Why You're Still Single & How To Get Married | Brad Wilcox

Summary

Podcast Summary: Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark

Episode: Why You're Still Single & How To Get Married | Brad Wilcox
Release Date: June 5, 2026
Host: Alex Clark (Turning Point USA)
Guest: Brad Wilcox (Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia; Director, National Marriage Project; Author, "Get Married")

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Episode Overview

This episode of Culture Apothecary explores why so many young Americans—especially women—remain single and what can be done to revive a culture of healthy dating, commitment, and marriage. Guest Brad Wilcox, a leading sociologist and marriage researcher, shares startling statistics, explains the social and spiritual roots of the marriage crisis, and offers practical advice for individuals and institutions seeking to foster thriving relationships. The conversation centers on both the changing landscape of dating and marriage and concrete remedies for reversing current cultural trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why So Many Quality Christian Women Are Still Single

• Supply Issue & Delayed Starts:
  • Many successful women start their search for a spouse later in life, often after focusing on education and career, which can shrink their dating pool ([02:42]).
  • Example: Woman named Elizabeth discovered, too late, that starting her search in college might have presented more options ([02:55]).
• Socializing Decline:
  • “We’ve seen young adult socializing drop by about 50% since 2000.” – Brad Wilcox ([03:57])
  • The digital revolution and lack of social venues like dances and lectures have dramatically limited opportunities to meet potential partners ([04:00]).

2. Over-Spiritualizing and Unrealistic Standards in Christian Dating

• Many Christians hold out for a "soulmate" or "perfect partner," leading to overly long and unrealistic checklists for potential spouses ([04:55]).
• Quote: “It’s important to appreciate how kind of keeping your expectations more realistic can be helpful in finding someone who would be a good husband, but not necessarily your perfect soulmate.” – Brad Wilcox ([05:43])

3. Gen Z's Crisis: Pessimism, Situationships, and Technology

• Startling Projections:
  • “One in three Gen Zers may never get married. One in four may never have children.” ([06:12])
• Tech and Relationship Skills:
  • Technology has reduced both time spent socializing and the development of social skills crucial for dating and marriage ([06:21]).
  • Some Gen Zers are seeking alternatives (simple phones, digital fasts) to reconnect in person ([07:08]).
• Situationships:
  • Even in church, ambiguity and ghosting mirror secular trends ([08:02]).

4. Masculinity and Male Malaise

• Lack of Direction for Young Men:
  • Many men lack a clear vision of masculinity due to cultural reluctance to define or celebrate masculine virtues ([08:52]).
• Need for Rites of Passage:
  • Traditional cultures have rites of passage requiring courage and fortitude. The absence of these leaves many young men unmoored ([09:35]).

5. Perfectionism vs. Discernment

• Waiting too long to decide about marriage leads to indecision and missed opportunities ([30:09]).
• “At a certain point, I’m like, you either know or you don’t know.” – Brad Wilcox ([30:37])

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Practical Remedies & Dating Advice

6. Developing a Marriage Strategy ([19:28])

• Brad Wilcox’s Three Pillars for Men:
  • Provider: Be employed full time or seriously pursuing education; signals reliability.
  • Protector: Demonstrate both physical and social care (e.g., walking on the outside of the sidewalk, standing up in a threatening situation).
  • Paying Attention: In a world of distraction, giving full, undivided attention distinguishes a good partner ([20:59]).

Memorable Moment

• Story of Grace being protected by her now-husband on the subway:
  • “That moment of his protection…really cemented in her head and her heart like this was the guy.” – Brad Wilcox ([21:58])

7. Timing: Capstone (Post-30) vs. Cornerstone (20s) Marriage

• Getting married younger allows couples to build a joint identity, have more children if desired, and often leads to greater long-term happiness ([28:01]).
• Quote: “A cornerstone model where you’re getting married in your 20s…allows people to have more of a we-before-me approach to marriage.” – Brad Wilcox ([28:12])

8. Navigating the Modern Dating Market

• Open-Mindedness:
  • With 60% of college students now female, educated women must consider men in the trades or without degrees—many of whom are thriving ([10:35]).
• Approachability for Women:
  • Simple signals like smiling, direct eye contact, and visible openness help men feel safe to initiate ([31:34]).

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Relationship Myths and Data

9. Divorce Rates & Marital Quality Facts

• Divorce rates have declined since the 1980s; 40% of first marriages now end in divorce ([00:28], [42:55]).
• Most marriages go the distance—messaging from both the left and right exaggerates the risks ([42:55]).
• To protect against divorce:
  • Adopt a “we before me” orientation (shared names and bank accounts).
  • Maintain regular romantic connection (date nights).
  • Men should remain reliably employed.
  • Shared faith reduces divorce rates by 30–50%. ([44:40])

10. Waiting to Be “Happy Alone” First – Bad Advice

• The happiest people statistically are those with good marriages, not the perpetually self-optimizing singles ([26:01]).
• “The best factor of happiness for ordinary Americans is…a good marriage.” – Brad Wilcox ([26:43])

11. Cohabitation and Sliding vs. Deciding

• Living together before marriage (especially with multiple partners or before engagement) is linked with higher divorce and distress ([62:32]).
• Sliding into cohabitation often leads to ambiguity and less commitment ([63:03]).

12. Dating Apps – Useful but Not Ideal

• Couples who meet in person (church, college, at work) are happiest ([54:39]).
• Use dating apps as a backup, and choose those focused on serious relationships ([55:14]).

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Advice for Parents & The Next Generation

13. Parental Messaging Needs to Change

• Most parents emphasize education/career above family formation—even Christian parents ([66:32]).
• Explicitly state that marriage, family, friendship, and faith are the most important paths to happiness ([66:50]).
• Encourage Real-World Development:
  • “A big piece of this is really trying to do a lot with your kids in the real world rather than the virtual world.” – Brad Wilcox ([68:29])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Story | |-----------|--------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:57 | Wilcox | “Young adult socializing has dropped by about 50% since 2000.” | | 05:43 | Wilcox | “Keeping your expectations more realistic can be helpful...” | | 14:45 | Wilcox | “Only about one in three young men felt like they had the confidence to approach a woman...” | | 21:58 | Wilcox | “That moment of his protection…really cemented in her head and her heart like this was the guy.” (subway story) | | 26:43 | Wilcox | “The best factor of happiness for ordinary Americans is…a good marriage.” | | 28:12 | Wilcox | “A cornerstone model where you’re getting married in your 20s…is better for common identity and happiness.” | | 30:37 | Wilcox | “At a certain point, I’m like, you either know or you don’t know.” | | 44:40 | Wilcox | “Sharing a bank account…is linked to stronger marriages and less divorce.” | | 62:32 | Wilcox | “What we see is that cohabitation is linked…to a much greater risk of divorce.” | | 66:50 | Wilcox | “…what matters most is marriage and family and friendship and faith and community…”|

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Why Are So Many Women Still Single & The Socializing Decline:
  00:00 – 06:00
• The “Soulmate” Myth & Unrealistic Standards:
  04:52 – 06:06
• Technology, “Situationships”, and Church Culture:
  06:06 – 08:41
• Masculinity, Rites of Passage, and Male Malaise:
  08:41 – 11:47
• Capstone vs. Cornerstone Marriage Timing:
  27:30 – 28:58
• Perfectionism in Dating and Filtering Out Good Partners:
  29:07 – 30:44
• Divorce Rates, Myths, and Protective Factors:
  42:52 – 47:37
• First Moves & Male Initiative:
  69:23 – 70:29
• Cohabitation Data & Sliding vs. Deciding:
  62:19 – 66:26
• Parental Messaging and Family Formation:
  66:26 – 68:38

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Final Remedy: Healing a Sick Culture

• Wilcox’s Prescription: “Revive dating in America, and point people to a pathway of dating with an eye towards marriage.” ([75:20])

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Closing Takeaways

• Healthy relationships are built—not found—through the cultivation of wisdom, emotional maturity, virtue, discernment, and commitment.
• Despite current pessimism, good men and women still exist, and happy marriages are very much possible.
• Counter-cultural effort is required—both individual and collective—to rediscover, prioritize, and skillfully pursue the path of marriage and family.

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For more of Brad Wilcox’s research, visit Institute for Family Studies (ifstudies.org) or read his book, "Get Married", published by HarperCollins.

Transcript

[Alex Clark]

Do you agree with Charlie Kirk when he said that everyone needed to be married by 30 at the latest, or do you think he was a little too harsh?

[Brad Wilcox]

He said that if women waited until 30 to have kids, they had only a 50% chance of having a child. And I thought, Charlie Kirk doesn't know what he's talking about. Charlie Kirk was right on the money. What we're seeing today in America is that no group of Americans are reporting that their lives are more meaningful and happier than married fathers and married mothers.

