John Donvan
This is Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. Hi, everybody. The topic for this episode’s debate, I can sum up in three words, married or single? That is it. Not to say that there might not be some other third or fourth option for a living arrangement, but many of us, I think it’s fair to say, are either one or the other, either married or single, by choice in many cases, although not always. But what we’re hoping to get at is, what’s the better way to live? Are those who are married, by which we’re gonna be saying conventionally married, legal marriage, with a license, et cetera, and vows, are they leading better lives, measured a million different ways, than those who go through life being single? And how would we actually measure that? How would we even figure out a thing like that?

We do know that there are people who are totally fulfilled by having a betrothed partner, and they would not have it any other way, but there are also people who swear by singleness. That’s what we’re gonna look at in this debate. Married or single? That’s our prompt. Let’s meet our debaters. Arguing that the answer to that prompt is married, I wanna welcome Jonathan Rothwell. Jonathan is the principal economist at Gallup, as well as a fellow at The Brookings Institute. His work at Gallup has spanned a lot of things, social science, um, including egalitarianism, the mental health of adolescents, and of course, a lot of work around the issue of marriage. Also, interestingly, he was a clinical psychologist before he was an economist, so Jonathan, welcome to Open to Debate.

Jonathan Rothwell
Thank you very much for having me.

John Donvan
I wanna also get one more piece of your background with a personal question that I’ve never asked at the beginning of a debate, and I hope you don’t mind. Are you married or single?

Jonathan Rothwell
I am married, for the second time.

John Donvan
Okay.

Jonathan Rothwell
(laughs) I liked it so much-

John Donvan
All right [inaudible

].

Jonathan Rothwell
… the first time, I did it again.

John Donvan
All right, thanks very much. And here to a- argue on the single side, I wanna welcome Bella DePaulo. Bella has written a lot of books about single people, including Singled Out, and more recently, Single at Heart. She’s a social scientist, and currently an academic affiliate for the University of California Santa Barbara. You’ve been writing and giving talks about people who make this choice to live single for over 20 years, Bella, so welcome to Open to Debate.

Bella DePaulo
Thank you.

John Donvan
And (laughs) same question for you. If you don’t mind, I know it’s personal, but married or single.

Bella DePaulo
I have always been single, and I always will be.

John Donvan
All right. Both of you arguing from conviction, not just the research and the science. Let’s get to our opening statements. We wanna ask each of you to take a few minutes to explain why you’re taking the side that you do in this question, or this prompt, of married or single. Jonathan, you are up first. You are arguing married. Please tell us why.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, marriage has been universally practiced, as far as we know, for all of human history and before, so it’s hard to imagine that it needs defending. Um, but we know that the marriage rate has fallen in the United States, and many developed and, and, uh, you know, rich countries, over the last few decades. And so, it, uh, one of the reasons I think that’s happened is that elite secular culture has diminished the value of marriage, and so here we are today, discussing and debating that value. My main argument for in, marriage, is that humans crave and benefit from intimate, long-term relationships. And marriage is the institution that has evolved to secure those relationships, and to strengthen their quality, in the face of selfish tendencies that might otherwise lead us to be poor partners, or to take advantage of intimate relationships.

Thus, adults are usually happier when they are married, and most people will benefit from aspiring to be married, getting married, and staying married. Let me elaborate on these points. Evolution has shaped our bodies, our hormones, and neurotransmitters to facilitate and to maintain pair bonding, that is typical of, uh, marital relationships. Take three examples. Testosterone levels adjust among married men, and in the presence of their own offspring, in ways that facilitate pair bonding and monogamy. Oxytocin is associated with the reward centers of our brain, and is elevated in the presence of romantic partners. Human male sex organs more closely resemble those of primates that practice monogamy relative to primates that do not practice monogamy. All of this points to the fact that monogamy is deeply rooted in, in human evolutionary biology, and very much a natural way of life for humans.

Yet, humans also contain, uh, many selfish instincts, to put our own lives, desires, and reproductive fitness ahead of others. How do humans secure monogamous relationships in the face of competition from others who may give us more fit offspring or satisfy our desires in some way? I think the answer, uh, is, is, is marriage. It’s an answer that has been arrived at by many different cultures, uh, throughout, uh, uh, the history of the human species, to s- to such an extent that it’s called by anthropologists a cultural universal.

So what does marriage do? Several things. As a commitment device, it secures and strengthens the relationship. It does so by reducing the risk of being left abandoned or mistreated. It does so by encouraging generosity, emo- investment, emotionally, financially, uh, and physically. Like any contract, marriage clarifies the legal and social obligations people have to one another, reducing conflict and enhancing the quality of the relationship. Given all this, it’s not surprising that empirical data shows that married people express higher levels of wellbeing than non-married people, and married couples have more loving and supportive relationships than non-married couples, regardless of cohabitation status. Married people also argue l- less frequently than, than non-married couples.

These types of outcomes r- regarding happiness can be found in, in day-to-day experiences of happiness or, and less experiences of negative emotions, as, as, as asked on surveys conducted by Gallup and other organizations. Th- this sort of wellbeing is also revealed when asked to evaluate their life at a, at a larger scale, over the course of their entire life, and married people are much more likely to say that they are living their best lives.

John Donvan
Thank you, Jonathan. And Bella, you’re taking the other side. You are defending the single position under the rubric of married or single. You have four minutes to make your case.

