IN THEIR 2010 report,  Brad Wilcox and Elizabeth Marquardt of the National Marriage Project make an excellent case for why marriage has declined among the less educated. When marriage is redefined to mean, first and foremost, intimacy between adults, rather than an institution for the rearing of children, it is far less attainable for ordinary people. I would take it one step further and say when marriage is redefined to mean “soul mate” intimacy and radical equality, it is far less attainable.

They wrote:

The impact of [the] cultural forces on marriage in Middle America has been augmented and abetted by the rise in recent years of a new model of what marriage should be. Over the last four decades, many Americans have moved away from identifying with an “institutional” model of marriage, which seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy in a permanent union. This model has been overwritten by the “soul mate” model, which sees marriage as primarily a couple-centered vehicle for personal growth, emotional intimacy, and shared consumption that depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses. Thus where marriage used to serve as the gateway to responsible adulthood, it has come to be increasingly seen as a capstone of sorts that signals couples have arrived, both financially and emotionally—or are on the cusp of arriving.

Although this newer model of marriage—and the new norms associated with it—has affected all Americans, it poses unique challenges to poor and Middle American adults. One problem with this newer model—which sets a high financial and emotional bar for marriage—is that many poor and Middle American couples now believe that they do not have the requisite emotional and economic resources to get or stay married. By contrast, poor and

Middle Americans of a generation or two ago would have identified with the institutional model of marriage and been markedly more likely to get and stay married, even if they did not have much money or a consistently good relationship. They made do.

But their children and grandchildren are much less likely to accept less-than-ideal relationships. And because infidelity, substance abuse, and unplanned pregnancies are more common in Middle America than they are in upscale America, Middle Americans are less likely than their better-educated peers to experience high-quality soul-mate relationships and are, hence, less likely to get and stay married. Their standards for marriage have increased, but their ability to achieve those standards has not.

A related problem with this newer model is that it disconnects the normative links among sex, parenthood, and marriage. Sex doesn’t necessarily suggest marriage or parenthood. Likewise, marriage doesn’t always mean parenthood, and vice versa. This more laissez-faire approach to sex and parenthood generally works well enough for highly educated Americans, who tend to focus first on education and work, then marriage, and then children, and who see early parenthood as an obstacle to their bourgeois success sequence.

But it does not work out so well for less-educated Americans, who greatly value children, do not have bright educational and professional prospects, and also do not believe their romantic relationships or marriages meet society’s new bar for a capstone marriage. Indeed, their love of children and the disconnect between their soul-mate ideals and their real-word experiences leave less-educated Americans much more likely to have children outside of marriage, to cohabit, or to divorce when their relationship or their financial situation fails to measure up to expectations.

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