[Alex Clark]

What is the divorce rate currently in America? Is it as scary as we've been told?

[Brad Wilcox]

The divorce rate in America, Alex, has gone down since 1981 pretty consistently when about one in two marriages end in divorce. But we're now down to probably around 40% of first marriages ending divorce. And that's not great. Believe me, it's not great. But it's important just to understand and appreciate that most marriages will go the distance.

[Alex Clark]

Why are so many incredible women still single? Birth rates are crashing, loneliness is exploding, millions of young adults are delaying commitment, opting out of dating entirely, or losing hope that love, marriage and family are even attainable anymore. And what's fascinating is that this isn't just happening among secular culture. Christians are really struggling too. You have beautiful, successful, emotionally intelligent women saying that there are no good men left, men saying that dating feels impossible, entire generations paralyzed by perfectionism, fear, unrealistic standards, political division, financial anxiety, social media comparison in a culture that tells people to endlessly optimize themselves before they dare to commit to another human being. So what do we do if we want to get married? Today's guest studies exactly that. Brad Wilcox is a Distinguished professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, director of the National Marriage Project, senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and author of Get Married. His work focuses on marriage, fatherhood, family stability, and why strong families matter. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify. Before we start, don't forget to leave a five star review for the show. Just write a sentence or two about why this show is important and why you recommend it to people. It really makes a difference for us. It takes a couple seconds for you to do it on Apple or Spotify. Please welcome author of Get Married Brad Wilcox to Culture Apothecary. Why are so many pretty quality, successful Christian women single?

[Brad Wilcox]

So I think there are a couple of reasons why even kind of good Christian young women are struggling to find the right man today. I think one factor that is you know, is a big issue, is just kind of the supply of good men. We've got a supply issue. We can talk about that more later. I think another sort of challenge, though, is some they're sort of starting too late. You know, I've certainly talked to women. I wrote a piece called Get Married Young, kind of profiling a woman named Elizabeth, who's a Christian young woman now in her mid-30s. And for instance, she went to a great college. She went to law school. She worked for big Law in New York City in her later 20s, and then came back to Dallas to sort of keep going on her career. And by the time she got back to Dallas, she felt like her kind of pool of eligible men was small. It was hard for her to kind of meet the right person. So if she had kind of looked earlier in college, she told me she thought she could have had access to a much bigger supply of guys who'd be kind of on her wavelength. She's attractive, but also kind of more nerdy, more kind of book oriented. And she felt like kind of in college there would have been a bigger supply. So she thought she should have gotten started earlier. I think that's another factor too, for young and then also just there profound ways in which the digital revolution has had a dramatic impact on young adults. Opportunities to socialize, to be together in the kinds of contexts that would facilitate friendship, dating, and then marriage. We've seen, for instance, young adult socializing drop by about 50% since 2000. 50. 50% in terms of hours devoted to young adults socializing? Yes. So if you're just not out there meeting people in a variety of sort of organic social contexts, it's gonna be a lot harder to find the guy who might drive a spark that would lead to romance and then marriage down the road. So these are some of the reasons that we see. I think it's also the case too, that because of the kind of post digital social collapse we've seen, you know, we don't have enough deliberate efforts to be kind of putting adult in, you know, in lectures, dances, and other kinds of venues that would kind of facilitate the mixing and mingling that, you know, would make for more dating and more marriage as well.

[Alex Clark]

Have we as Christians over spiritualized dating?

[Brad Wilcox]

I think certainly some have. I think some have kind of like this sort of soulmate model, like this sort of. They have this notion they're going to find the perfect partner, the perfect person, the one who's going to kind of check all their boxes. Lori Gottlieb for instance, who is a psychologist, a writer for the. She's not a Christian, but she kind of begins this book called Marry him where she reveals she had like basically 61 different things. You know, checks she was looking for in a potential husband had to be a certain height. He had to be kind of, you know, a certain level of professional success. He had to be good looking. But her point in kind of revealing this list to the readers is that she had a list that was just way too long. And so she finds herself in her late 30s as a single mom when many of her friends had gotten married. And they'd gotten married because, yes, they had some non negotiables in a husband, but they had a much smaller list. And they realized that this guy would actually kind of meet the most important criteria they had, but not every criteria that they had. So I think it's also important to sort of understand and appreciate how kind of keeping your expectations, you know, more realistic can be helpful in finding someone who would be, you know, a good husband, but necessarily your perfect soulmate.

[Alex Clark]

You have done some shocking research. One in three gen zers may never get married.

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

One in four may never have children.

[Brad Wilcox]

Right.

[Alex Clark]

At what point does this cultural pessimism become some sort of self fulfilling prophecy?

[Brad Wilcox]

So I think we are kind of in a bad spot when it comes to dating. And that then is a big factor in this sort of low marriage rate and low fertility rate. We're kind of hitting record after record in terms of low fertility, and that's all downstream of a lower marriage rate. I think unless and until we can kind of figure out how to deal with technology in ways that don't kind of sideline us from real social and also from developing the social skills that will make us good friends and good spouses, we're going to be in a predicament. But I do certainly see signs from the gen zers that I know and work with that there is a kind of new approach to technology that I think will help kind of them and people like them, you know, make more headway when it comes to friendship, dating, and then later on marriage and family. So for instance, I'm seeing a lot of gen zers in my orbit kind of switching out smartphones for simple phones, especially in kind of the more religious world, having kind of like more deliberate norms about things like digital fasting on Sundays, for instance. So I think it's these kinds of deliberate efforts to kind of develop a new relationship to technology that will help young adults increase their odds of forging Relationships for themselves with real people in the real world.

[Alex Clark]

Are you familiar with Dr. Deborah so's work?

[Brad Wilcox]

Yes. It's certainly a sobering. Her book, Sextinction is kind of giving you sort of, you know, the pretty negative story about kind of how difficult it is to date and define real love in today's world.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah. So I had her on the show, and she was saying how a lot of Gen Z goes for situationships as opposed to real relationships. Now, are we seeing that bleed into Christian culture at all?

[Brad Wilcox]

Oh, certainly, yeah. I mean, Christians don't live in a bubble. Most of, you know, most of them, most of us. And so there's a way in which I think people or even, you know, in. In church communities are they report being ghosted by someone who's, you know, a Christian, or they report kind of a sense of ambiguity in their relationship, a certain kind of situationship where they feel like there's not a clear direction. It's certainly the case that the broader culture does shape the kinds of norms and expectations and behaviors that Christian young adults are also, you know, engaging in. And there's a lot that they have to, I think, sort of cast aside if they'd like to make headway in finding real love.

[Alex Clark]

Is there missing messaging in the church kind of encouraging men to commit and to lead and to pursue?

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah, I think there's a reluctance on the part of many clergy and many kind of lay leaders to sort of speak clearly and confidently and articulately to men and to kind of, like, give them a clear and compelling vision of what it means to be a man and what it means to be masculine. There's kind of a worry about seeming like you're, you know, like a troglodyte or that you're sort of out of touch or that you're kind of anti. Part of the reason so many young men and so many teenage boys are struggling is they haven't been kind of cast a vision about what it means to be a man. Right. And so lacking a kind of a clear and compelling vision of masculinity, they don't really know, like, what they should be aiming for, they should be striving for. So that's, I think, part of the challenge. It's also the case, though, too, beyond just sort of messaging, we need to think about, you know, kind of what kind of ethos are we cultivating, you know, because in most cultures across time and space, there have been rites of passage. Right. Rites of passage that have ushered either teenage boys or young men into adult Manhood, if you will. And these rites of passage have often kind of required them to do difficult, dangerous, or risky things that show their courage, their strength, their capacity to display the virtue of fortitude. And so without these kind of, like, rites of passage, I think it's no accident that so many young men are kind of seeming not to, you know, to sort of measure up as more confident, you know, strong, more manly.

[Alex Clark]

Are we seeing too many Christians waiting for God to reveal the one, as opposed to learning how to actually build a healthy relationship?

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah, there's certainly part of that. That's certainly part of the dynamic, I think, recognizing and realizing again that in any world that we live in, like, there's no perfect person. And I think it's also important to recognize that there is what I would call kind of male malaise out there, where young men are not doing as well as women when it comes to things like schooling and when it comes to often socializing as well. And so I think being willing to kind of give a guy a chance who may be still kind of, you know, growing up can be a, you know, can be a strategy to sort of pursue, but then also kind of expanding your thoughts about what, you know, what you're kind of willing to accept in a spouse. And so I think the obvious point I would make here is that we're seeing almost 60% of college students, for instance, are female, and only about 40% are male. And that means that a lot of women who are college educated, obviously, if they want to marry, are gonna have to look at guys who aren't college educated. And we have to sort of understand and appreciate that there are guys out there who don't have college degrees, obviously, who are flourishing in life and are also doing well professionally, especially in, like, first responders, trades. The trades.