Bella DePaulo
Claims about the supposed superiority of married people obscure something significant. Single people are not a monolith, and for some people, probably more than we ever realized, it is single life that is their best life, their most joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling life. I call them single at heart, and I’m one of them. If we were coaxed into marrying, we wouldn’t be happier, and we wouldn’t live longer. It would just feel longer (laughs). We embrace our single lives, and that pays off for us and other people. In my interviews for my Single at Heart book, I found that the single at heart have big, open-hearted values.

For example, they see love as encompassing far more than just romantic love. We invest in our friends. A study of 6,000 singles found that those who were not looking for a romantic partner valued their friends more and more over the course of the seven-year study. We also savor our solitude rather than fearing it, and that capacity to be alone is a sign of emotional maturity, and it often protects us from feeling lonely.

Our freedom enhances our lives too, and let’s talk happiness. A 10-year study of 17,000 singles found that over the course of their adult lives, the single people who are not looking for a romantic partner just keep getting happier and happier. Of course, there are married people who are happy. If you are one of them, that’s great. But if you have to be married in order to be happy, well that’s a vulnerability that the single at heart do not share.

You know, if marriage really were the royal road to happiness, then people who follow that road and get married would get happier, but instead, dozens of studies show that maybe people get a little happier at first, but typically, that doesn’t last. The real question is why don’t they become lastingly happier after they marry? After all, they are the beneficiaries of a whole system of inequality that advantages them and disadvantages single people. Consider how single people are expected to cover for married people in the workplace, or how single people are pitied and married people are celebrated, or how hundreds of federal laws in the US benefit and protect only people who are legally married? They get the tax breaks. They get to give their Social Security to their spouse when they die, whereas my benefits go back into the system. And so much more. Where would single and married people place themselves on the ladder of life if all these discriminatory policies were reversed to favor single people, or if they were equally fair to everyone?

I want single people and the people in their lives to be valued for their strengths and contributions, and supported rather than stigmatized. A society that did that would be less lonely, more loving, and more just.

John Donvan
Thank you very much, Bella. So we’ve heard from each of you now, w- uh, your, your various positions on married or single. I just wanna go to, uh, before we come up for the break, uh, I can give each of you about 30 seconds to take this point, uh, that, uh, uh, s- studies are showing, and this is… I’m q- now quoting from a PEW Research Center study, that, um, roughly four in 10 American adults are now what they are calling un-partnered. They’re not married, but they’re also not living with a partner. In a sense, they are living the single life. And I wanna go to you first, Jonathan. That fact, which is a, an increasing trend, does that fact support your case that married life stands an individual in better stead than single life? Uh, if that’s the case, why would so many people be choosing to go the other way?

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I think whether or not people are married now is, is a function of many different things, including their own personal calculations and decisions, but also cultural forces, some of which may be helpful, some of which may not be. And, uh, what we do know is that people who are currently married say they’re happier on a day-to-day basis, and say they’re happier when they evaluate their lives, uh, on a… Uh, or they’re more likely to say that, uh, than, than single people, in a, in a representative sample of Americans, and even controlling for a number of observable characteristics about those individuals.

John Donvan
Oh, and Bella, then just before the break, the same question. What does it say that the trend is showing more and more people choosing the single life, or at least living the single life? Whether it’s a choice or not is another question.

Bella DePaulo
Right. I would like to think that it’s part of the increasing optionality of life, where we get to curate our own lives, and we don’t all have to follow the same path. Of course, some people who are single would prefer not to be, but the people who want to be single are more able to do so now.

John Donvan
All right, so we got a sense of where you both stand on that, and, uh, so we’re gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we’re gonna get deeper into our prompt, married or single? I’m John Donvan. This is Open to Debate. Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan, and we’re taking on this question, married or single? We’ve heard opening statements and a little bit of argumentation already between Jonathan Rothwell, our principal economist at Gallup, and Bella DePaulo, a social scientist and author of several books on remaining single. By and large, you’re making the case that each model has real benefits, and we’re debating your case for the benefits of each.

And so going to your argument, Jonathan, you’re saying that marriage, uh, is, is, is in a sense the universal institution, that it comes almost out of an evolutionary need for mating, for doing so monogamously, that it has a very, very long, long tradition, and that that, that is no accident, that marriage is such a timeless institution from time immemorial. But you also point out that research shows that people who are in marriages are happier and healthier. And you make an interesting argument that marriage is a good suppressor of selfish instincts, that there’s a, there’s a kind of social benefit to it.

Bella, you’re pushing back against virtually all of that, making a case that, that people who are single can be very fulfilled, that they can have very, very rich, uh, and deep, and broad emotional lives, and you make a secondary case, which is not centrally what we’re arguing, but you make the case that the world is set up to, uh, to discourage single life, and to stigmatize single life, and to penalize single life. So let’s, let’s go more into the, the, the points where I, you, I already see the two of you disagreeing. Jonathan, I was interested in, in Bella’s argument that being single, being able to live in and enjoy solitude suggests an emotional maturity that I think she’s suggesting that perhaps married people do not exhibit.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, as somebody who values stoic teachings that we should focus on the things that we can control, and, and not the things we can’t control, I, I have a lot of respect for that, that perspective. But at the same time, there’s no doubt that, uh, being vulnerable to s- to someone else, whether a, a child that you’re bringing up or a, uh, or a romantic partner, is, uh, uh, uh, i- is, is 100% part of a healthy constitution, and, uh, not something that, that I don’t think any, any psychologist would say is, is a sign of weakness, to, to care about another person, and, uh, be vulnerable to their, uh, their wellbeing and lack thereof.

