The Art of (Culture) War Requires Knowing Your Opponent

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Conservatives who want to persuade the public about the beauty and benefits of marriage need to remember that one of the first rules of battle is to know—and name—your enemy. This is as true in a military conflict as it is in the culture wars. Knowing your opponent also helps combatants abide by another golden rule of conflict: do everything possible to minimize collateral damage.

The median age at first marriage for men and women increased from 23 and 20, respectively, in 1960 to 30 and 28 in 2023. The share of Americans over 40 who have never married increased from 6% in 1960 to 25% in 2021. More than one-third of men and women over the age of 20 who have ever married have been divorced. For adults ages 55 to 64, it is 43 percent. The share of married-couple households has decreased from 74% in 1960 to 47% in 2023. 

These social trends have had a profound impact on American family life.

Americans are marrying less and later in life, and it is human nature to blame someone for causing this problem. Yes, radical feminists with pink hair and degrees in gender studies are easy targets. But while it is tempting to mock people who poison the public square with bad ideas, the truth is that none of the changes in modern family life are confined to liberals. The last thing pro-family conservatives should be doing in such a polarized culture is alienating people who generally share our values.

For instance, a 25-year-old woman who attended a Christian college and wants to get married should not be mocked if she vents about her dating struggles on social media. Being single because you believe marriage is an oppressive institution created by the patriarchy to keep women barefoot and pregnant is not the same as being single because the young men in your peer group have no interest in getting married until they’ve sown their wild oats. 

This is one reason public discourse on marriage and family formation must be focused as much on the dating and mating decisions of men as on the priorities of women. Even then, conservatives must still be careful about naming the right enemy. A man who rejects marriage because he believes all modern women are morally deficient, sexually promiscuous gold-diggers is in a very different category than a man who eventually wants a family but isn’t thinking about a wife and kids right now because he lacks stable employment, housing, and transportation.

It is possible to believe in individual agency while acknowledging that certain things in our lives are outside of our control. Conservatives do not have to mimic the language of our overly therapeutic culture to sympathize with people, like the examples above, who share our values but whose lives do not perfectly reflect our ideals. We should show concern for that group while fiercely opposing the radical feminists on the left and the anti-family alpha males on the right. 

There also needs to be some maturity on the part of conservatives whose lives do not reflect the policies they promote. A marriage and family culture will never take root in this country if conservatives are too sensitive to engage with certain ideas because they conflate public advocacy with judgment of their personal decisions. 

We need only look at the firestorm Harrison Butker's Benedictine College address caused to see the landmines that await conservatives trying to fight for their values in the public square. The NFL kicker lavished praise on his wife and said she embraces her role as homemaker. The fact that he did so in front of women at a college commencement led people to accuse him of belittling women.

His critics show how difficult it is to “sell” the benefits of marriage and family in a culture that is hostile to traditional ideas related to gender, sex, and family. People need to hear that marriage is important, that marriage should come before having children, that marrying in your 20s is a legitimate choice, that marriage is meant to be for a lifetime, and that having a large family is a blessing. 

The family has been under attack for decades by forces eager to control terms and take territory when it comes to ideas around sex and marriage. Radical ideologues have seized control of academic institutions, government agencies, and media companies. 

The question for pro-family conservatives is not whether these ideas need to be defeated. The issue is figuring out which strategies, tactics, and weapons—whether political or rhetorical—are most effective for today’s fight. The battle continues, but one thing is certain: minimizing collateral damage will go a long way toward helping us secure victory. 

Delano Squires is a research fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.