[Alex Clark]

The way guys in the trades. Ladies make a lot of money, right? A lot of money.

[Brad Wilcox]

Correct. And so. And also, I mean, I'm hearing too, I had. I sat down with a friend recently for lunch and. And he's got two, you know, young men who are both avoiding college. These are bright, you know, talented, ambitious young men, but they just. College is not appealing to them. And one's a fireman and one's getting a certificate in advanced manufacturing. These are, you know, know, one of these guys, for instance, has a. A YouTube podcast where he's playing the organ. He's a fantastic musician. So just kind of just being, I think, flexible. And the things that are like the. The non negotiables. And I would say that one of those things you should be flexible on is whether or not, you know, the guy you would date to marry has or doesn't have a college degree.

[Alex Clark]

Well, this piano playing firefighter or whatever, my audience will snap him right up. We just need to put his Instagram handle in the description of the show. I think, yeah. When young women and young men were pull, more men said they wanted to get married and have kids than women.

[Brad Wilcox]

Correct.

[Alex Clark]

But the majority of young men, 18 to 29, have willingly dropped out of the dating pool by choice. So how do you explain those two pieces of data?

[Brad Wilcox]

So I think what's happening here is for a lot of young men, really two things, you know, so I was talking to my R.A. you know, a few years ago. This is my research assistant at UVA who is a very bright, talented, ambitious guy. And I asked him kind of like, what's your plan for your career? And he had like a very detailed plan for the next 10 years of his life that he kind of sketched out for me. And then I asked him, well, would you like to get married? And he said, yes, I'd love to get married. I said, what's your plan for getting married? And there was just silence. He hadn't developed a plan. He had a very kind of concrete strategy for his professional future in the next 10 years, but no strategy for dating and finding a wife. And so I think one of the issues is that we're not encouraging our young men to be kind of much more deliberate about developing kind of a strategy in terms of dating and also kind of thinking about how they can make themselves more appealing to the opposite sex. I think that's one piece. We're just kind of not giving them enough cues and enough, you know, reinforcement on that front. But I think the other thing is there's just a profound lack of confidence. So we did a survey recently that found that only about one in three young men felt like they had the confidence to approach a woman to indicate their interest in her. I think there's kind of of a confidence issue we need to address and address it in terms of both trying to encourage guys to kind of take that risk to ask someone out on a date, but also to kind of take that smaller risk to kind of just engage women socially on a more regular basis. You know, it could be after church, it could be at work, it could be, you know, by joining a running club and, you know, engaging a fellow runner.

[Alex Clark]

Pickleball clubs, those are blowing up.

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah. But just to sort of like take the small steps, just to kind of socialize a lot more. And that, I think often can lead then to the confidence to ask someone out, you know, for coffee, lunch, dinner, whatever.

[Alex Clark]

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[Brad Wilcox]

Well, I think big picture in my book and get married. I talk about the importance for wives of three things when it comes to their husband. I think that's relevant though for, you know, for guys who are interested in dating. So one is providership, second thing is protecting. And then a third thing is kind of paying attention, developing kind of an orientation to paying attention in this case to one's wife and then any kids that you have. But I think those also apply to guys who are interested kind of in dating. So you have to, I think, be either if you're a little bit older, like in your early to mid-20s, to be gainfully employed, to be employed full time. And there are plenty of young men nowadays, almost a third who are not in school, who are not employed full time in that sort of 20 something demographic. So certainly I think one thing is to be employed full time or if you're in high school or in college or in a trade school, to be really taking your education seriously. So you're kind of signaling to someone that you're the kind of guy who could be relied upon to be a decent provider. This isn't saying women can't work, it just sort of saying that Even today in 2026, women are much more likely to date and to marry a guy who is doing, you know, well professionally or seems like he will do well professionally in the future. So it's biological, of course, you know, but it is controversial in the circles that I travel in, you know, even

[Alex Clark]

with, even with liberal women or non Christian women. Here's what's interesting is that I think it's about 65% will want to, once they have kids, either quit their full time job completely to stay home or go down to part time work, right? So it's like this is. Women are always seeking this, right?

[Brad Wilcox]

So in my book, for instance, I talked to a liberal, very high achieving attorney in the south, and she kind of made it very clear to me that when she was thinking about her future spouse when she was in college, that the word ambition came to her head. It's almost unbidden. She wanted to marry a guy who was ambitious. And so she's now a successful lawyer in the south, but her husband's a successful young entrepreneur. And she said to me it's kind of, it's comforting to know that I could lose my job or not work and just know that he would be there to support me, that he's kind of a financial rock for her. So providing is one thing, but protecting is also super important. When I was interviewing women for my book for Get Married, I heard from them repeatedly that they admired a guy who would walk on the sidewalk, on the street side, kind of protecting them in a sense when they were out and about, when they were going to a movie or a restaurant or going to a club in some kind of context. So they really kind of noticed if the guy was protective. In fact, one couple that I interviewed, the woman Grace, said that sort of what sealed the deal for her was that they were traveling in a subway in the Metro and a guy approached them, it looked like a homeless guy approached them and demanded that their money and their iPhones. And her then boyfriend kind of stood up, put himself between this guy and her, put his hand out and started screaming at the guy. And then they kind of fortunately kind of arrived at the next station and they just, you know, they were able to kind of escape the situation. But she was kind of like that moment of his protection of John's protection for Grace really kind of cemented in her head and her heart like this was the guy. And so they later on got married. So she was just kind of looking for a protective guy. And we do see in the research, but when it comes to dating, when it comes to marriage, one of the strongest Richter's woman's sort of happiness or interest in a guy is sort of his ability to project his capacity to provide. So I think for guys you gotta be physically fit and to be kind of protective, both in a kind of physically, but also kind of being sort of chivalrous, kind of indicating that you're the kind of guy who's gonna look out for your girlfriend or your wife, not just in terms of her physical safety, but kind of her safety, like in social situations as well. And then the final thing is just paying attention. I think we live in an age that is digitally distracted. And, you know, if you go into restaurants or. Or college dining halls, you can see couples where, like, you know, she and he are scrolling on their iPhones or things like that. Or also, too, where, like, maybe the guy is not really giving an adequate level of attention compared to his friends or even other women, obviously, nowadays, too. And so it's gotta be very clear, too, that the guy is capable of giving her adequate attention in terms of his eyes, his mind, that he's thinking about what she's going through, what she's interested in, that he's very evidently kind of paying attention to her. So for guys who want to find someone to date, I think it's important to kind of cultivate the skills, the virtues, the orientations that allow you to be perceived and to be a good provider, a good protector, and the kind of guy really pays attention to the women in his life.

[Alex Clark]

I just interviewed Mikayla Peterson or Mikayla Fuller, now her married name, and she had the most interesting hot take, which is that on a first date, if you feel butterflies, you feel this strong sense of what we think is chemistry. It's actually warning signs your body is giving you that, like, something may not be right, that butterflies are a bad thing. When you first start dating somebody, do you agree or disagree?

[Brad Wilcox]

I would say something different. I would say it's important just to kind of give the guy a chance and also to be. But really to be watching for character. And so I think right here, like, of Pride and Prejudice, right? And so, obviously, at the beginning of, you know, either the novel, the Movie, or the BBC series, Ms. Elizabeth Bennet does not have any butterflies for Mr. Darcy, right? She's kind of repelled by him. He seems way too prideful for her, amongst other things. Right. But over time, as she gets to know Mr. Darcy, she realizes that he has a lot of virtues going for him. And it's this kind of process of sort of seeing him in a wide range of contexts, seeing him in his home, seeing him kind of rescue her sister who's in a bad situation, that makes her realize that, yes, one of his besetting sins is pride, but he's got a lot of other things that make him, you know, a great prospect. And so obviously, she ends up by, you know, by marrying him at the end of Pride and Prejudice. So the point here is that I think women should be kind of looking for a series of Virtues of talents, endowments, and an intuition as they get to know someone better that give them the sense that he would be a good husband, a good provider, but also a great friend. And I think it's often the case for many of us, certainly myself. If you've had Arthur Brooks, it's sort of the same story for him. It takes oftentimes the woman some time to realize that the guy would be a great friend and then a great husband.

[Alex Clark]

One reason people seem to be putting off marriage is that they're saying that they're waiting to make sure that they are happy on their own first. Why is that terrible advice for life?