Bella DePaulo
Yeah. You know, uh, you can be close to someone, vulnerable to someone, without being married to them (laughs) or being their parent. And in fact, research shows, national surveys show that single people are more connected to more different people. When… And s- longitudinal studies that follow people over time show that when couples move in together or when they get married, they become more insular, so they pay less attention to their friends. They call their parents less often. I think it’s single people who are holding society together.

John Donvan
Is it, is it possible, Bella, that there’s an upside to that insularity in terms of, uh, increased intimacy?

Bella DePaulo
I think there may be increased intimacy, but there’s also an increased vulnerability. It’s like they’re taking seriously those song lyrics that say, “You are my everything. I just wanna be your everything.” And if the relationship is going well, well, you know, that’s fine. It’s probably great. But, it leaves them very vulnerable when th- the relationship ends with divorce or widowhood. And in fact, there are studies showing that people who have stayed single their entire life, in later life, are often doing better than people who are divorced or widowed, and in some studies, they’re doing better than, um, people who have, who are currently married. And I think one of the reasons for that is that they don’t ditch their friends once they get married. You know, they are, they’re still maintaining their relationships, rather than, uh, making their spouse their everything.

John Donvan
Jonathan, uh, and by, and by the way, Jonathan, I want the audience to understand that you’re fighting a very bad cold and that your voice is usually silky smooth (laughs) but, uh, Jonathan, I want you to take on, um, Bella’s point, I think, that, um, people become insular, uh, when married, and kind of cut themselves off from other kinds of relationships. Uh, do, do you think that that’s an accurate depiction of a choice that’s often made, or a dynamic that often plays out when people get married?

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I think there’s some, partially something to it, but it leaves out a whole lot. And one thing that it leaves out, that’s very important, is that a lot of married people have children, and because they’re engaged with their children, they’re, they’re l- maybe less likely to be in the bowling league or, or some other thing. But they’re, but they’re often very much involved in their school. They’re often very much involved in their children’s extracurricular activities, as, as, as is the case is for me. Uh, you know, and, and as the, and as for the empirical question of, of who’s happier, I think it’s, it’s, it’s quite clear. The, the, the data show that you’re more likely to be thriving in your wellbeing, at, at any age of an adult, uh, if you’re married rather than, than whether you’re single.

John Donvan
What do we mean by wellbeing, Jonathan? What are, what are the things that comprise, uh, you know, a, a sort of metric for being, for wellbeing?

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, uh, one of my favorite simple measures is the Cantril ladder, where I ask people to imagine a ladder with z- zero as the worst possible life they can imagine for themselves. 10 is the best possible life they can imagine themselves. Gallup asks this question of people all around the world, and has been asking it in the United States for, uh, the last 15 years or so. And, uh, people who are married put themselves on a higher step of the ladder than people who are not married, and that’s been a consistent fact over that, that, that entire period. And you can see that ar- around the world too, not in every country, but in most countries. And, uh, you know, it, it’s not just a function of age, or, or education, or gender. You see it for men. You see it for women. You see it of all race and ethnic groups. And then we’ve also asked wellbeing in terms of how do you value your, your purpose from work? How do you think of your social relationships generally? How do you think of your physical health? Your mental health? And on those measures, married people also tend to score better. Now, identifying the causal relationship between marriage and those things is very difficult, and we can talk about that separately, but the association’s very clear.

John Donvan
There’s a correlation, at least. Okay, Bella, please go for it.

Bella DePaulo
Okay, first of all, having k- kids is a separate issue from being married, so some married people don’t have kids, and some single people do.

Jonathan Rothwell
Of course.

Bella DePaulo
But-

Jonathan Rothwell
But the probabilities are-

Bella DePaulo
M- the more-

Jonathan Rothwell
… very different, aren’t they?

Bella DePaulo
Yes, they are. But, when people hear what you say, “Oh, married people are happier than single people. They’re, have better health,” all the rest of it, I think what they hear is that they are happier and healthier because they are married, and as you have admitted in many of your own publications, that, those studies don’t show that, and-

Jonathan Rothwell
Right.

Bella DePaulo
… in fact, if we wanted to know if that were true, that if only those single people would get married, they would be happier and healthier, like those awesome married people, then what we should do is follow them over the course of their lives, and there are many studies like that, and they show that people who marry do not become lastingly healthier. In fact, in one study, they become a little less healthy. And don’t look over there at the 43% of people who got married who hated it and got divorced. They did not get divorced because their marriage was making them happier.

Jonathan Rothwell
But, but I would say, you know, you know, you, you know, just the f- the fact that at any given time, if you’re married compared to whether you’re not married, the people who are married are… tend to be happier. Now, I ag- 100% agree with you.

Bella DePaulo
Well yeah, ’cause if they weren’t happy, they’d get divorced. So it’s a cheater technique.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, well also, uh, you know, divorce rates, uh, you know, are, are about a third, uh, but you know, the, the, the, the other thing is, uh, if you have a long-term relationship with an intimate partner, and you get divorced, that might be better than having 10 short-term, fleeting relationships. And you might have a child during that time, as, as I did in my… Uh, my first marriage ended in divorce. I had two children from there, that I’m gonna have for the rest of my life, that are the source of joy. So, I don’t consider that a failure.

