Many people these days are pretty negative about marriage.  For many, the concept of two people saving themselves for each other and then making a lifetime commitment to love and be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives (once referred to as the virtue and spiritual practice of “chastity”) seems outdated, unrealistic, risky, foolish, confining, or even self-sabotaging.

When I was a kid I was lucky enough to find myself in a community of people who helped me memorize this ancient bit of wisdom: “Let love and faithfulness (or loyalty) never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man (Nathan translation – Then your life will be blessed and you will be a blessing to those around you)” (Proverbs 3:3-4).  These people taught me that marriage was forever, that you kept your word, that love is a choice and not just a feeling, and that the hard times are what drive us to God, shape our character and build depth in our souls.

Some of the people who taught me these things were on their second marriage – but they still believed it and lived like they did.  One guy was actually on his fourth marriage.  He said it took him a long time to get his heart right with God and accept where the problem was.  He believed these things about marriage and life when he taught them to me (with a “don’t take the path I did” kind of lesson) and he had a happy wife of more than twenty years to back up his story and convictions.

Life is messy sometimes and we have a tendency to make it messier.  I think there is another old saying that has its affect on all of us – “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).

In a lot of ways this ancient wisdom about love and loyalty and what I was taught about life goes against the conventional wisdom of the day – against what appears to so many people to be the right and wise way to live –  but I think it is worth believing in anyway.

I have known too many people who have celebrated forty, fifty, and even sixty years of marriage who believe that picking their person and sticking with them in love and faithfulness has been the greatest blessing in their life.  Critics might say this way of navigating life just binds you to a person you’re not happy with – maybe even for years.  To this critique I know many of these veterans of love and faithfulness would just offer a knowing smile and say something like, “My life and marriage hasn’t been blessed and a blessing despite those hard years, but because of them.  They were important too.  They helped us learn to love, to grow, and to communicate.”

I know that no matter how time tested it may be, there are a lot of folks that would never navigate any aspect of life based on “the Bible tells me so” or based on what some old person says who “doesn’t know how life is these days.”

For that group, below are nine research and expert based statements about marriage.  Perhaps some of these quotes and statistics below will make a better case for marriage in a world that too often has given up on it.

1. Married men make more money, perform better at work, and manage their money better than their cohabitating or single peers. – Washington Post, CBS News, Federal Reserve, Richard Niolon PhD
2. Married people, especially men, are healthier in almost every category and live longer than single or cohabitating people. – CDC, Richard Niolon PhD, CDC, Population Research Association of America president, Linda Waite, National Institute of Health, University of Chicago
3. Married people have more frequent and more satisfying sex than single or cohabitating people. – Richard Niolon PhD, Population Research Association of America president, Linda Waite, University of Chicago’s General Social Survey
4. Despite popular beliefs, cohabitation makes it less likely that a couple will get married and more likely that they will get divorced if they do get married – regardless of whether the couple is engaged or has plans to marry when they cohabitate. – CDC pg 3, CDC pg 2, CDC pg 8, Population Research Association of America president, Linda Waite
5. For unhappy married people, divorce doesn’t lead to happiness, staying together and working things out does. Frank Gunsburg PdD, University of Chicago, Robin Graine – Divorce Mediator (ironic right?), DailyMail
6. Having children before marriage raises the likelihood of divorce and “nearly one in five women experience pregnancy during the first year of cohabitation.” – CDC pg 5, CDC pg 10
7. Children living with their married parents have higher life outcomes than those living with cohabitating couples. Children raised with both parents at home, have much better life outcomes than children raised in a step family or by a single parent. – CDC pg 13, American Enterprise Institute, MDRC Research Center
8. Married people are happier and less susceptible to addictions and emotional disorders than their single or cohabitating peers. – Richard Niolon PhD, CDC, Psychology Today, The Atlantic, University of Chicago
9. Similar to a series of divorces, a series of breakups after cohabitation leaves people accumulating emotional baggage and often a significant loss of time. – Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, CDC pg 4

See Also:

• To My Children – If I Die While You’re Young
• Men VS Women
• Sex Talk
• Finding the ONE
• God, The Bible, & Women
• Heroic Motherhood