[Brad Wilcox]

You know, we're social animals, Alex, right? And this is what Aristotle said many, many years ago. We're social animals, right? And so what ends up being the case is that for human beings, our friends and our families, and especially our romantic partners or spouses later on end up being the most important people in our lives. And they're the folks who are most conducive to forgin a meaningful and happy life. And so what we see in the research is that a lot of people today, a Pew survey, for instance, recently kind of found that people were reporting most of the time that they thought that a job was the pathway to leading a fulfilling and happy life. Like just having the right career was the important thing. And yet what we see in the data is that the best factor of happiness for ordinary Americans is not money, it's not career success, it's not sexual frequency, it's not even church going, it's not self rated health, it's a good marriage. This is the most important factor that I see, what's called the general social survey, a big ongoing social survey. And so given kind of the importance of both I think marriage and friendship, we have to realize that we're built for both friendship and pair bonding. And we're generally much happier when we have good friends and we have a good spouse.

[Alex Clark]

What do you say to young people who are dating, they're in a serious relationship? They say, well, I'm dating for marriage, but we just need to make a little bit more money first before we get married.

[Brad Wilcox]

As long as you're kind of getting started in your professional work, I don't think that there's any kind of real financial bar that you should set for marriage. In fact, obviously once you move in together, when you're married, you're going to in most cases be able to save money too, on, on things like the rent. So there is this kind of like capstone model out there that a lot of people have in their hearts and heads. So when I teach at UVA, most of my students are kind of thinking about 30, if they thought about it is the best time to get married.

[Alex Clark]

You know, 30 years old.

[Brad Wilcox]

30 years old, right. And so they've ducks in a row. So you've got your education done, you've got some measure of career success, you feel like you've kind of gotten to know yourself, you had some time to have some fun. So the thought is that again, this sort of capstone model is the way to do it. And what we see in the research, I think, surprisingly for a lot of my students, is that a cornerstone model where you're kind of getting married in your 20s, a little bit younger, oftentimes allows people to have more of a we before me approach to marriage where they're kind of building a common identity as a couple, as a family. They're better able to have the kids they would like to have getting started in their 20s and having children. They're also more likely to share a common faith if they're getting married, you know, because their pool is, is more open in terms of picking someone who might be a good spouse. And then they're also generally, according to most of the research that I've seen, more likely to be happily married. So people don't really kind of realize that postponing marriage can have its, its own downsides.

[Alex Clark]

Have dating standards become so hyper specific that people are filtering out like genuinely wonderful potential spouses over really minor preferences?

[Brad Wilcox]

I mean, I certainly think for some people kind of the social media thing is obviously very destructive. Kind of having the sense you have to have like the guy who's, you know, six foot tall, makes, you know, six figures and has a six pack ab and they're kind of getting this sort of like implicit model from their social media feed. Right. So obviously in the real world you have to, you know, again, not sort of have this unrealistic expectation about what the guy should bring to the table or what the woman should bring to the table. And to realize and appreciate that marriage is about friendship. And it's about, I would say also it's about like a virtuous friendship too. So having like this both romantic connection, but also kind of a very clear eyed sense of whether or not someone has the kinds of virtues that would make them a good wife or a good husband, a good mother or a good father. These are really important. And then also, also it's ideal too to have shared faith These are the things that really matter. And how tall someone is or how handsome or pretty or the size of their paycheck. These are things that are not fundamental.

[Alex Clark]

At what point does discernment become perfectionism?

[Brad Wilcox]

Well, I think it's important to be discerning about what you're looking for in a spouse and to be discerning about the character of the person that you. That you're dating or that you're meeting or getting acquainted with. But I think I do see for a lot of people today, they're, you know, they're dating someone for, you know, a year or two or three, or they're cohabiting with someone for a year or two or three. At a certain point, I'm like, you either know or you don't know. You're either going to decide or you're not going to decide. But, like, this whole, like, thing of, like, taking two or three or four or five years to kind of pull the trigger, I think is very.

[Alex Clark]

How long do you think it actually takes a man to know if he wants to marry you?

[Brad Wilcox]

You know, I think it really does. It really. I think for a lot of guys, it's pretty instantaneous. And it may not be like it's, you know, necessarily fully formed in his head and heart, but I think he has some kind of intuitive sense like this. This person is. Is the person, you know. But the stories vary that I hear. So I don't think there's. There's, you know, one complete pattern, to be honest, there. I think it does vary for. For guys, but I think for women, it often takes, you know, a longer period of time to sort of get the sense that this is the kind of guy who would be worthy, would be good, would be good for. For marriage and family.

[Alex Clark]

When it comes to women at work or at the grocery store, out in public or. Or what have you at church, what makes a woman seem approachable to a good man? Like, what do we need to be doing?

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah, so it's interesting, Deborah. So who you had here on the podcast has written about this in her new book, Sextinction. He kind of talks about the importance of particularly, I think, in a kind of a context where there's. And there's also, like, a worry that, like, someone's gonna, like, you know, shout out against you on. On social media. It's gonna say bad things about you. And that would, I think, you know, for ordinary guys, it's just devastating to think about being accused of either sexual harassment or accused of being kind of like, you know, a creep basically on the Internet. So I think it's important for women who are interested in a guy to kind of signal in some way to him that they're interested. And I think that, as Dr. So kind of mentioned, I think just, you know, smiling, looking directly at him, kind of just exuding a certain kind of openness. Now, I think it challenging is that you could imagine that that'd be kind of your typical approach, dealing with all people, you know, male or female. But I think just sort of like trying to send a kind of physical signal that you, you know, that you enjoy being with someone, that he seems like a great guy, and that, you know, by the way in which you look at him and smile at him, that you're kind of sending a signal that he has permission to approach you, to engage you, and then eventually to ask you out on a date date as well.

[Alex Clark]

Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy, recently announced her pregnancy. You had some hot takes that made people mad.

[Brad Wilcox]

So, you know, I think, you know, this is in some ways like a very standard, like, story, right? Like, person kind of like, you know, I talk about kind of like a Midas mindset out there among a lot of young, young adults. They're like, they want to, like, work hard, they want to kill it at work and in life. And then also they want to play hard, you know, on the weekends and. And at other times, and particularly in their 20s. And I think kind of the. The messaging from Coloradi was about kind of telling women they could play as hard as many men have in the past. They could kind of play the field when it came to both sex and relationships and take a more casual approach to. To all that stuff. And, you know, obviously, we all know people who've kind of done that and. And have had, you know, wonderful marriages and families. I think it's particularly true that kind of the kinds of people, people like Alex Cooper, who are hailing from pretty privileged backgrounds, gone to good schools in her case, landed a great job, a great gig, they often kind of land on their feet when it comes to a spouse and a family. But I think we have to understand and appreciate that when you kind of look at the broader pattern here, there's actually research telling us that people who are living the kind of more player lifestyle, and it's true for both women and men, are much more likely could end up experiencing marital distress and end up in divorce courts. So, for instance, work done by Jesse Smith and Nick Wolfinger, two sociologists, shows us that people have nine or more sexual partners. Again, both women and men are 165% more likely to end up getting divorced. That's a big effect in the social sciences. And the story there is robust to controls for things like religion, education, race and ethnicity. So it just kind of tells us that kind of putting yourself into a situation where you're taking a much more. More casual approach to sex and relationships, like Alex Cooper was kind of urging her listeners to do, the beginning sort of phases of Caller Daddy are increasing their risk, you know, down the road of facing serious marriage, you know, marital problems, and again, ending up in divorce court. And so that's what I think our culture doesn't really appreciate, doesn't know. But for many things, kind of the more experience you have when it comes to, you know, sports, like Alex Cooper's case, or when it comes to music or teaching, for instance, the better you are at that thing. But one big thing where that's not true is when it comes to serious relationships, when it comes to sex, people have had lots of experiences with, like, cohabitation or sex, for instance, with different partners are, for a bunch of reasons, more likely to have difficulty and kind of like really locking in with. With their spouse, you know, down the road.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, so I have like a hot. Take perspective on this, which is gonna rub people the wrong way. But just hear me out so I can explain it anecdotally in. Yeah, the girls who have done the most partying, slept around the most, got married first. And I. I'm thinking of, like, the girls that were really known for this in high school. Almost exactly. Like, right out of high school, they were married. They're still married today. I mean, this is like, I don't know, 10, 15 years later, still married to the same guy, have multiple kids. What I think this speaks to is they are usually the more social girls. They're, you know, perceived as more fun, at least in a worldly way. And so I think gu gravitate towards them. And a lot of these guys, obviously, they're not Christians. A lot of these secular guys kind of write that off. And I don't know, it's attractive to these guys, and they don't care. However.

[Brad Wilcox]

Right.

[Alex Clark]

You know, they've only been married for. For 10 or so years. The statistics, you're saying is we don't know how that's going to pan out. Statistically, it may not pan out well, even if they're married currently. So I think a lot of Christian girls see that happening and they're like, you know, they're single and they're wanting to be married and they're like, I'm not sleeping around. I'm not a hard partier, I'm dating for marriage. Why is it hard for me? But guys will marry them up right away.

