Brad Wilcox has written an important new book in which he explores how strong marriages benefit individuals and society in virtually every way imaginable. I thank him for doing so, because I don’t have the patience to marshal all the necessary evidence to persuade elites of something that I consider common sense: that strong marriages are the irreplaceable building blocks of healthy families and communities. And more importantly for the work I have done for decades, strong marriages are crucial in the effort to overcome generational poverty and revitalize struggling communities.
Making the case for marriage and even enacting marriage-supporting policies are welcome steps if they can happen, but they are not remotely close to sufficient for the restoration of marriage in the places where it is most needed. There are those who falsely claim that the decline of marriage and rise in out-of-wedlock births in the low-income segments of the black community are due to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In fact, the opposite is true. Slaves went out of their way to marry, even when forbidden by law. Upon emancipation, freed slaves worked tirelessly to reunite with family members separated by sale or war.
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