved. Notify Every Christian Gender Complementarian, Christian Patriarchalist, MRA, and Incel Ever)

Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women by David Ludden (Hint: Male Entitlement is Involved. Notify Every Christian Gender Complementarian, Christian Patriarchalist, MRA, and Incel Ever)

The essay below, which references studies, mentions that male entitlement plays a role in why hetero men orgasm more in sex with women than women do.

This should be an eye-opener to every sexist, hetero man ever, including the sex-obsessed, marriage-obsessed, Christian gender complementarian and Christian Patriarchy rat bastards who already hold a lot of false beliefs about women and sex, such as,
“Only men want sex; women hate sex, women are not visually oriented and just want emotional connection, therefore, husbands unfortunately have to always nag their wives into having sex!”

(Link): Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women – Real Clear Science

Full article on…

(Link): Why Men Have More Orgasms Than Women – Psychology Today

Some portions below in bold face added by me for emphasis:

by David Ludden –  Psychology Today
February 13, 2022

Key Points:

• • It’s commonly thought that men orgasm more easily than women due to biology, but research doesn’t support this contention.
  • Men are enculturated with a sense of entitlement, and this may play out in the bedroom as well.
  • Research shows that both men and women believe men are more entitled to have orgasms.

---

It’s common knowledge that men are more likely than women to orgasm during a sexual encounter. This is true in both casual affairs and long-term relationships. But why this is the case is not clear.

…It’s Not About Biology
As University of Michigan psychologists Verena Klein and Terri Conley point out in an article they recently published (Link): in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, this argument doesn’t hold water. First, there’s nothing about the clitoris to suggest that it’s less likely to produce orgasms than the penis since both have the same concentration of nerve endings.

Furthermore, women are capable of having multiple orgasms in short secession. In contrast, men are limited in the number of orgasms they can have within a given time period.

For reasons that are still unknown but highly debated, men experience a refractory period after each ejaculation, so multiple orgasms are out of the question. Given these facts, it seems that women should be having way more orgasms than men, not the other way around.

Since they ruled out biological reasons, Klein and Conley considered whether the gendered sexual pleasure gap could be explained by social attitudes about sex. They note that in Western society, men are taught to feel more entitled, whereas women are trained to act more deferential.

A Vaccine Or This Marriage: Conspiracy Theories Are Tearing Couples Apart

A Vaccine Or This Marriage: Conspiracy Theories Are Tearing Couples Apart

Ha ha ha haaaaa! And marriage-idolaters such as Al Mohler, and secular and Christian “pro nuclear family” organizations like to assure me, and try to brainwash me, to believe that marriage makes people more mature, giving, and ethical – and that it will “fix” society! LOL!

Marriage-idolater Bradford Wilcox has written articles in the past year to try to convince people that marriage makes people weather the Covid-19 virus fall out better than singleness.

Please understand, though, that the following is from left-leaning Huffington Post, and they will, of course, as liberals and leftists do, try to portray anyone who may have legitimate fears or concerns of coronavirus vaccines as being “conspiracy” crackpot kooks.

(This, from the same people who said when Trump was in office, that they’d not use any vaccines that were rushed out under or by the Trump admin. For example, see this CBS news article or this one from CNN. You liberals and Democrats have not been consistent on this vaccine situation.
You liberals and Democrats were against the vaccines before you were sniping at conservatives to hurry up and get vaccinated already.)

(Link): A Vaccine Or This Marriage: Conspiracy Theories Are Tearing Couples Apart

“He said if I take the vaccine I could pack my bags and leave his kids here.”
by Jesselyn Cook

For Lucy, a 59-year-old metastatic breast cancer patient from Washington state, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was a matter of life and death.

After undergoing aggressive chemotherapy for months, the coronavirus almost certainly would have killed her.

Yet as relief washed over her upon receiving her final Pfizer dose in March, she knew she’d have to keep it to herself. Her husband had begged her not to get the shot.

Mom Blows $10K on Veneers, Botox While Refusing Kids’ Christmas Gifts

Mom Blows $10K on Veneers, Botox While Refusing Kids’ Christmas Gifts

And yet, in spite of headlines I see like the one below, via the New York Post, the Al Mohlers, Bradford Wilcoxes, and other Christian and conservative marriage and parenthood promoters keep on peddling these lies about marriage and parents, such as (but not limited to),
marriage and parenthood makes people more ethical, godly, responsible, giving, and loving, and marriage (Link): and parenthood makes people humans (we’re not human until we procreate – Jesus never procreated, so I guess he was an in-human, sub-species loser by those standards).

(Link): Mom Blows $10K on Veneers, Botox While Refusing Kids’ Christmas Gifts – New York Post

Dec 17, 2020
By Lia Eustachewich

A self-obsessed mom in the UK is making Christmas jingle hell this year by blowing $10,000 on herself — and refusing to spend a single penny on her two children.

