Study: Having A Husband And Kids Doubles Women’s Likelihood Of Being Happy
September 1, 2025
It has been a long feminist trope that marriage and motherhood are garbage chutes to misery for women. Feminist sociologist Jesse Bernard warned in her 1972 book, The Future of Marriage, “[M]arriage introduced such profound discontinuities into the lives of women as to constitute genuine emotional health hazards.” Lyz Lenz, in her 2024 New York Times bestseller This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, holds the same hellish view of matrimony. Early in, she explains, “Marriage, it seemed, was this: the eternal return of trash on my floor.”
It is no wonder that only 32 percent of women believe marriage and motherhood lead to fuller, happier lives for them. And 47 percent of single young women believe singleness is a more direct route to happiness for women than being wed. According to recent Pew findings, fewer young women than men say they want to have children one day.