[Brad Wilcox]

Sure. So I think there certainly is a kind of, you know, cross cutting factor and that is that some women are just very social, they're out and about and they're going to be, you know, just basically garnering the attention, interest of, you know, men in their circles and that can lead to marriage. So certainly there are people that fit the kind of like pattern that you're articulating. But I'm just sort of saying you have to kind of look at this in a broader perspective too, and understand and appreciate that there are a lot of messy relationships out there in the world. Right. And sort of the more kind of drama and complexity that you've experienced, you know, in your 20s or in your late teens or in your teens, you know, the more likely it is that you're gonna bring some of that into your marriage.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, for sure.

[Brad Wilcox]

And then that's gonna come back and, and, and hurt you.

[Alex Clark]

Or there's also no sin without consequences.

[Brad Wilcox]

I mean, so, yeah, so I think we all know that there are, there are folks who can do this and seemingly do it well. But I think, you know, I've got a colleague, Galena Rhodes, who's a professor of psychology, Denver. She kind of talks about it in this way, about the sort of broader pattern, the broader issue. And she thinks part of the issue is that there's kind of potentially a sort of spirit of critical comparison that kind of set in. Like if you've, you know, really kind of played the field hard, like you're going to compare your spouse to Will or John or Lawrence in terms of their sexual prowess or their ambition or their humor. And, you know, your spouse probably isn't going to be measure up to all of your previous partners on every dimension. Right. In the best kind of way. And the same thing is true for, you know, for men as well, that they're going to compare their wife to Liz and to, you know, Sally and to Amy in ways that are going to make their wife, you know, not measure up, you know, as well. So I think this is the challenging part. And then the other thing that's happening here too is that, you know, from the research we do see, they're kind of like, I think there are two impulses that we kind of wrestle with. One is to pair bond, but one is to, you know, so are wild oats. If you've kind of gone in the direction of sowing your wild oats, you can kind of develop a habit of just going from one person to the next. And again, it's going to be hard I think for some people to kind of turn off that expectation orientation of kind of going from one partner to the next in pursuit of some kind of novelty once you are married as well.

[Alex Clark]

Can I ask ask you something? Wibbledon. Wibbledon? Wibbledon. No, not that. Do you actually know if your voter registration is up to date? Not. I think so. Not probably. I mean, do you know that your voter registration is up to date? Because most people are walking around with no freaking clue. And voter registration is one of those things that people assume is just handled and then they show up and find out the government has them listed as deceased, living in another county or apparently still registered at an apartment where they once paid $2,300 a month to hear their neighbor practice the trumpet. Yeah, a can mess up your voter registration. You moved, you changed your name, you haven't voted in a while. You made one typo three years ago and now you're in this bureaucratic hostage situation. Millions of people either aren't registered at all or they have no idea if they are. Like one in four people are basically just freelancing their democracy. So here's the easiest thing you can do today. Just go to real alexclark.com vote that's it. Real alexclark.com vote takes 30 seconds on your phone. You can check your registration status up, updated if you need to and then you don't have to pretend like, well, I'm pretty sure I'm registered to vote when November comes around. Go to real alexclark.comvote and make sure you're actually good to go. It is so easy to check. I used to eat dunkaroos and sunny delight for breakfast. Yeah, I know. I was a 90s kid living my best neon sugar and neon ketchup life. Fast forward to now. I'm in my 30s and I'm spreading pesticide free beekeepers naturals honey with royal jelly on organic sourdough bread like some kind of wellness guru. This is the 90s kid to crunchy millennial pipeline and I am the queen of it. Here's the thing, most honey out there, it's loaded with pesticides in the U. S. Bees are exposed to a cocktail of chemicals that not only harm them but sneak into the honey that we eat. You think you're eating sweet golden goodness. Probably not. You're eating a little chemical science experiment. And that's why pesticide free honey isn't just a treat. It's actually protecting your health. And the royal jelly that the Beekeeper's naturals honey is infused with. Oh, my word. That is what nurse bees feed the queen. It's packed with proteins, amino acids, and bioactive compounds that support immunity, energy, and overall wellness. It's basically nature's multivitamin straight from the hive. Eating this honey every day from Beekeepers Naturals is the ultimate health hack during cold and flu season. And of course, I keep that Beekeeper naturals propolis throat spray on me. Propolis is what bees use to protect their hives from germs. For me, it is daily immune support, antioxidants, and germ defense all in one little spray. All part of my immune system daily hygiene routine. If you want in on this, go to beekeepers naturals.com code Alex Clark for 20% off. That's beekeepers naturals.com Code Alex Clark for 20% off. Has social media created a kind of Frankenstein standard for relationships? Like we're stitching together the best traits and moments and aesthetics from hundreds of couples online and then expecting one real human being to measure up 100%?

[Brad Wilcox]

I think, yeah, this is, this is true. I think also for parents too. Like, like even, like, you know, families. Like, you know, I've, I'm married. I've got a lot of kids.

[Alex Clark]

How many kids do you have?

[Brad Wilcox]

We've got nine kids.

[Alex Clark]

Wow, that's awesome.

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah. So, you know, and you can kind of look at these families who are like, posting from, like, their, their trip to, I don't know, you know, Hawaii or whatever or, or they're like, you know, like raising chickens in the backyard or like, you know, but, you know, no ordinary family is going to be kind of like doing all those things right. And so you kind of, when you're on social media, you kind of can develop a sort of a sense that you don't measure up either as a potential boyfriend, girlfriend, or as potential husband or wife or as potential father or mother compared to all the different kinds of images and messages that you're getting online.

[Alex Clark]

What is the divorce rate currently in America? Is it as scary as we've been told?

[Brad Wilcox]

Yeah. So I think one of the challenges sort of facing us, you know, is that there are plenty of voices in the culture. Many of them have been kind of on the left for a long time in the mainstream media, kind of telling Women to kind of steer clear of marriage and motherhood, they're sort of seeing them as transitions of loss. So, for instance, Amy Sherman wrote in the New York Times that married motherhood in America is a game that no one wins. So, again, from the left, we've been hearing about kind of how marriage is a bad deal for women, but we're now getting new voices on the right like Andrew Tate and Pearl Davis, who are telling us that marriage is a bad deal from men in large part because they think divorce, to your question, is just endemic in America today. And so from their perspective, what reasonable guy would invest in marriage given that? From their perspective, he's likely to land in divorce court, he's likely to lose primary custody of kids, he's likely to lose a substantial share of his income or his assets to, you know, to an ex wife. And so they instead encourage guys to focus on kind of, you know, getting strong, on making money and you using, but not investing in the opposite sex, sort of avoiding love and marriage because, you know, it's a bad deal. But what they don't understand and appreciate is the divorce rate in America, Alex, has gone down since 1981 pretty consistently. And so what that means is that there was, yes, this terrible divorce revolution in the 70s and 80s when about one in two marriages ended in divorce. But we're now down to probably around 40% of first marriages ending divorce. And that's. That's not great. Believe me, it's not great. But it's important just to understand and appreciate that most marriages will go the distance today. And there are things you can do to dramatically reduce your risk of divorce as well.

[Alex Clark]

Like what?

[Brad Wilcox]

In my book, and get Married, I talk about a number of things that we see are linked to less divorce. So one thing is kind of cultivating a spirit of we before me, you know, where you're kind of doing things as a team. You know, in your marriage, you're sharing the same last name, you're sharing a bank account. So we've got good evidence, for instance, that sharing a. The same bank account, kind of developing the sense that this is our money, it's our financial future together, is linked both to stronger marriages and to less divorce. That's one thing you can do. A second thing to do is to really kind of try to keep the romance alive in your marriage. And so I think regular date nights are incredibly important. Now for some folks, especially early on in marriage, especially if you've got kids in the household, like a baby or a toddler, they may have their date night in the basement, you know, to save money, but just kind of setting aside time to sort of have one on one more romantic opportunities to listen to music, have dinner, you know, whatever it might be, that's going be the thing that allows you to cultivate that romantic spirit and ongoing basis in your marriage. So we see that regular date nights are linked to about a 25% risk in divorce. A third thing that I see in the research is that guys who are reliable providers, and again, this doesn't speak to the woman working, are much less likely to get divorced. In fact, there's a relatively recent Harvard study that showed that when women lost their jobs, were unemployed, it had no impact on their risk of divorce. But when the guy was unemployed or lost his job, it increased their risk of divorce by about 33%. It's a big effect in the research. So just kind of encouraging men to be intentional about being hardworking and being gainfully employed. Of course, people lose their jobs on occasion, but I think the challenge then is for especially the husband to kind of realize he's got to get back on his horse and find a new job. And the fourth thing that I would say is just the importance of shared faith. There's just no question that couples who are engaged in a Christian community have access to what I would call kind of the norms, norms like fidelity and forgiveness. The networks of friends and other churchgoers are going to be good examples and also help them when things are not going so well. And then what's called a nomos in the research in sociology. And nomos is kind of this idea. There's a sacred canopy over you or over your marriage, over your family, and the sense that, like, God is with you and for you. And so when the slings and arrows of misfortune, to paraphrase Shakespeare, come your way, your mom dies early, you lose your job, your daughter's in the psychiatric ward in the local hospital on a weekly basis, your wife's depressed when these things hit you. If you're a person of faith and you're plugged into a faith community, you're much more likely to be flourishing and to avoid falling in that negative spiral that can lead to divorce. So we see on the divorce front that couples who are regularly attending church are between 30 and 50% less likely to get divorced. So these are the kinds of things you can do to bring that, that divorce risk even further down for a strong and simple marriage today.

