Despite the doubters and detractors, getting married and raising a family remain milestones that mark the passage to adulthood. Being responsible for others has been shown to stave off mental illness, loneliness – even ill health. Social science research consistently finds that married people – men, women and couples – are healthier and happier. And that’s in addition to the well-documented two-parent privilege afforded their children.

Andrea Mrozek studies and reports on public policies affecting societal outcomes. She’s a Senior Fellow in the Family program at Cardus, a non-partisan Canadian think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good. Andrea’s career has encompassed journalism and think tank involvement in both Europe and her native Canada. Prior to joining Cardus, she was Executive Director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, where she wrote and spoke about marriage, childcare and women’s issues. She is the author of a number of influential pieces including “Private Choices, Public Costs: How Failing Families Cost Us All” about the public costs of family breakdown.

Despite her current family formation advocacy, Andrea admits she followed the modern career-first cultural path. She put marriage on the back burner and delayed childbearing. It wasn’t until she did marry, at 39, and became a mother at 43, that she realized the purpose and pleasure derived from the family she almost missed. And biological reality meant that her daughter would not have siblings.

“I was part of the delayed marriage cohort, and that’s one of the factors affecting marriage today,” she said. “I followed the life script that said you should achieve in all the other domains before you can get settled in a personal life. It’s common for young people to think that adding in a spouse is putting the polish on a perfect life. The reality is, you might not have thought you cared about having children until you have one and see the blessing and gift of that child before you.”

In addition to her work with Cardus, Andrea co-authored the 2024 book, I . . . Do?: Why Marriage Still Matters, with colleague Peter Jon Mitchell.

“Who cares?” “You do you.” These are North American attitudes toward marriage Andrea is trying to counter. “Plenty of research suggests that a good marriage encourages health, wellness, and happiness and that the goodness of marriage extends into our communities,” she wrote. Andrea hopes to “encourage people to engage with the information and topic. Reflect on the concept of marriage and consider it for themselves.” While the book shares perspective and research with Dr. Brad Wilcox’s Get Married, (In fact, Brad wrote one of I Do?’s introductory endorsements) Andrea’s tone is softer. Perhaps reflecting Canada’s greater ambivalence than America’s toward marriage in general or her own experience, Andrea puts forward a gentler argument.

Marriage is good – for people and for society – but “54 % of Americans told Pew research that being married is important but not essential to living a fulfilling life. 53% of Canadians said marriage ‘is simply not necessary’ when two people plan to spend the rest of their lives together. … far too many young adults believe marriage is nice but wholly unnecessary,” she wrote.

People in North America (a term she uses when U.S. and Canadian findings align) are not particularly opposed to marriage nor terribly passionate about it. It has become optional.

Andrea’s goal is to help people consider marriage as a viable alternative. “For those who desire partnership and/or children, the path to marriage ought not be quite so muddled, difficult, or perceived as unnecessary,” she wrote. She hopes those who desire children will understand marriage is fundamental to their family’s success.

In the forward of the book,  I Do?, Andrea purports that a “simple, to-the-point discussion of the positive attributes of marriage is in short supply… Yet instead of nurturing good marriages, we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Marriage is not the solution to every problem. It remains, however, an ideal to which we can aspire. This book connects the dots between statistics, public policy problems, and people’s experiences. A better understanding of the attributes of marriage allows each one of us to invest deeper meaning into our relationships as well as enhancing and creating stronger communities.”

She touts the benefits of marriage, which she noted seem revelatory for those outside the social science/religious/marriage champion realm. “I thought everyone knew about the basic advantages of marriage – health, happiness, improved finances,” she said, “but people seem very interested in it.”

Contrary to arguments from feminists that marriage for women is akin to modern day slavery,

Andrea cites several specific protections marriage offers women – including protection from predatory sexual behavior. “Men and women, on average, respond differently to having sex. With this different response, marriage protects women from men who are more likely, statistically, to take a more casual attitude toward sex, or men who are utilitarian about wanting sex without any other commitments. Marriage is a way of saying that sex de facto comes with other commitments and thus lessens the chance that a woman will either be, or feel, mistreated sexually in a relationship.

“When sexual activity was constrained to within marriage, sex was also more clearly linked to the possibility of having children.” she added. If a woman does end up having a child, marriage is the thing that draws and keeps a man involved, ensuring they are not parenting alone.

“People really want to know the why of marriage – just saying it provides social stability isn’t a wow factor,” she added. The marriage advantage applies to all things – knowing someone has your back, having someone to come home to – improve happiness and health. Strong partnerships, of which marriage is the gold standard, help people withstand the stress of illness, she said, citing research that those who were partnered experienced an increased ability to survive cancer or heart attack.