John Donvan
I w- I wanna take on… I wanna move to this question, um, Bella, that, um, that, that Jonathan made in his opening, about marriage being an inhibitor of somewhat selfish instincts, that if you have to regularly, and consistently, and frequently consider the needs, the requirements, the requests, the concerns of another person, that’s kind of, um, g- good for the soul and character-building, and good for the relationship. What do you make of that?

Bella DePaulo
Oh, wow. I’m so glad you asked that question. You know, single people are actually more generous and more giving in all sorts of ways. For example, um, they are more likely to be there, and to exchange help with friends, neighbors, parents. Um, they are more likely to volunteer for every kind of organization, except religious ones. Married people volunteer l- much more for religious organizations.

John Donvan
Is there data… Is there data on this?

Bella DePaulo
Yeah, National-

John Donvan
Okay.

Bella DePaulo
… Bureau of Labor Statistics. Um, and, uh, single people are more likely to be there for people who are in need of help. You know, their parents might badger them to get married, but when their parents grow older and need long-term help, studies show that it is the single sons and daughters who are more likely to be there for them.

John Donvan
What, what would be… I, I know that the study doesn’t go to this, but what is your guess that would explain that, that, that phenomenon, that single people are more there to help other people than married people are? Is there a logic to that?

Bella DePaulo
Well, there’s, there’s good… There’s a good reason and there’s a bad reason. So the bad reason is that people think, “Oh, you’re single. You don’t have a life, so you go help Mom,” you know? (laughs) And the p- and the good reason is that single people, I think because they’re not so focused on, “Oh, I have my spouse, and that’s my everything, and nobody else matters,” you know (laughs) they just are more, um, caring about people more generally. And the same thing about kids. And again, some single people do have kids, but I think some, um, single people who don’t have kids care more about the world’s children and not just their own.

John Donvan
Jonathan?

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, uh, married people take care of a very vulnerable population, and that is their children that they’re raising, and they’re much more likely to be doing that, and arguably, they’re, uh, also an important constituency that needs a lot of help, and, uh, married people are by and large the, the ones doing that. And of course not universally. But I, I don’t wanna take anything away from one thing that I, I c- completely agree with you with, is that some single people feel a calling to contribute to society in ways that is very difficult for married people to do, and of course, this has been going on for, uh, you know, thousands of years. Priests and nuns in the Catholic tradition gave up the sacrament of marriage, and they gave up child-rearing, in order to m- be married to the church. Other people become married to political ideas, political movements, uh, other causes. At the same time, if everyone lived this way, the human race would go extinct (laughs).

Bella DePaulo
Oh, well, I don’t think it’s true that single people don’t have sex and don’t have kids, so I, I, I don’t agree with that.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, we need about t- we need a little bit more than two per couple in order to, to reproduce the, the human race.

John Donvan
Jonathan, do you have a, do you have a case to make on, on the material wellbeing of married people versus single people? Do we know, uh, who is better off?

Jonathan Rothwell
Yes, of course m- married people have a higher household income, because they’re combining two different incomes, uh, s- and, and so that’s a huge advantage. Uh, and, and I think it’s a huge contributor to their overall higher wellbeing.

Bella DePaulo
Yes, well and the other reason that they have high- higher incomes is because they are so unfairly benefited by all sorts of laws, and customs, and policies, and, um, and you know, and the question, do s- do married people have more money, is a very marriage-centered question. A question that would be asked from the point of single people wouldn’t be just do you… who has more money, but who has more control over their money?

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I can say that if I were not married and I did not have kids, I would be working longer hours and making more money, so, uh, the decision that I’ve made to contribute to a family and to be there for my wife, uh, more often than, than, than not is, is one that reduces my pay, and it reduces my potential productivity.

Bella DePaulo
No, actually, it, it doesn’t, because the, um, married people, married men are paid more than single men. In studies in which, um, that’s controlled very carefully, so that employers, potential employers are shown, uh, resumes from married and single men that are exactly the same except for their marital status, and they want to hire more married men, and-

Jonathan Rothwell
Well-

Bella DePaulo
… and they want to pay them more.

Jonathan Rothwell
That, that may… That may have been the case 30 years ago, but-

Bella DePaulo
No, no, no. That was a study-

Jonathan Rothwell
[inaudible

] Mar-

Bella DePaulo
… from t-

Jonathan Rothwell
Marital roles are changing.

Bella DePaulo
That was a s- That was a study from three years ago.

Jonathan Rothwell
Then, well okay-

Bella DePaulo
So not 30 years ago.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I’d l- I’d l- I’d love to evaluate it, but because-

Bella DePaulo
Yeah, okay.

Jonathan Rothwell
These days, it’s not the case that women are, are getting married and dropping out of the workforce, and, uh, men are able to work 80 hours a week and not excepted to, to contribute to childcare. That certainly hasn’t been the case in the two marriages that I’ve had, and, and, and no, nor is it the case in any of the families that I know living in Washington, DC.

John Donvan
I just wanna jump in on one thing, b- on the point that you just made, Jonathan, um, that the two marriages that you’ve had. I, and again, this is not to be about you personally, but let’s discuss divorce. A significant number of American marriages end in divorce. I think it’s 25%. And, what does that tell us about the, uh, the happiness of marriage, if that… If that happens, does that not undermine your argument significantly?

Jonathan Rothwell
Not at all, because non-marital relationships end much more frequently, and are much lower quality. So the question is would you rather be in a long-lasting, high-quality relationship, or would you rather be in 10 short-term, low-quality relationships?

