The Problem With ‘Marriage Makes You Happier’ Studies

Or rather, the many problems — and the myths they keep alive

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If you were to believe the chorus of marriage-obsessed scholars, media outlets, think tanks, and other members of what social psychologist Bella DePaolo once aptly called the ‘Marriage Mafia,’ marriage can solve just about every human problem imaginable.

Lonely? Stressed? Broke? Just get married. Questioning the point of going on in this late-stage capitalistic hellscape, with Dickensian levels of inequality, climate collapse, and democratic backsliding? Just get married. Got an aching tooth? You guessed it — just get married.

One of the most common claims is that marriage makes people happier — a claim continually kept afloat by a carousel of studies and surveys. The latest addition comes from the Wheatley Institute and the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), two organisations whose missions, not coincidentally, are to ‘strengthen marriage and family life.’ Their new report, based on a survey of American women, found that married mothers are much more likely to say they’re ‘very happy’ than unmarried women or those without children. Married women overall were also less likely to report being lonely and more likely to find life enjoyable.