"Get Married" wants you to believe that patriarchy will save you and civilization

Despite all evidence to the contrary, marriage promoters insist: "marry a man and life falls into place."

Photo by nikki gibson on Unsplash

The author of the new book “Get Married,” who is making rounds in the media right now, argues that the problems created by patriarchal capitalism—poverty, inequality, existential ennui—are best solved by, what else? Men.

Marry a man and life falls into place, he argues. If not, face the consequences of financial ruin, unhappiness, and nothing less than civilizational collapse (hyperbole not mine; the phrase “save civilization” is actually in the book’s subtitle.) Another new book, by economist Melissa Kearney, makes a similar case.

If this sounds like an argument cooked up by right-wing conservatives who want to keep traditional gender roles and patriarchal capitalism in place, that’s exactly what it is.

The author, Brad Wilcox, is professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, an organization that, as the name implies, is dedicated to promoting traditional marriage. Which is not exactly a neutral and scientific approach to the study of “social science.”

Brad Wilcox and his ilk are one of the reasons that I started this newsletter to report better narratives on issues that face women and children, actually. An inspiration, if you will.

Several years ago when I was a full-time reporter covering poverty-related issues I followed major social scientists for interviews, and read their research for stories. And Wilcox’s research often seemed—off. It seemed to leave out evidence, and spin findings one way when they could easily point in another. It seemed biased. Yet, he was one of the biggest—and loudest—names in the field.

I’m not an investigative reporter, but I found pretty easily that his “research” is backed by big money from conservative donors.

His institute, The National Marriage Project, is funded by the very conservative William E. Simon foundation for one, and the the Witherspoon Institute, which funded wonderful projects like the notorious Wilcox/Regnerus research that tried to make spurious claims that children of same-sex couples had more “negative outcomes” in order to undermine same-sex marriage legislation.

(That project has been roundly debunked by peer review, resulted in formal complaints of scientific misconduct, and became a poster child for why private donations to fund research is a bad idea.)