21. Marriage Works Better for Men

Marriage works better for men economically than it does for women, says Clayton. Statistically, the relationship between marriage and money is more complex for women.

He points out, "Data from The National Survey of Families and Households shows that marriage for women neither increases nor decreases their personal earnings, whereas, on the other hand, it increases the earnings for men."

When it comes to work outside the home, Bonner says that men benefit most from marriage because of the responsibilities that women take on.

"If you document the number of things that women do within a week to help support a man's career, it is obvious that marriage benefits males in terms of career advancement," Bonner notes. "If you are working six to seven days a week, then you have almost no time to do laundry, make the trip to the cleaners or do grocery shopping. Men can step in and do that, and we treat it as if it's a wonderful example of progress, but they do not do that consistently."

In an ideal situation both the man and the woman profit from marriage evenly, concludes Ladner.

"In a good marriage there is a partnership rather than a marriage that's based on one person being exploited or there being a power play between partners.

"If there's a marriage in which there's sharing and equal participation in the decision-making, they both benefit equally."

Some experts question whether the case for marriage is airtight. Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington and a member of the Council on Contemporary Families, believes Waite and Gallagher in their book draw a lot of conclusions without differentiating whether they stem from "weak data" or "strong data." Schwartz further questions the book's unabashed call to revive marriage.

"There's nothing that's right for everybody," Schwartz says. The feminist revolution, the sexual revolution and the divorce revolution wouldn't have come about if the traditional marriage model worked so well, she argues. People who are "not suited" to be married or have children shouldn't feel pressured to do those things, nor should cohabitants be pushed into a marriage commitment. "The idea of choice is very precious."

Lois Gold, a marriage counselor and divorce mediator in Portland, Ore., and author of the 1992 book, Between Love and Hate: A Guide to Civilized Divorce, adds that "divorce is the last alternative." Of the 1 000 or so "divorcing or separating couples I've seen," says Gold, none took the decision lightly or entered into it "without enormous anguish, pain and discussion." Moreover, some 90 percent of the couples had been through marriage counseling.

However, Judith Mueller, founder of the Women's Center in Vienna, Va., has faith in the institution of marriage. She created the center 25 years ago, and "just as no-fault divorce was taking off we were helping women get divorced," she explains. After seeing the personally agonizing, financially "horrible" experiences of women who divorced, the center's focus has turned "180 degrees the other way." Now it does a lot of premarital and couples counseling, family strengthening and family preservation.

Mueller "absolutely" believes that a case for marriage needs to be made. "We do what we know, so if we know divorce, we can do it," she says. "But half of today's young people have never lived with an intact marriage." It's going to be hard to establish a happy marriage, she adds, when young people "don't have the example."