[Alex Clark]

Do you agree with Charlie Kirk when he said that everyone needed to be married by 30 at the latest, or do you think he was a little too harsh?

[Brad Wilcox]

You know, I wrote this piece called Get Married Young for Compact magazine, and I was actually inspired by some of the comments that Charlie Kirk had made. And you know, one of the most provocative points that he had made in kind of making the case for younger marriage was he said that if women waited until of 30 to have kids, they had only a 50% chance of having a child. And I thought, Charlie Kirk doesn't know what he's talking about. That seems like an incredibly large number. And so I had a colleague of mine at the Institute for Family Studies, Grant Bailey, kind of look at the numbers and look at a large data set, and he found that that was, in fact, Charlie Kirk was right on the money. The point is that if you're waiting longer to get married and you're waiting longer to start a family, then your odds of doing that are going to fall. And they do fall pretty precipitously as you push past 30 for women. Now, it's important to note that if you're getting married in your early 30s, your odds of having kids are still reasonably good. But the bigger point here is just given the fact that lots of people are experiencing more difficulty when it comes to dating today, that in the general adult female population, if you're pushing past 30 without, like a clear path to marriage and motherhood, it's going to be more and more challenging. And so Kirk was right to basically warn, you know, folks that waiting too long can put you at risk of not having the family you would like to have. And so it's for that reason, in part, that I would encourage young adults to take their opportunities in college, in the workplace, in their local churches, in the local run club, you know, in their early 20s, to look around and mix and mingle and see if they find someone who would be a good candidate for marriage.

[Alex Clark]

I think to a lot of people, when Charli was live and those talks were going viral, I think a lot of women got really offended. You know, I'm 33 and I'm not married yet. I'm a super serious relationship that's heading towards marriage, but I'm not married yet. A lot of women heard that and got very offended. I wasn't offended. I understood when Charlie would talk about this things. First of all, he's speaking in facts. These are true statistics. There are always exceptions to the rule.

[Brad Wilcox]

Exactly.

[Alex Clark]

Erica is quite a bit older than Charlie.

[Brad Wilcox]

Right.

[Alex Clark]

So his own wife was over 30 when they got married. And then they had two kids and they wanted to have more obviously before he was murdered by leftist. So it's like, you know, sometimes I think we need to, to hear things like that and understand that there are always exceptions to the rule. And you know, this goes, this also goes with, you know, when Charlie would talk about, you know, it's really important that are spending early, early years with their kids and people took that as well. He's saying women should never work. Well, that's just clearly not true. I mean, even with Erica staying home when he was still alive, she had her own side businesses and her 365, you know, read the Bible in 365 days podcast. And Charlie also surrounded himself with tons of working women at Turning Point. But you know, he also said in place, we have one of the best maternity leave policies in the country.

[Brad Wilcox]

Sure.

[Alex Clark]

Women at Turning Point USA have a six month maternity leave. And then also there's a lot of you working with women that work here for remote work or going to part time or just different things to make, make it possible. If you want to work, you can work, but we also want you to prioritize your family. Charlie did a really good job of, of walking the walk, not just talking the talk. So he was obviously not anti working women. You know, there's just a lot of nuance that gets lost in those types of conversations.

[Brad Wilcox]

I think it's important just to sort of underline that, you know, one of the more sobering kind of dimensions of the work that I'm doing is I am talking to a lot of women in their mid-30s. Both my book get Married, but also for my more recent work. And I talked to Elizabeth, I mentioned that before, who's in her mid-30s now in Texas and she would like to be married with kids, but she's finding it really difficult to find a guy who'd be, you know, worth or interested in dating. So that's. And as I said, she was saying to me, like, if she had kind of thought about this more carefully in college where there are lots of guys who were kind of like her, as she said, by her own words, sort of more nerdy, she thinks she could have found someone. And I think I also also spoke to a woman named Taylor who lives, you know, not too far from here, and she was encouraged in her 20s to sort of focus on her career as a designer, as a graphic designer, and then also to kind of, you know, have fun, travel, not really, you know, not really worry about getting married. And now she's in her mid-30s. And she's like, oh my gosh, I wish I had kind of taken a different pathway in my 20s. You know, I wish I had kind of looked more carefully for a potential spouse. I think just it's, it's about kind of encouraging people, both male and female, to just understand again, we're headed to a world where probably one in three young adults will never marry and one in four will never have kids. These are record numbers, like record levels of permanent bachelors and permanent bachelorettes of childless men and childless women. And in this newer world that we're kind of living in, where dating does seem to be more difficult, it just doesn't make sense to say that just because you're 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 or 24, 25, that you shouldn't be kind of looking around in your college or in your trade school, in your workplace, your church, your run club for someone who'd be again, a great friend, a great lover and a great spouse.

[Alex Clark]

How do we know that? How do we know that one in three gen zers won't get married or whatever?

[Brad Wilcox]

So this comes from work done by my colleague Lyman Stone, who's a demographer at the Institute of Family Studies. He just kind of is looking at sort of the patterns and is trying to project based upon current trends in both marriage and fertility. You know, what we're going to sort of see for folks who are in their 20s, what you can see basically is that the share of folks in their 20s who are married is way below where it was in, you know, a place 10 years ago and a place even more so 30 years ago, not to mention obviously 60 years ago. So we're just kind of seeing the share of young adults who are moving into marriage in their 20s and then even in their 30s kind of. And then having kids kind of come down compared to previous generations. And that decline in marriage across 20 somethings and 30 somethings is leading us to project unprecedented low levels of marriage in America as well as unprecedented low levels of childbearing in America. And we can talk about why that matters for like the economy. We can talk about why that matters for Social Security and Medicare, for the deficit. But the point want to make for you and for your audience is that again, what we're seeing today in America is that no group of Americans are reporting their lives are more meaningful and happier than married fathers and married mothers. I'm really motivated to speak on these issues because I don't want my students at uva, my children, my friends, young adult friends, to sort of like go through life without having the benefit of a spouse and family. If that's what you know, they'd hoped to do, that's what they were called to do.

[Alex Clark]

If you are seriously wanting to get married, should you be on dating apps?

[Brad Wilcox]

So there are two points to make here. My colleague Dr. Wendy Wang has found in her research that couples who met first in church and then, or in, you know, in college or in the workplace or socializing with friends are the happiest couples that she's seeing in the, you know, in her work on marital quality. And by contrast, couples who are meeting through, through an online platform are less likely to be very happy in their marriages. So there's just kind of something about, you know, these in person opportunities that give you more information. Often it's tacit information, sort of sub cues you're just picking up on at some level. But also you're often embedded too in friendship networks. We know that couples who are marrying people who are kind of in their larger friendship network, who share their values, who are also going to be held accountable by, you know, their common friends and tend to do better. So I think the ideal for folks, especially in their 20s, is to try to find someone through an in person context. But again, given the challenges people are facing when it comes to dating, I would sort of look at, you know, the dating apps as, as, as a, as a necessary backup. And then I think it's important to kind of pick the kinds of apps that are more conducive to a serious relationship and marriage. So maybe it's a religious dating app, or maybe it's an app like Keeper, which is a new app that's using algorithms to kind of match people who are interested in, in either a long term relationship or marriage. So kind of steering clear of the Tinder model. That's obviously not going to be helpful in terms of finding the kind of person who would be good for marriage. So dating apps are a necessary evil, I would say, you know, but the ideal is trying to find someone in person if you can.

