The Federalist It has been a long feminist trope that marriage and motherhood are garbage chutes to misery for women. Feminist sociologist Jesse Bernard warned in her 1972 book, The Future of Marriage, “[M]arriage introduced such profound discontinuities into the lives of women as to constitute genuine emotional health hazards.” Lyz Lenz, in her 2024 New York Times bestseller This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, holds the same hellish view of matrimony. Early in, she explains, “Marriage, it seemed, was this: the eternal return of trash on my floor.”
It is no wonder that only 32 percent of women believe marriage and motherhood lead to fuller, happier lives for them. And 47 percent of single young women believe singleness is a more direct route to happiness for women than being wed. According to recent Pew findings, fewer young women than men say they want to have children one day.
But what are the facts? Are marriage and motherhood really tickets to increased misery? The good news is that strong data tell us the opposite is true.
The General Social Survey, the academic gold standard in social science measurements, tells us that among women age 18 to 55 in the United States, 40 percent of those who are married and have children report being “very happy.” Only 25 percent of married childless women report being very happy, while just 22 percent of unmarried childless women do. Unmarried mothers? Only 17 percent report being “very happy.” And during the Covid pandemic, it was those married with kids who were most likely to report being very happy during that very trying time.
A new report from scholars at the Institute for Family Studies demonstrates these findings are more of a trend than unique. Fielding the Women’s Well-Being Survey (WWS) of 3,000 women in the U.S. in early March, these family scholars wanted to understand why married mothers are the happiest among women. The lead researcher is noted scholar, San Diego State University’s Jean W. Twenge.
This team reports “Consistent with previous surveys, our new survey finds that married mothers are happier than unmarried women or women without children.” In fact, they found, “Nearly twice as many married mothers say they are ‘very happy’ as unmarried women without children.” Their analysis controlled for confounding factors like age, family income, and education, “so these factors cannot be the reason for the differences.”
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