Carla Bellucci, 38, boasted about using a stocking full of cash for new veneers, Botox, manicures, facials and brand new duds ahead of Christmas Day, while demanding that her kids, Tanisha, 15, and Jayden, 13, make their own money if they want gifts under the tree.

Marriage-Pushing Zealot Wilcox Suggests that Being Single is Immoral: National Review Article

Marriage-Pushing Zealot Wilcox Suggests that Being Single is Immoral: National Review Article

I’ve written about Wilcox many times before. Wilcox is obsessed with marriage and advocating for it, and in the process, he enjoys insulting singleness and adult singles, although the Bible states in 1 Corinthians 7 it is better to remain single than to marry, and of course, as we all know, Jesus of Nazareth, who is highly regarded by many, never married.

Jesus remained single and celibate and never formed his own “nuclear family,” because he was more concerned with establishing a spiritual family, and he taught his followers to be just as, if not, (Link): more concerned with spiritual family than with biological family.

But marriage-idolaters and singles-shamers, such as Wilcox and Al Mohler, continue to promote marriage far too much, and they tend to do so consistently at the detriment of singles.

Allow me to first provide a few excerpts from the National Review piece by Wilcox, then I will explain the flaws with some of the points below the excerpt:

(Link):  Private Schools Outpace Public Schools in Putting Kids on the Path to Marriage

Excerpts:

By W. BRADFORD WILCOX , PATRICK WOLF & PEYTON ROTH
Sept 2020

There’s more to a quality education than academics; good schools give students a healthy moral environment that appears to shape their future family life.

… Different kinds of schools, with different moral ecologies, set our children up for success or failure in areas of life outside of the classroom. Chief among these is family life.

We know that men and women who forge strong and stable marriages are generally happier, healthier, and more prosperous. [Note from blog owner: this is a repeated but false claim across marriage-hyping articles; please see (Link): this post for refutations]

People Who Get Divorced Are More Likely To Die Early Than Those … Who Never Got Married In the First Place, Study Shows (2020)

People Who Get Divorced Are More Likely To Die Early Than Those …  Who Never Got Married In the First Place, Study Shows

(Link): People who get divorced are more likely to die early than those who drink heavily, have money problems or never got married in the first place, study shows

Excerpts:

By Luke Andrews

People who get divorced are more likely to die than heavy drinkers, people with money problems and those who never got married in the first place, a study has shown.

Scientists revealed the disparity after asking 13,611 American adults aged between 50 and 104 about their lives over the previous 16 years, between 1992 and 2008.

They then collected data on those that died between 2008 and 2014, either through national mortality records or interviews with relatives.

Coronavirus: Even Married People With Children Die All Alone

Coronavirus: Even Married People With Children Die All Alone

There have been several news reports over the last two or three months reporting about how so many people – especially elderly people – are dying all alone due to Covid-19 (Coronavirus), whether they are dying in hospitals or nursing homes.

Due to wanting to contain the virus, medical facilities are not permitting family (if any) of the dying Covid patient to visit their sick loved one. So, a lot of people – even married parents! – are dying alone. (Links with examples to follow.)

I bring this up because one scare tactic I’ve seen used off and on by marriage-promoters, such as Southern Baptist Al Mohler and others, is to tell single and childless adults that we will die all alone, unless we marry and have children. They tell childless, never married adults like myself to be very afraid, because unless I marry and have a child, I will be all alone on my death bed.

Well, my mother – who was married and had adult children – died all alone in the wee hours at a care facility she was staying at. Despite the fact my mother was married with kids did not guarantee that she had the “Norman Rockwell” death so many marriage-pushers suggest one will have, where one will be surrounded by loving spouse holding their hand while adult children surround the bed tenderly looking on.

People dying all alone sans children and spouse (if they are married with kids) has definitely been a thing since the start of Covid 19.

Here are links about the situation, including a link or two from marriage-pushing, conservative sites such as The Federalist:

(Link): ‘Patients dying alone’: The frightening reality of many COVID-19 patients’ final moments  (March 2020)

(Link): ‘I’m Sorry I Can’t Kiss You’—Coronavirus Victims Are Dying Alone

(Link): Coronavirus Patients Are Dying Alone, Leaving Loved Ones With Grief And Guilt

It was the last time Beaudette saw her father alive. He died two days later, and she couldn’t be there.

(Link):  Loneliness and suffering in the hospital during the coronavirus crisis

“I’m already downstairs, doctor. Can I see my mother just for five minutes?”

I told him that I would ask the nursing manager; given the fact that Mrs. A couldn’t speak or understand, perhaps that would fall under the list of reasons why an exception could be made.

But five minutes later, the nurse was on the phone trying to calm him down. “I just want to be there for five minutes to tell her why I can’t visit anymore, that she shouldn’t worry when I stop showing up!”