[Alex Clark]

It feels like everywhere I turn lately, people are talking about glutathione. And honestly, it's for a good reason. Glutathione is often called the body's master antioxidant because it plays a major role in supporting your natural detoxification pathways and helping protect your cells from oxidative stress. But what's interesting, instead of taking glutathione directly, which can be expensive and isn't always efficiently absorbed I really prefer supporting my body's ability to make its own. So that's why I've been looking at Gly Nac plus from Utsy Naturals. That's Gly Gl Y N A C plus. It contains two nutrients that your body uses to produce glutathione naturally, glycine and nac, which stands for N acetyl cysteine. And I love the philosophy behind it because it recognizes something important. Your body already knows how to detox. The goal isn't to force some trendy cleanse or seven day detox tea. The goal is to provide your body with the building blocks that it needs to support the systems it already has. Right. So that's a much smarter approach in my opinion. If you're interested in supporting your body's natural antioxidant defenses, healthy aging, cellular health and natural detoxification pathways, Gly Nac plus from utsi.com is definitely worth looking into. You can learn more about GLY NAC plus from [e-mail] utzy.com with code Alex see why so many people are adding it to their daily wellness routine? That's Utsy utzy.com code Alex on the Gly NEC plus for the longest time I thought creatine was only for the crazy gym rats. But the more I dug into the research, the more I realized that people are taking creatine for reasons that have nothing to do with getting bigger muscles. Yeah, creatine is one of the most studied supplements for strength, power and recovery. But what's really fascinating is this growing research looking into its potential role in cognitive function, mental performance, and even mood support. That is what got my attention and the reason I chose Puri Creatine Plus Puri is spelled P U O R I is because it's not just creatine. So each serving of Puri creatine plus combines 5g of creatine monohydrate hydrate with 400mg of taurine. Now both ingredients are known for their role in energy support during high intensity exercise, and emerging research suggests that they may also support cognitive performance and mental clarity. But I loved pur's transparency the most. I'm really, really picky about supplements, and Pury is the only brand of creatine that I have found with the Clean Label Project Transparency Certificate. So every single batch of Pury creatine is independently tested for more than 200 contaminan minutes and they publish the results online. You can literally scan the QR code on the bag and you can see the test results for your specific batch. So that is the kind of transparency that I wish every single supplement company had. Go to puri.com P-U-O-R-I.com Alex and use code Alex to get 32 off your first Puri creatine plus order. When you start a subscription, you're going to save more than $23. That's pure.com Alex use code Alex at checkout for 32 off your subscription.

[Brad Wilcox]

It

[Alex Clark]

men say that there are no good women left. Women are saying there's no good men left. So where do we go from here?

[Brad Wilcox]

And the thing is, you know, I encounter, you know, as a professor at uva, just, you know, tons of young women and young men who are great people, right. And who are single. And, you know, I can't tell you how many students have sat kind of in my office hours and kind of told me they haven't had one date at uva. I'm just like. So I think it's about trying to figure out ways to bring people together and to also exploit opportunities. Where you're meeting people is part of the answer here. And then we also, I think, have to do more to organize events where people can meet folks who are like minded, especially marriage minded. So there's a new group, for instance, in Washington, D.C. and they're organizing young adults primarily who are Catholic, but, you know, need not be Catholic who are interested in kind of in marriage. And they're doing lectures and they're doing volunteering and they're doing dances and they're like these fun, well done events that bring together interesting people. You know, that's the kind of thing that we need to see a lot more. But I also think too, we as parents and professors and pastors and priests, you know, need to do a lot more to kind of put people in touch, you know, to be thinking more deliberately about this person would be good for that person to arrange for, you know, dinners and other activities where we can kind of like, you know, play the role of matchmaker.

[Alex Clark]

How important is physical and sexual attraction when dating?

[Brad Wilcox]

Certainly it's important. And this is why I think both women and men should be, you know, making an effort to be in shape or get in shape when they're looking to date or when they are dating. But I think it's certainly the case that a lot of people discover a kind of romantic or sexual attraction just by being with someone, by seeing them do something well or by seeing them care for a certain person in a powerful way or discovering a kind of a friendship that they hadn't necessarily expected. So I think that for many folks, the kind of romantic or sexual attraction can develop over time by spending time with someone. But it certainly helps to, I think, dress nicely, both men and women, and then also to kind of pay attention to your appearance and then also to, to make an effort to, to exercise regularly as well.

[Alex Clark]

I also want to say women should not underestimate our amazing talents and abilities to give. Give makeovers. You know, sometimes a guy, he's, he's you. You can see the potential. It's like all you need to do is just grow a beard or get a different type of haircut, you know, or I can take you shopping, help you pick out some stuff. And it's like they're a whole new person. I mean, so sometimes a guy just needs a woman's touch It. Sometimes it's not like that dial, you know, and then I think, I think attraction can develop definitely with that too. For a lot of young couples, they feel like living together before marriage feels practical, it feels responsible. How else am I going to know if we're truly compatible?

[Brad Wilcox]

Right.

[Alex Clark]

Outside of religious arguments? Because I know the religious arguments, but outside of that, I think the, the data on living together before marriage is super compelling. Does it actually make your marriage stronger to live with each other before you get married?

[Brad Wilcox]

This is a great question. And you know, I think one of the most surprising things that students at UVA kind of tell me after my class is done is that their thoughts about cohabitation had kind of done a 180 because most young adults today cohabit prior to marriage. And most young adults think it's a great way to prepare for marriage. I think the challenge is people don't appreciate that cohabitation is not the same thing as marriage. And so it's not necessarily a good preparation for marriage. And so what we see is that cohabitation is linked, particularly when you're cohabiting with more than one person, to a much greater risk of divorce. And so, for instance, there's work done by a Stanford sociologist kind of showing us that folks who are cohabiting with someone besides their spouse are more than twice as likely to end up getting divorced. So that's certainly one piece of data on the issue. And there's work done by Scott Stanley and Galena Rhodes, both at the University of Denver, kind of telling us that when people are cohabiting prior to an engagement or they're cohabiting with multiple partners, they're more likely to experience either divorce or. Or oftentimes marital distress as well. And so I think the issue with cohabitation is that there's a couple of things happening here. One thing that Scott Stanley talks about is kind of what's called sliding versus deciding. And so it's particularly when people are kind of moving in without any kind of clear plan for their future, just in general, but also in terms of their relationship. And they just kind of like. They kind of move in. And there's not like they're not really communicating. Like, are we on the same page here? Because oftentimes one party is thinking about this as a way to save on the rent and enjoy regular intimacy. The other parter is thinking, this is maybe we're going to be heading to marriage here. And obviously, if they're not on the same page, that can create a really awkward and ambiguous situation down the road. So that's certainly one, I think, challenge. There's not a lot of clarity heading into competition. Another kind of point to make, too, is that people often have a much more kind of autonomous orientation. They have the kind of thought that, well, I can kind of keep my freedom and sort of be in this relationship, but then with that orientation, they keep it as they move into marriage. And so one example is finances, right? And so when people cohabit, they tend to have sex, separate finances. And then they keep their separate finances once they get married because they've developed this more autonomous orientation to their relationship. So I had a colleague, for instance, at Princeton when I was in graduate school, and she told me one day that she was sort of frustrated with her husband. And I was a bit curious because her husband was professionally successful, had a good income. We had modest stipends at Princeton as graduate students. And what came out is that they had separate finances. And so he had a pretty big bank account because he was making good money. And she was a graduate student with a very modest stipend. She didn't have a lot of money, and she wanted to buy a couch for their apartment, and she didn't have the money to buy the couch. And because they hadn't brought their money together, she couldn't buy the couch. And this had all kind of begun when they were cohabiting. So again, kind of this sort of more autonomous orientation often begins. A cohabitation extends into marriage. And then I think the final thing is just sort of there's a way in which there's a lot of often ambiguity and lack of authentic commitment. And gravitation that can kind of cast a gray cloud over the relationship as folks move into marriage or even kind of allow a lot of people nowadays to spend even years in a cohabiting relationship that they thought was headed to marriage, but the other party was not interested in marriage. And so it can kind of lead them to lose out on opportunities to marry and have kids. So these are some of the reasons why cohabitation actually, actually isn't a great strategy. And for folks who are skeptical at this point, you can just go into, like Claude, for instance, and say, claude, summarize the research on cohabitation and divorce. Claude, summarize the research on cohabitation and marital quality. So again, this is not a Bible thing, it's not a Christian thing, it's not a Catholic thing. This is just a social science thing, that this is not the best way to get your marriage started off on the right footing.

[Alex Clark]

How can parents raise their sons and daughters to have the traits and desire for successful marriages?

