Make Marriage a Guiding Priority: A Review of 'Sex and the Citizen'

Conn Carroll’s new book, Sex and the Citizen: How the Assault on Marriage is Destroying Democracy, is a must read for anyone on the front lines defending marriage. For decades, policymakers and cultural elites have been steering marriage on a collision course backwards with reckless policies and misinformation—their voices amplified by the media, and the publishing and entertainment industries. 

They frequently accuse marriage advocates of hindering freedom and progress by waxing nostalgic for a time when women were oppressed. Case in point, the recent “tradwives” debate. The opposite is true. As Carroll points out, they are the ones angling for the repressive past. “When we push for cultural norms and public policy that promote monogamous marriage, we are swimming with, not against, the current of human nature,” Carroll writes. With that nature comes inevitable individual and societal flourishing. By book’s end, he has more than proven his point. 

Commentary editor for the Washington Examiner, Carroll got the idea for his book while serving as communications director for a U.S. Senator. He was digging through research on how the loss of civic engagement threatened democracy when he detoured to investigate the role of marriage. Down each successive rabbit hole, he discovered another piece of the puzzle contributing to the decline of marriage. In choosing which aspects of marriage to cover, Carroll decided to include them all. The result is a compact 250-page book (of which one-fifth is footnotes) that examines marriage from the dawn of time to the present, across cultures and continents. 

To navigate the extensive data, I found it helpful to imagine the book as a continuous debate between Carroll and each successive marriage foe. One-by-one, each enters the arena to discuss a singular issue. Topics include polygamy, cohabitation, welfare reform, fatherlessness, crime, divorce, feminism, unwed motherhood, jobs, wages, Supreme Court decisions, sex, aggression, economic inequality, political polarization, loneliness, happiness, love, and more. 

Carroll handedly wins each round, judiciously acknowledging worthwhile contributions while highlighting their shortcomings. For example, although Richard Reeves’ research illuminates the grave problem of fatherlessness and loss of role models for boys, Carroll points out that the Brookings fellow nevertheless celebrates the grievous fact that marriage and motherhood are no longer inevitably linked. Feminist Louise Perry recognizes the differences between men and women, criticizes porn, and lauds marriage as a protective environment for women and children. She errs, however, when she says marriage isn’t the “human norm,” he notes, and fails to suggest policy reform. Economist Melissa Kearney, author of The Two-Parent Privilege, does suggest tax policies to help reverse marriage’s decline. But Carroll notes that she fails to concede the harm caused by “the very real and large marriage penalties that exist in every other means-tested welfare program including, Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8 housing benefits” and so on. 

Cohabitation has doubled in the last 50 years and now surpasses the marriage rate. Today, 70% of married couples cohabitate first, even though cohabitation is less stable than marriage. Carroll believes that the acceptance of sex before marriage and cohabitation are cultural bridges “we can’t uncross,” despite their contributions to the decline of marriage. But he doesn’t support expansion of these behaviors or suggest that individuals with moral convictions throw in the towel. 

On a practical level, perhaps he’s right. Given the dire situation of marriage, those on the frontlines know we can’t afford to give ground. In any case, a more pernicious problem lies elsewhere. I’ve been in the trenches for years and wouldn’t have placed the growing danger of polygamy so high on my radar. But the statistics are horrifying. Carroll mentions that from 2006 to 2016, polygamous relationships rose from 5% to 25% in the United States. Growth has been fueled by elite influencers like America’s most popular sex therapist, Dan Savage. Feminists have also spread misinformation, contending that the patriarchy established monogamy as a way of controlling women and their sexual desires. 

Carroll sets the record straight, in painstaking detail. He demonstrates that “[w]hen the world was populated by nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, an egalitarian monogamy reigned.” It brought harmony and cooperation to relationships, enabled the growth of families, and protected women from violence. 

He notes that first-wave feminist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton also championed marriage as “the foundation of family life” while advocating for voting and property rights for women. She did not view marriage and equal rights for women as mutually exclusive.  

The new decline in marriage has made Americans less equal, less safe, and increasingly polarized, isolated, and unhappy. The American Dream is dying. The most vulnerable suffer the worst with thriving marriages and families becoming “luxury goods for the wealthy.” How is that democratic, he asks.

Making marriage successful again requires a reorientation to policymaking with marriage front and center. As Carroll says, “Too often marriage, if it is thought of at all, is considered just one issue among many. A legislator will have a position on crime, taxes, immigration, climate change, and sometimes marriage. Instead of being just one policy among many, marriage needs to become the guiding priority for all issues.”  

Still, achieving change can feel daunting. Carroll reminds us of Hungary, which had a high marriage rate when the Berlin Wall fell. As American culture infiltrated, however, the marriage rate halved in only one decade. Fertility dropped. Once political power changed, Hungary adopted a constitution that vowed to protect marriage and implemented numerous marriage and family-friendly policies. (Subsidies for minivans were just one of many innovative strategies.). Today, Hungary is number one in Europe for new marriages. The marriage rate is soaring, with a steady rise in fertility.

For 20 years, I’ve been writing about the negative consequences of divorce. People being divorced against their will often write to me for help. Sometimes I struggle to be encouraging. But as I was recently reminded of the example of Saint Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers, on his feast day. People constantly sought him out for spiritual direction, and he was frequently sick and overworked. In a letter, he said that people came to him so often that he had no time to think of himself. Still, he found the work fulfilling. “I have more than 50 letters to answer,” he said. “If I tried to hurry over it all, I would be lost. So, I intend neither to hurry or to worry. This evening, I shall answer as many as I can. Tomorrow I shall do the same and so I shall go on until I have finished.”

So it is, I believe, with so many of us who care about marriage and families and work for change. And we shall continue—grateful to have Conn Carroll’s new book in hand.

Beverly Willett is a lawyer, Co-founder of the Coalition for Divorce Reform, and author of Disassembly Required: A Memoir of Midlife Resurrection. Her novel-in-progress is entitled Nobody’s Fault.