Bella DePaulo
That is such a marriage-centric, couple-centric way of thinking about the world. The, the choices aren’t, “Do you wanna be in a marital relationship or a non-marital relationship?” Relationships are a big, broad word that encompass far more. Single people often have friendships, close friendships, that they have tended to their entire life, and have lasted longer than many marriages.

Jonathan Rothwell
I’ve got many friendships (laughs) myself.

Bella DePaulo
Right, but research shows that single people on average have more friends, and maintain their friendships more. They don’t do that thing where, that married people do, that they get married and then they demote their friends.

John Donvan
When we talk about marriage, are we talking about monogamy versus non-monogamy necessarily? Because of, Jonathan, there are people who are in committed relationships without marriage. Do, do they fit into your argument for marriage versus single? And Bella, I’m wondering… I wanna come to you for the same question. Are you talking about people who are not partnered up in any way? But you go first, Jonathan.

Jonathan Rothwell
So, we know that domestic partnerships are increasingly common, and they are like marriage in many ways, except for the, they don’t have the formality of the marriage contract. They don’t have the formalities of the ceremony. Uh, they don’t have the commitment devices that, that, that, that marriages have. And, and so, my concern, and, and the data bear this out, is that it, the, the relationships are gonna be not long, as long lasting, not as high quality. But n- nevertheless, they’re, they have many of the, the positive attributes of marital relationships. And, and of course, you could have a building contractor, uh, build your house and not have them have a contract, but I think you’re, you’re bringing on risks that, uh, are imprudent when, when you do that, when you don’t have the formal arrangements.

John Donvan
Bella?

Bella DePaulo
Okay, two things. One, one thing that cohabiting people don’t have are the hundreds of benefits and protections that… in the US law, and in fact, that’s one of the motivators for the people who worked so hard to get same-sex marriage legalized, so that they too could have those benefits and protections.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I was gonna say it’s notable that in the, in the same-sex advocacy movement, they w- they were not satisfied, or most of the advocates, anyway, were not satisfied with domestic partnership. They wanted… They, uh, they wanted marriage. They wanted the full legal status, but I think not just because of the legal benefits, which could easily be provided by changing the laws on domestic partnership, but the, but the symbolic, social value that is attached to marriage, because it’s more than just a contract. It’s a covenant, and it means something that is valuable and, and helpful for the relationship.

Bella DePaulo
Oh, sure. Married people are, are just celebrated and rewarded. They’re treated like they’re better than everybody else, like it’s this club that you get into and then you’re superior to those poor single people. And that’s a (laughs) lot of what’s going on. And I wanna challenge something else that you seem to be suggesting. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you’re s- you’re equating having kids with being virtuous.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I would never… I would never say that. I do think having-

Bella DePaulo
I’m glad to hear that.

Jonathan Rothwell
… having kids is a wonderful thing, and I’ve, I, uh, have four of them, uh, but I don’t think that makes me a better person than somebody who has zero kids. I don’t… I actually don’t think that being married makes me a better person than people, than people who are not married. People may have complex reasons for the decisions they make, and some of the great contributors to society have been, have been single, have not been married.

John Donvan
Bella, you, you’ve made a very personal case here, and, and used yourself as-

Bella DePaulo
Mm-hmm.

John Donvan
… an example, so I feel it’s fair for me to ask this question. Do you feel that you’ve missed out any, on anything by not having a long-term, lifelong relationship?

Bella DePaulo
I’ve missed out on being taken seriously and respected as much as people who have long-term relationships. And of course, I’ve missed out on all the benefits and protections, you know, the tax breaks, and, and all the other ways that people are treated better just because they’re married [inaudible

]-

John Donvan
I, I, I’m asking-

Bella DePaulo
… and [inaudible

]-

John Donvan
I’m asking, have you missed out on any level of happiness?

Bella DePaulo
No. No. In fact, I think I would be less happy if I had to organize my life around a romantic partner. I… It, it, it just wouldn’t be my best life. My best life is being single. That’s my most joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling life.

John Donvan
We’re gonna take a break, and when we come back, we’re gonna continue the conversation around this prompt, married or single? And we’re gonna bring in some other voices, people who have been, uh, writing about and thinking about this topic for quite a while, and they’re gonna join the conversation. I’m John Donvan. This is Open to Debate, and we’ll be right back. Welcome back to Open to Debate. We’re taking on this prompt, married or single? I’m John Donvan, and I’m joined by two debaters, Jonathan Rothwell, who is principal economist at Gallup, and Bella DePaulo, a social scientist and author of several books on remaining single. So, um, we wanna bring in some other f- voices now, people who write about and think about this topic, and have published about it, um, to see what questions they would bring to our two debaters. And I wanna start with Dinah Hannaford. And Dinah is a cultural anthropologist who teaches at the University of Houston, and who has written about marriage internationally and recently co-edited the book Opting Out: Women Messing with Marriage Around the World. Dinah, welcome to Open to Debate.

Dinah Hannaford
Thanks so much. No, I’m pleased to be here. A topic that hasn’t really come up is this idea of patriarchy (laughs). I think you’ve been talking about marriage as though it’s the same for men and women, and we know historically, that’s not true, and, and contemporarily, that’s also not true. When women have more opportunities to have s- full social, um, success, and economic success outside of marriage, they increasingly opt, uh, to avoid it. Bella also noticed the, m- pointed out that, um, not organizing her life around a romantic partner… Right? We would expect that a woman would organize her life around a romantic partner’s life. Would we expect that Jonathan would do the same, or we would expect Jonathan’s partners to do that, right? So, I would love to hear-

John Donvan
Okay.