[Brad Wilcox]

So I think, you know, one of the striking things that I see at UVA is that a lot of my students are kind of telling me that their parents primary expectations for them revolve around education, work, even young adults who are coming from Christian homes. They're kind of getting the message from mom and dad that what really matters for, you know, for you. And from our perspective, right, is you want to be killing it at college and then you want to be killing it in your career in the next decade or so. And we see this also in Pew data telling us that parents are prioritizing for their kids, their future work, much more than their future marriage and family prospects. So I think, sadly, sadly, Alex, we're going to see a lot of parents when they hit their 60s and 70s, or even their 80s, wondering where the grandkids are because they never communicated to their children that the most important things in life are family, friendship, and for many of us, faith. Right. And so if you don't kind of clearly communicate to your kids that what matters most is marriage and family and friendship and faith and community, and you instead tell them that what really matters is how well they're doing in school and what kind of career they're going to. To have down the road, they're going to listen to you. So in terms of formation, I think, yeah, taking time, you know, with your kids to, to form them in the faith is one important thing that parents need to do, but also kind of helping them understand and appreciate that love and family and marriage are for most of us, the most important things. And you should be thinking about kind of developing, you know, the kinds of virtues that would make you a good spouse in terms of being decent at communication, being considerate, being hurt, hardworking, you know, and all those things.

[Alex Clark]

I think being interesting, too.

[Brad Wilcox]

That helps. Yeah, sure.

[Alex Clark]

We need to be helping our kids become interesting.

[Brad Wilcox]

Sure. You know, developing real hobbies, real interests. Yes. Right.

[Alex Clark]

Like, instead of all they know how to do is scroll and play video games. That's not interesting.

[Brad Wilcox]

Yes, that's right. Yeah, you're right. A big piece of this is really trying to do a lot with your kids in the real world rather than the virtual world.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Brad Wilcox]

I mean, letting them be in the virtual world. Y.

[Alex Clark]

How do you know if you're ready for marriage?

[Brad Wilcox]

I think many of us, it's like, when are you ready to become a parent? Right. You know, it's. It's more about. I think. I don't think there's any point when you fully feel ready to be married or fully feel ready to be a parent, to be honest. Right. I think it's more about kind of having the sense that, you know, like, this is the person, you know, and also, too, that I'm, you know, I mean, I'm a Catholic. I think kind of having the sense that you're called to marriage, you're called to family, is certainly part of the. But I think for ordinary people, just sort of like, you know, having a strong connection with someone, you know, like, and recognizing that they would be a good friend. That when you're Both old and 80, you know, sitting on your back porch, for instance, you're going to enjoy your conversations even if you're not, you know, physically as attractive as you once were.

[Alex Clark]

It was always a hard no for me to ever ask a guy out or to text first. As a woman.

[Brad Wilcox]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Is that a good idea, or should more women consider. Consider making the first move?

[Brad Wilcox]

You know, I still think it's important for guys to kind of take the initiative when it comes to dating. And we do see, actually, a lot of research indicating that women prefer this as well. So this is not some kind of, like, you know, sexist notion. I think it's also about two. Two other important things as well. You would like to kind of date and marry a guy who has a certain capacity for courage and confidence. And this is very clear in the research. Women like guys who are more courageous and confident. And so this is kind of of a good way to sort of see does he have that courage to do that kind of thing. And then I think also in a day and age when there are too many situationships, it's a way for the guy to signal that he's interested in something more serious oftentimes as well. So I think it's a lot of the things when it comes to relationships are the burdens are borne by women. Right. And so this is sort of one clear burden that we're kind of giving to the guy. So, hey, you've got to the initiative here and signal that you're really interested in someone by asking her on a date.

[Alex Clark]

You hear success stories from couples where the girl wasn't interested, the guy kept pursuing, eventually she comes around. How does a guy know if he should keep asking versus let it go?

[Brad Wilcox]

You know, Arthur Brooks, who's now at Harvard, moving to Vanderbilt, has a great story about kind of meeting his wife at a concert in Europe. She was Spanish, he was an American. You know, they locked eyes at this concert in Europe. And yes, Esther out in a date through an intermediary and. But I'm sure she thought, like, where is this going to go? I don't even speak English. She doesn't speak Spanish.

[Alex Clark]

That's crazy. There's a total language barrier.

[Brad Wilcox]

Total language barrier for Arthur and Esther. Yeah. And so. But he was pretty persistent. So I don't have like a set and fast rule for guys. I just. I would just kind of encourage them if there seems to be, you know, some possibility there, you know, for friendship and you have some kind of intuition that this is going to work, be persistent. But, you know, obviously if after, you know, one or two dates, she's very clearly opposed, you've got to let go and move on. But I think for a lot of these stories, there's a kind of ambiguity, you know, and he keeps persisting and she's not entirely sure, but again, it's sort of like she sees over time that he's the kind of guy. And Arthur Brooks is a very impressive person who has what it takes, you know, to be a good friend and a good, good spouse.

[Alex Clark]

What does research say about health in marriage?

[Brad Wilcox]

I think we're all aware of, like, the importance of, you know, diet and alcohol and other kinds of things. But I think we aren't always kind of attentive to the ways in which our relationships matter so much for our health. You know, like, if we're in a good relationship, our health is, you know, going to be a lot better than if we're in a bad relationship or if we're sort of single and alone. And so we see in the research is that people who are married, especially people who are happily married or people who are like in a good enough relationship, are more likely to be flourishing on the health front. Now there's one exception. When it comes to people being married, they're less healthy in one major way. Can you guess what that is, Alex? Weight 100%. So once you get married, you tend to put on a few extra pounds, right? Because in part I think you're off the market, right? So. And in part two, maybe you enjoy more good home cooking. But in general, we've seen the research is that on the whole bunch of different fronts, people, generally speaking, especially men, are healthier when they're married. But there's even research that just came out about a month and a half ago showing that when it comes to getting cancer, both men and actually especially women who are married are less likely to, at, at big levels like I think 50% less likely to get cancer. And so I think the story there is that when you, you are married, you typically are drinking less, you're using drugs less. That's a big factor. You're also less likely to be getting STDs. And STD is actually a major cause today of cancer. So that's also a factor. And we also know too that women are having, you know, who are having kids are also less likely to develop certain kinds of cancer too as well. So there's just a way in which kind of embracing marriage, especially embracing a good marriage and being good spirit spouse to, you know, you know, to your, your husband or wife redounds to the benefit of people's health. And I've got one personal story here. My father in law had had cancer and went to the UVA hospital and had extensive surgery. Things didn't go very well in the first round of surgery. And my mother in law was just, she was on those nurses and doctors, you know, like you wouldn't believe, you know, kind of asking them questions, making sure he was getting the best care and everything else. He went in for another round of treatment at the hospital and came out successfully. And he's doing incredibly well right now. And I would attribute a lot of his success in these two rounds of treatment at the UVA Hospital to the kind of diligent care that his wife,

[Alex Clark]

she was his advocate, total advocate. If he would have been alone, he would have had no one fighting for him.

[Brad Wilcox]

And we know that sort of the protection, protective effects vis a vis cancer when it comes to marriage don't just extend to not getting cancers. Also we know that people who are married are way more likely to recover from cancer as well because they have the support of people like my mother in law going through this, you know, this, this journey, this medical journey to, to get, you know, beyond cancer.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, where can people read more of your work?

[Brad Wilcox]

So my book is Get Married. It's Harper Collins. Kind of talks about the importance of marriage for adults today especially, but also for kids as well and gives people kind of five different pillars around which they can kind of build a strong and stable marriage. And then if studies.org is the website for the Institute for Family Studies where I do a lot of my research. And then I'm on Twitter, Brad wilcoxifs

[Alex Clark]

I ask every guest if you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, it could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be?

[Brad Wilcox]

I think to revive dating in America and in the direction of pointing people, you know, to a pathway of dating with an eye towards marriage.

[Alex Clark]

So good. This was an excellent conversation. Learned so much. I think this is going to be so helpful for my audience and I hope you guys listening will, will share this far and wide. I think there's a lot of really important information that Brad shared. So thank you for coming on Culture Apothecary.

[Brad Wilcox]

Thanks Alex.

[Alex Clark]

People act like this is just some lifestyle trend, right? Like fewer marriages and fewer kids is just morally neutral. This isn't a big deal. It's a fluke. It's just something that's happening right now. It's not forever. Well, this is actually a huge red flag. Civilizations do not survive when men and women stop forming families. And I know that this conversation can feel heavy because for a lot of people, this isn't theoretical, it is personal. There are people listening right now who genuinely wants. Want marriage, want family, want deep love and commitment. And they're wondering if it is still possible for you. And I think one of the most hopeful things that Brad brought up today is that healthy relationships are not built by perfect people magically finding the one. They're built by ordinary people. Learning wisdom, emotional maturity, courage, discernment, communication, sacrifice and commitment. Those are skills, right?

[Brad Wilcox]

Right.

[Alex Clark]

Those are habits. Those are things that people can actually grow in. And despite what social media tells you, there are still good men, there are still good women, there are still healthy marriages, and there are still people who want something real. Please leave a five star review for the show today if you thought this episode was interesting and educational and encouraging. New episodes release Mondays and Thursdays at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific anywhere. You listen to podcasts or real Alex Clark on YouTube? I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.