The nurse tears up as she says that he cannot visit. She turns to me, and I motion that I would take back the call.

No Surprise There: Bradford Wilcox Deems Married People Better Off During Pandemic Than Single Adults – Rebuttals

No Surprise There: Bradford Wilcox Deems Married People Better Off During Pandemic Than Single Adults – Rebuttals

I have made several blog posts in years past discussing some of Bradford Wilcox’s articles about marriage for various publications.

Wilcox works for, is somehow affiliated with, organizations such as the National Marriage Project and Institute For Family Studies. He is very much about promoting marriage, natalism, and the nuclear family.

In years past, he has promoted marriage and all the rest at the expense of singleness: he loves to advance marriage by stigmatizing singleness.

Wilcox (and guys like him, such as Southern Baptist Al Mohler) likes to try to “scare” single adults into getting married by publishing faulty and fear-mongering essays about how studies (which he sometimes misquotes or misunderstands) supposedly say that singles are more likely to suffer this or that calamity or problem than are married people.

Any time Wilcox comments on any issue, you can guarantee before you click on the headline that his editorial will say that married people have X better than singles have X.

It doesn’t matter if he’s talking about financial issues – like in the link that follows – or some other topic.

His pieces are all heavily agenda-driven: to make marriage look fabulous by slamming singleness, or by making singleness look “worse” than marriage, or by making singleness look unsafe, scary, or miserable.

Matt Walsh V. Marriage Idolaters Such as Bradford Wilcox and Mark Regnerus

Matt Walsh V. Marriage Idolaters Such as Bradford Wilcox and Mark Regnerus

So, hyper conservative Matt Walsh tweeted this out in regards to a lady (I think she’s a model or actress? – her name is Julianne Hough) who says after she married her husband (who is a biological man) that she is “not straight” (which I assume means she is attracted to women – as well as to men(?)).

Here is Walsh’s tweet on the matter:

Oh so she lied to her husband and married him under false pretenses. What an inspiration.
—-

I’ve been a conservative for the duration of my life, but conservatives (who usually claim to be “Pro Family” and “Pro Marriage”) are often hypocritical about these topics, or hold some pretty odd, troubling views.

Many conservatives, especially ones who promote Male Headship Complementarianism, and the ones who are members of pro-family organizations and think tanks – such as Bradford Wilcox of the Institute For Family Studies – promote marriage at the expense of singleness (they regularly slam, insult, and put down singleness), or they promote some unethical, unbiblical views, as I’ve outlined in previous posts on my blog.

Conservatives Have Now Abandoned All Pretense of Advocating For Sexual Abstinence and They Actually Lament the Lack of Fornication – The Bradford Wilcox Piece, 2019

Conservatives Have Now Abandoned All Pretense of Advocating For Sexual Abstinence and They Actually Lament the Lack of Fornication – The Bradford Wilcox Piece, 2019

The following piece at The Atlantic (“The Happiness Recession”) was written by marriage-idolater and anti-singleness bigot of The Institute for Family Studies, W. Bradford Wilcox, and co-writer Lyman Stone.

I’d like to remind any new-comers to this blog that I am a life long conservative. I am not a liberal.

Marriage Is Not A Guarantee For Good or Regular Sex

This moronic essay actually suggests that single adults having less sex is what has led to them reporting higher rates of unhappiness, if I’m understanding things correctly.

This, astonishingly, from a right wing organization, (Link): The Institute For Family Studies, that claims to promote “strong families,” and good Lord knows they are obsessed with promoting marriage, even if that comes at the expense of singleness.

The members of this organization regularly publish materials intended to scare, guilt, shame, or pressure single adults into getting married, because this organization exists to promote the nuclear family: hetero-marriage where the couple have children.

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

So, I saw this headline from Christianity Today.

This seems to be an annual thing with Christians.

At least once a year, I see a major Christian magazine or blog publish some kind of article lamenting the declining marriage rates, or the rising age of first marriage, and that also push the idea that people should marry before they hit the ripe old age of 22.

Here we go again. Yet another one. (There will probably be another one in 2019, and one in the year after that, and so on and so forth.)

I notice that often times that the people who write these types of articles admit to having married pre-age 25.

I take it that the REAL motivation is that these people feel defensive about their life choice – they feel as though culture is “looking down their noses” at them for marrying young because most people today are not marrying at all, or not until they get to age 30.

The thing is, though, nobody cares that they married when they were 21! These sorts of articles are largely unnecessary.

If anything, the opposite type of editorial is needed, because authors like this one shame or judge people for not marrying young, or for not marrying at all. Christians continue to push marriage and baby-making as the “norm,” when the Bible does no such thing.