Dinah Hannaford
… the debaters talk about that.

John Donvan
I’ll take it first to, uh, to, to Bella, ’cause I, I think if I hear everything boiled down to one question, uh, marriage tends to be unequal, and wha- and what about that?

Bella DePaulo
Yes, absolutely, and even in these days when marriages are perhaps more equal than they once were, women are still doing much more of the housework, and the kin-keeping, and, and all of that. And you know, one reason why it got to be so much more possible for women to stay single is when they became more economically independent. Once they weren’t tethered to a husband for economic life support, then they were more able to, to support themselves and maybe some kids, and no longer, um, need to have a husband to have kids, because of advances in reproductive technology. And I think that one thing that’s going on now, uh, all this pro-marriage evangelism, and the books about, you know, “Oh, it’s better to have two parents, so suck it up, you single people,” (laughs) is, is not because we’re so secure about the place of marriage in our life, but because we’re so insecure. And studies show that the single people who are most likely to be stigmatized are the single people who are happy, because we are challenging this ideology, this mythology, that oh, marriage is the royal road to happiness.

John Donvan
Let me let, uh, let Jonathan answer the question as well. And again, Jonathan, um, Dinah’s observation, she feels that marriage tends to be unequal, uh, and, uh, not just in other cultures.

Jonathan Rothwell
In most countries, married people are happier than unmarried people, and that’s true of men and it’s true of women. But interestingly, if you look at countries where women’s rights are very weak, they’re, women are less likely to be happy, and actually, men are also less likely to be happy in those marriages. By contrast, places that have the largest premium for married people relative to non-married people, it’s places like Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, where women’s rights are very robust, and so the, the happiest people are in the most secular, modern countries, that, you know, that are married.

John Donvan
There was a sort of sub-question that, uh, Dinah asked to you directly, I think. Um, what about you forming, you know, doing, just shaping your life around your spouse’s needs, and-

Jonathan Rothwell
I’m, I’m very happy to, to answer that. So it, f- for me personally, I’m committed to a relationship, and, and I have been in both of my marriages, where we are contributing equally to all of the, the tasks that need to be performed, both inside and outside the house. And personally myself, I’ve taken… I do all the cooking, almost. I do the laun- I tend to do the laundry, and I, I, I-

John Donvan
Okay, I was gonna get to laundry next, so you-

Jonathan Rothwell
Yeah, I do… I, I, I do, uh, the… I mow the lawn. My wife does, uh, quite a bit. Uh, we have two very young children, and, and, uh, with the, with the newborn, she’s obviously, uh, you know, spending a huge amount of time with, with them, but I’m, I’ve always been happy to, to feed with a bottle, or we take turns sort of staying up late with him while, uh, one of us catches up on sleep. So, those are the ways that modern couples that respect one another’s time equally div- try to divide up tasks.

John Donvan
Dinah, thank you very much for your question, and thanks for joining us on Open to Debate. And now, I wanna welcome Joan, uh, DelFattore. Joan is a professor emerita of English and legal studies at the University of Delaware. Her writing about the intersection of marital status with the healthcare industry has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Washington Post, among others, and in 2017, she did a TEDx talk called Sick While Single? Don’t Die of Discrimination. So Joan, thanks for joining us on the program, and please come in with your question.

Joan DelFattore
Thank you. One of the main arguments made to people who are single, and I, I also am, uh, in my 70s and I’ve never married. Uh, one of the main arguments that’s made to tell us that we should have a partner is, “What happens when you get old? Who is there to take care of you when you’re old? Who is there to be with you? What if you die alone? What if the cat eats you?” I actually found a story where, uh, hamsters ate somebody, or nibbled on them. I wanna ask the two debaters, to what extent do you think that that’s a valid question, that it’s one thing to be single when you’re young and healthy, and you go out and have fun, and you can work hard, and, uh, and all have a social life, but what about when you’re old? What about when you’re dying?

John Donvan
All right. We’re gonna go, to, call this the hamster question. Um-

Bella DePaulo
(laughs).

John Donvan
‘Cause it kind of sums up to what you were talking about. Um, why don’t you take that on first, Bella? Uh, the, the question of being aged-

Bella DePaulo
Yes.

John Donvan
… and alone, and needing help.

Bella DePaulo
Right. So people’s expectations about single people, that they’re sad and lonely, and as they get older, they just get sadder and sadder, is exactly wrong. There are two national studies that show that as single people pass from midlife into, uh, later life, they just get happier and happier. They stay more connected to more people, so that if they don’t wanna die alone, they probably have more different people possibly there for them. And (laughs) and also, what Jonathan was talking about, about splitting the tasks, yeah, that’s great, and it can be a nice thing when you’re married. But, what sometimes happens is that you get out of practice of doing the thing that your spouse, um, covered, and single people don’t have that limitation. So, in later life, we’re actually more competent, because we’ve been figuring out how to get everything done ourselves.

John Donvan
So you can, you can fix the car and make the pizza.

Bella DePaulo
Exactly. Or to, or to-

John Donvan
All right, I’m, I’m g-

Bella DePaulo
Or to order takeout.