“It is hard to teach a 25-year-old they will not be healthy nor beautiful forever. As we get older, things seem more true – we realize what it feels like to live alone for decades. One day our worth won’t be dictated by the vicissitudes of the market, and we’ll want to fall back on family relationships. We are trying to create a climate where marriage and family are a normal part of the life script.”

Family is an institution for all, and marriage is a critical component of family. It provides meaning and stability in a transitory world. The language and logic of marriage as a social institution contributes to a flourishing society – even for the non-religious, and maybe even more so, as those without a faith or church community have fewer supportive social structures on which to rely, she noted.

“One consistent point remains. People continue to long for love, companionship, stability and romantic partnership. The idea of partnering up in life remains desirable for most people. Married couples remain the most common family form across North America,” she wrote.

Any long-term partnership is held together by a variety of factors. Since the 1980s, emotional attachment has been emphasized.

Like Brad Wilcox, Andrea decries society’s more recent focus on the “soulmate” marriage model, characterized by the quest to find “the one” who will be a perfect completion. The soulmate model prioritizes individual needs and understands marriage as a private relationship between two people, centered on individual happiness, personal fulfillment, and romanticized ideas of love. She believes this model places unrealistic demands on partners. Relying too heavily on emotions diminishes the rewards of longevity and fails to value other aspects of marriage that benefit family members and wider society. “Love has indeed conquered marriage, as scholar Stephanie Coontz wrote,” she said.

“We’d argue that our script isn’t a romance but a Tolkien-like adventure. Marriage is an epic journey, with ups and downs, with the ultimate focus on the horizon,” she wrote. Taking a more institutional view of marriage prioritizes cooperation and constraint to benefit both adults and children.

“There is much evidence in support of the protective power of two parents,” she wrote. “How do we increase family stability and strengthen the capacity of families to raise their children?”

Andrea also discussed a niche that presents divorce as the gateway to personal growth. She challenges readers to imagine a different way.

“Divorce remains emotionally difficult. Our hope lies in a marriage culture where divorce is less common because a supportive community helps struggling marriages grow healthier. We seek to restore relationships,” she wrote. “We want people to see the benefit of supporting marriages that are already formed and learn how to weather the rough patches that are inevitable in marriage. Where your marriage counselor’s number is next to the auto mechanic’s on the fridge. Just as your car breaks down, sometimes your marriage breaks down. What’s promoted as ‘must get divorced’ marital problems are by and large normal. When people tough it out, there’s research showing they will be happier on the other side five years later.”

Marriage is an important public good that makes a significant difference, not only for individuals, but for our communities and culture.

“We already live in a world where we are living out the consequences of its (marriage’s) decline (and resulting family instability) have contributed to social challenges such as isolation, poverty, declining health and happiness, food and housing insecurity and spiritual poverty. Family, including marriage, is a factor in both forms of poverty rarely considered by policymakers when confronting daunting social challenges,” Andrea wrote.

When asked what she hopes to achieve with the book, Andrea said she’d like to see “young people dating and pursuing marriage, higher rates of marriage, more families being formed, more children being born, less of the laissez faire ‘you do you’ attitude. When surveyed, most people said marriage is nice to have but not necessary,” she said, noting she’d like to see more consider marriage a necessity.

Andrea dreams of a more family-friendly society, where people value a well-rounded life that understands work and career alone are not what’s fulfilling — one where the needs of children are taken into consideration. “A life lived for others brings more happiness and fulfillment,” she said. “We’ll see less anxiety and social problems.” Part of her work includes analyzing Canadian government policies to parse out where laws impose marriage penalties.  “We certainly need to start by being marriage-neutral as we move toward building a stronger marriage-friendly culture,” she said.

She noted the conundrum of creating a culture that is supportive of some virtues that have gone out of style. Sexual revolution norms, an absence of a life script or the wrong life script are tensions that pull and push. The absence of a life script leaves young people endlessly searching and trying to create their own meaning in life, she said. People can languish in a sea of choices. Delayed marriage and delayed fertility may be fertility denied, the urgency of which may be lost until the option has been forgone.

How can we encourage people to embark on “the adventure of a lifetime” (marriage) earlier? To make it normal and accepted that marriage is very much part of the good life?

“We need to talk about marriage and model it. Each marital unit that works is its own mini miracle,” she said. Marriage has a greater, deeper meaning and purpose. It’s a public good. “Now is a critical moment to reimagine what marriage still means for the wider society and the communities we live in,” she asks. “Can we learn to properly support and nurture marriage, for the good of the world?”