What Conservatives Miss About Marriage 

As conservatives, we’re fond of praising marriage and family, and for good reason — marriage is both a cornerstone and a hallmark of a healthy society.

The conservative movement can’t seem to get its fill of telling young people to marry, settle down, and have kids. That’s fair enough. But unfortunately, eager to marry everyone off, conservatives tend to skip over one crucial detail: how exactly you get there.

For all their discussion of marriage, most conservatives don’t seem to touch the topic of dating with a 10-foot pole.

And to the extent they do discuss it, that discussion typically centers on the beginning of dating. They encourage men to make the first move and ask women out, or warn women against making the first move themselves. Or, their discussion centers on what not to do: don’t have sex before marriage, and definitely don’t move in together.

But no one talks about what healthy dating should look like. There’s no practical discussion of how to date in a way that’s likely to lead to marriage, or how to get to know someone and discern whether you should marry them while also maintaining healthy boundaries in the understanding that you aren’t yet married.

This leaves young conservatives caught between two flawed views of dating.

On the one hand, they’re faced with the destructive habits of their peers — hookup culture, casual dating, or even long-term dating relationships with no intention of marriage.

On the other hand, they’re confronted by the romanticism of the older generation and the ideal of the knight in shining armor, a perspective that mainly consists of strictures for the man to open the door, pay for dates, or show up with flowers, and for the woman to be “feminine” — bonus points for wearing a sundress.

While some of these principles have value, none of them address the actual day-to-day or week-to-week of dating, and it’s easy for them to turn into pressure to act a certain way simply to meet certain standards.

Perhaps it’s this black hole that accounts for the fact that, while 69% of those ages 18-34 who have never been married say they hope to be married, a full 50% of singles aren’t currently looking to date or enter a relationship.

Trapped between a hookup culture that leaves people feeling empty and broken and a romantic idealism that places performative pressure on both parties, many may decide dating is too difficult and that they have “more important priorities.”

For those who do decide to date, there’s a relative dearth of older role models who exemplify healthy marital relationships, let alone healthy dating relationships. In recent years, overall marriage numbers have declined; divorces among older couples have increased; and the number of couples, including older couples, cohabitating with an unmarried partner has increased.

Add to that the chronic pervasiveness of utterly flawed dating perspectives online, and you’ve got a recipe for the current situation: one in which well-intentioned young people are left on their own, groping in the dark for wisdom to guide their dating lives.

This leaves many struggling to successfully navigate relationships. According to one survey, 67% of “daters” say their dating life is either not going too well or not going well at all.

As a result, many relationships otherwise full of potential end up amounting to nothing, falling prey to miscommunication, social pressures, or other issues — many of which could be easily remedied with a dose of wisdom from an elder.

If conservatives are serious about wanting young people to get married, it’s time to stop simply preaching the merits of marriage and start offering practical advice on how to get there.

That starts at the individual level: older, happily married members of a community (like a church, for example) should come alongside younger members of that community, making themselves available to answer any questions those younger members may have.

This isn’t to say people don’t do that already. I’ve personally been blessed to have several members of my church walk with me in this manner.

But the same should also be practiced in society more broadly. Dating isn’t going to look the same for everyone—so influencers, commentators, and others in healthy marriages should share their personal stories of how they approached dating, offering examples of the ways to approach dating wisely.

Without these kinds of examples, we may stay stuck where we are now: a society where most people hope for marriage but few are capable of taking the necessary steps to achieve it.

Mary Mobley is an Editorial Fellow in the Strategic Communications department of the Heritage Foundation.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.