John Donvan
Let me, let me let Jonathan, uh, take on this question as well.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I do think… I think it’s a fair question to think about, “Well, what does the end of your life look like?” And, uh, all I can say is that the, the data that we’ve collected from Gallup includes a lot of older people, and they tend to be happier if they’re married. Now, I, I have no doubt that there, there can be people who are, are living perfectly happy lives by themselves, but in, in a community of friendships, and, and some sort of social network at old age. I can, I can… You know, I’d be happy to tell anecdotes about the old people that I know, and I think it’s played… marriage has played a very positive role in my elderly parents’ life, and, uh, you know, I… Uh, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s something that I anticipate being a great source of benefit and comfort as I, as I age with, with my wife.

John Donvan
Thanks very much for your questions, Joan, and I now wanna bring in, uh, Marcia Zug, who is a family law professor at the University of South Carolina, and focuses on marriage law and policy. She has written about mail-order marriages, and recently came out with a book whose title is You’ll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other than Love. Marcia, thanks for joining us on Open to Debate, and please come in with your question.

Marcia Zug
Hi. Thanks so much for having me here. This has been really interesting. So my question for Jonathan has to do with, um, there’s a push going on now to get rid of divorce, or no-fault divorce. So it seems to me that the logical conclusion of marriage is great is let’s keep people married, and I’m interested in your thoughts on that. And for Bella, the other, um, the other headline I’m seeing has to do with a decrease in fertility rates. People aren’t having enough babies. We’re not gonna have a workforce. No one’s gonna be able to, you know, contribute-

Bella DePaulo
Yeah.

Marcia Zug
… enough to-

Bella DePaulo
Yeah.

Marcia Zug
… Social Security. And, studies show that married people do have more children. They certainly play a role in society, and if we think that we need more children, encouraging people to marry seems potentially one of the, uh, the-

John Donvan
Okay.

Marcia Zug
… the more productive avenues.

John Donvan
So I’ll, I’ll start with you first, Jonathan. The question about getting rid of divorce, no-divorce divorce, uh, and its impact on society more broadly. Can you take that on?

Jonathan Rothwell
Yeah, no, no-fault divorce is something that I think should be allowed. I got divorced in DC, and it went about as, as well as you would hope that a divorce could go. And, um, you know, just the fact that, you know, there wasn’t some catastrophic reason for us to separate, but it was more of a sort of a natural understanding of, you know, differences in our personality, and our preferences, and that sort of thing. I think it’s something that, you know, people should have access to, and, and there’s no reason that, you know, relationships have to be absolutely permanent. Same time, I, I think divorce should be taken very seriously, and I hope that couples do everything they can to f- to first s- try to work out their differences.

John Donvan
Bella, the question to you was regarding fertility rates and the sort of the, the, the premise of the question being if we’re gonna keep the population sustained and growing, we need to have babies, and babies are gonna be thriving, uh, better, and, um, in marriage.

Jonathan Rothwell
Right.

John Donvan
Take that on, please.

Bella DePaulo
Yes, and I think it’s a good thing that p- If people are feel less pressure to have kids if they don’t want to. So what do we do about the fertility rate? Well, one thing we can be more supportive, have a better social safety net, not just for married people with kids, but for single people with kids, and stop stereotyping and stigmatizing them (laughs). And, um, we can also stop being so anti-immigrant if we want more kids. And we can stop doing these scary things like, “Oh, now you’re not gonna be able to do IVF, or you’re not gonna be able to get birth control,” which some political trends are heading toward. Wow, let’s not do that.

John Donvan
All right. Thank you very much, uh, for your, for your question, uh, Marcia. Now I wanna bring in Jeff Guenther, who is a marriage and family therapist who makes videos for TikTok and Instagram about mental health, and how both singled and partnered people can make their relationships better. He does this under the handle TherapyJeff, and he has a book coming out called Big Dating Energy, and a podcast of the same name. Jeff, thanks so much for joining us on Open to Debate, and please come in with your question.

Jeff Guenther
Yeah, I’m really happy to be here. Instead of debating what’s best, married or single, can we consider what’s less worse, which might more common? (laughs) Uh, so like, being stuck in a marriage you hate with someone you can’t stand but can’t leave due to life circumstances, or being single and romantically lonely with no prospects of finding a partner because of life circumstances. Jonathan, your research often highlights, like, the wellbeing of married individuals, but how do you measure the deep sadness people might experience in these situations? And Bella, as an advocate for the single life, how do you address the profound heartbreak and yearning some might feel?

Bella DePaulo
That is a real issue, and I g- I don’t know which is worse. But I will say that I think the bad feelings of people who are single are made worse by the way we hear so much of this marriage evangelism, you know, “All married people are happier and healthier,” and the way we respect and celebrate married people, and don’t take as seriously the other important people in our lives. And I think if we respected that, and if we celebrated other people’s important pursuits and what they’re passionate about, that it would seem like less of a tragedy not to be married or in a romantic relationship for people who do want that.

Jonathan Rothwell
For my part, I can say that, uh, you know, at Gallup, we collect data on the daily experiences that people have. “Did you experience a lot of anger, sadness, loneliness, stress, yesterday? Where do you stand on a zero to 10 scale? If 10’s the best life you can imagine for yourself, zero’s the worst.” So I can, I can tell you that married people are less likely to be suffering, at, at the very bottom of the ladder, and they’re more likely to be thriving, but of course, there are people who are married and suffering, and there are people who are married and struggling. My advice would be… You know, it, it would be to go to someone like you, and start there, and then if it still doesn’t work out, then you consider, you know, getting divorced.

