Category: Collective Wisdom

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The Case for Marriage

This is a needed followup to the previous post.

Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florence ca. 1406–1469 Spoleto) Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, ca. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Brad Wilcox’s new book, Get Married, emphasizes the benefits of marriage, including more sex, less loneliness, greater happiness, better-adjusted kids, and more meaning in life.

Wilcox teaches at the University of Virginia and he argues that a good marriage surpasses money, education, or job satisfaction in contributing to happiness. The article also explores the “Two-Parent Privilege,” highlighting the increased resources and commitment benefiting children in such households. The “Soulmate Trap” report from BYU’s Wheatley Institute critiques the notion of predestined soulmates, advocating instead for marriages built on agency, commitment, and intentional actions to foster flourishing relationships.

Many more details in this piece by DeseretNews.

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Our Heritage, Ordered Liberty

The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain “self-evident” truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by “nature’s God.” Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called “ordered liberty”: an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.

Saint John Paul II
Dec 16, 1997

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