I will excerpt the editorial then comment on it below:

(Link): Why I’m Happy My Son Married at 20

Excerpts from that editorial:

In a world of hookups and cohabitation, he took a leap— and made an act— of faith.

by REBECCA BREWSTER STEVENSON

…Then in 2013, the Knot Yet Report revealed that those averages are higher still: Couples now are postponing marriage to age 29 for men and 27 for women.

Critique of: Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun by W. B. Wilcox (who tends to be a marriage idolater and anti-singles bigot)

Critique of: Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun by W. B. Wilcox (who tends to be a marriage idolater and anti-singles bigot)

I would encourage you to take anything this Wilcox guy says with a huge grain of salt, especially if it pertains to singleness. 

Wilcox is a huge marriage idolater and is anti-singleness. He has the tendency to write anti-singles editorials in a push to elevate marriage. I’ve written of his anti-singless, singleness fear mongering before (Link): here.

Wilcox seems to feel that if he can scare singles about being single – such as telling us that being single will increase our odds of being raped or getting toe nail fungus or growing a third hand out of our heads – that this will motivate all us singles to run out and marry right away.

Of course, one problem with that view is that there are plenty of singles who do want to marry but are unable to find a partner (see this link as one example, see this link for additional commentary).

These anti-singles marriage idolaters (like Wilcox) just ASSUME all or most singles HATE marriage and are intentionally avoiding it, when such is not the case for all singles.

Guys like Wilcox have this terribly biased view that married life is the only way to go for anyone, that to improve a society or culture, everyone should marry (and marry in their 20s), and live out the 1950s nuclear family Ward and June Cleaver lifestyle, and he (like a lot of my fellow conservatives) is very put off that so many people are opting out of marriage, or just staying single whatever the reason.

So, these marriage idolaters do everything they can to write pages claiming that being single is not as safe, healthy, fun, or wise for individuals or culture as marriage supposedly is.

Articles like this also fail to take into account the “equally yoked” teaching which exists among Christians, a rule which prohibits Christian singles from marrying Non-Christian persons.

The problem with this is that for every single Christian man, there are 55 million single Christian women (no, that’s not an exact figure – it’s my way of saying… There are not enough single males for the single religious ladies who want to marry).

At one point in his article, Wilcox goes on and on about how lonely some single guy is who he discusses as an example of how crummy single life can be for some men.

True, being single can be or feel lonely at times – but so too can being in a marriage.

I was in a long term, serious relationship, and there were times that although I was sitting in the same room as my fiance, I still felt all alone, because the ass hat (my fiance) was not meeting my emotional needs; he did not care to, he was terribly self absorbed. I blogged more about that (Link): here, in this older post if you’d like to read that.

I did a blog post about (Link): women whose husbands developed early dementia – once their husband’s minds “went,” the husbands ceased being being friends and companions to their wives and became large, dependent children.

Having a romantic partner is no guarantee you won’t experience loneliness.

Articles like this one I am linking to you here in this post just perpetuate the notion that there is something “wrong” with being single, or that being single is not “as good” as being married.

I’m not sure if Wilcox is a Christian or not, but I do know that there is nothing in the Bible that says that being married is better than being single, or that everyone being married “cures” society of its problems.

I would not be surprised if singles advocate Bella DePaulo doesn’t, in the future, refute this page by Wilcox in (Link): her column over at Psychology Today – or, you know, it looks like (Link, off site): she’s already refuted the Wilcox page, in a fashion.

Edit (Feb 15, 2016). Ms. DePaulo dropped by and left a comment below. I wanted to edit this post to add a link she left in her comment, and one other one:

• (Link, off site): Single in America: 6 Cutting Edge Perspectives, 2 Others (mentions the Wilcox anti-singles essay in passing)
• (Link, off site): Single Men Are Too Often Marginalized, But Not – I Hope – By Me

This Wilcox piece is singles shaming at its finest – painting singleness as though it’s some mental or physical health problem that needs the cure of marriage. Or, you could say it is a form of ‘singles concern trolling,’ I guess.

Views such as Wilcox’s also suggest that a person cannot or does not become a “whole” person or a mature person unless or until he or she marries – something which the Bible does not endorse at all. A person does not have to marry or become a parent in order to reach maturity or wholeness.

Also note how often Wilcox seems to be stressing people marry in their 20s in his essay – marriage idolaters such as this show no consideration for anyone over 30 or 40 or older who would like to marry but who find themselves single. Marriage-pushers such as Wilcox come across as being very ageist.

(Link): Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun By W. Bradford Wilcox

Excerpts:

Bradford Wilcox is the (Link): director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow of the (Link): Institute for Family Studies. He is the coauthor of “Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos.”

———————–

…Oh, the life of the young single man. Pop culture’s depiction of young men’s single years as impossibly fun, footloose and fancy-free has a certain purchase in our culture. It’s one reason why plenty of young men look at marriage as a “ball and chain,” but that mind-set can have a number of downsides.