John Donvan
Jeff, thanks so much for joining us on Open to Debate. And now it’s time to bring this all home with closing remarks and our final round. Jonathan, you have, uh, the first chance to speak in this round. Uh, this is your closing. You’ve got two minutes. Give us one last reason why you think people would be better off getting hitched.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, I’ll start with what the catechism of the Catholic Church says the purpose of marriage is, and, and it says marriage is considered a sacrament created by God, the purpose of which is the good of the couple and the generation and development of children. Upon their engagement, prospective Catholic practitioners, uh, to this day undergo months of counseling with their priest, and take formal assessments, uh, to spur dialogue about impor- important issues that will come up in the, over the course of their relationship and lives. The ceremony itself takes place during a mass, which is itself a sacred ritual, often in front of many family and friends from, from both parties. The commitment is considered indissoluble, except under extreme [inaudible

] circumstances that we, we’ve already talked about.

Social science evidence confirms some aspects of the church’s teachings, namely that marriage tends to be good for couples and benefits children. We know that children raised in married households tend to do better in school, tend to, uh, get higher levels of education, higher levels of income. Those, to me, are not the most important reasons why, uh, you know, people should be married for sure, but there’s, there’s things to consider. Uh, children raised in married households also tend to have better relationships with their parents, which is, uh, part of the cornerstone of their own mental health. But you know, with all that being said, don’t misunderstand me. Non-married parents can also be great parents. Non-married partners can treat each other wonderfully, and can do so for a lifetime. Human relationships of all sorts sometimes work well without formal arrangements, contracts, and covenants. And yet, we know those formal agreements increase the probability of success, and that’s, that’s what the data says that we’ve discussed today.

Marriage provides many of the benefits of the sorts of contracts we, we see in all aspects of life, from, from mundane contracts we have with people building a home to the sorts of contracts we have with employers and employees. Uh, marriage, uh, clarifies, uh, relationships and obligations we have to one another. It removes [inaudible

]-

John Donvan
Jonathan, I’m sorry, I have to cut you off ’cause you’ve hit time, so thank you very much-

Jonathan Rothwell
Yeah, no problem.

John Donvan
… for your closing. Uh, and now Bella, you have the last word here, uh, in our debate. Convince us why staying single is the choice more people should be making.

Bella DePaulo
Well, over the years, I’ve heard from many people who tell much, tell me how much they love living single. They love their freedom, their solitude, the people who care about them. And then, some of them follow that up with the gobsmacking question. They ask what’s wrong with them that they don’t want to live a conventional married life. Imagine that. They have what many of us crave, a life they find joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling, and instead of feeling proud of themselves, they think they are damaged. Some force themselves to become romantically involved, even though married life will never be their best life. Their potential to flourish is being undermined by the relentless pressure to marry.

What I am trying to do is advance the project of human flourishing, so that we can all claim our full humanity and live authentically. That project advanced when women were less often pressured to stick to homemaking and child-rearing if that’s not what they wanted. It was advanced when queer people were less often forced to fake heterosexuality, and when the narratives about them being so deficient were f- were challenged. Black is beautiful advanced the project of human flourishing, and recognizing the potential power, freedom, and heart-filling joy of single life will advance that project too.

John Donvan
Thanks very much, Bella, and that is a wrap on our take on married or single. Uh, and I wanna thank our, our two debaters, Jonathan and Bella, for the way that you did this. It was really, uh, uh, great to hear you disagree with each other, but nobody got mad at anybody else in the course of this program, and, uh, and I think you really heard each other out, and you engaged with one another in a, in a useful and constructive way. I’m not sure you changed each other’s minds in any way, but that’s okay. So Jonathan, Bella, thank you so much for, for taking part in this debate for us.

Bella DePaulo
Thank you. I really enjoyed it. It was great fun. Thank you, Jonathan.

Jonathan Rothwell
Well, thank you, and, and I just want you to know, just because you’re single, I don’t think any less of you. I think you’re a great person, so (laughs).

Bella DePaulo
(laughs) All right.

John Donvan
(laughs) [inaudible]-

Jonathan Rothwell
I’ll be… I’ll try to be sensitive, uh-

Bella DePaulo
Uh, yeah.

Jonathan Rothwell
… around my single friends, make sure I don’t lord it over them. I, I don’t think I-

Bella DePaulo
Okay.

Jonathan Rothwell
… do, but I’ll just make-

Bella DePaulo
Okay.

Jonathan Rothwell
I’ll make sure of that.

John Donvan
I, I also wanna thank our fellow questioners who t- came into the conversation, Joan, and Jeff, and Dinah, and Marcia. You really got the conversation to some interesting new places, and we really appreciate that. And I wanna thank all of you h- uh, who have tuned into this episode of Open to Debate. You know, as a nonprofit, our work to combat extreme polarization through civil debate is made possible by our listeners like you, and by the Rosenkranz Foundation, and by supporters of Open to Debate.

Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Our CEO is Clea Connor. Lia Matthow is our chief content officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our chief advancement officer. This episode was produced by Alexis Pancrazi and Marlette Sandoval. Editorial and research by Gabriella Mayer and Andrew Foot. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. Millie Shaw is director of audience development, and the Open to Debate team also includes Gabrielle Iannucelli, Rachel Kemp, Linda Lee. Damon Whittemore mixed this episode. Our theme music is by Alex Clement, and I’m your host, John Donvan. We’ll see you next time on Open to Debate.