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The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families
There are two Americas. One boasts solid families, well-paying jobs, safe homes, and good education. The other has children raised by one parent, poor neighborhoods, crime, and low-paying jobs. What has caused the divide? In this penetrating study, James Q. Wilson argues that the answer lies in the importance of marriage and the devastating effects of divorce and cohabitation. Wilson's meticulous research shows how the erosion of family life has damaged children's futures, leading to school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, and a greater likelihood of emotional problems, drug use, and criminal activity. With precision and persuasiveness, he reveals the sources of today's crisis -- from the glittering ideals of the Enlightenment to the shameful practice of American slavery -- while also offering bold solutions. Incisive, intelligent, and thought-provoking, The Marriage Problem is a clarion call to rebuild the family, and society, by returning a solid marital structure to its core.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
James Q. Wilson
223 books53 followersJames Q. Wilson was one of the leading contemporary criminologists in the United States. Wilson, who has taught at several major universities during his academic career, has also written on economics and politics during his lengthy career. During the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson voiced concerns about trying to address the social causes of crime. He argued instead that public policy is most effective when it focuses on objective matters like the costs and benefits of crime. Wilson views criminals as rational human beings who will not commit crimes when the costs associated with crime become impractical.
James Q. Wilson most recently taught at Boston College and Pepperdine University. He was Professor Emeritus of Management and Public Administration at UCLA and was previously Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University. He wrote more than a dozen books on the subjects of public policy, bureaucracy, and political philosophy. He was president of the American Political Science Association, and he is the only political scientist to win three of the four lifetime achievement awards presented by the APSA. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 2003.
Professor Wilson passed away in March of 2012 after battling cancer. His work helped shape the field of political science in the United States. His many years of service to his American Government book remain evident on every page and will continue for many editions to come.
James Q. Wilson most recently taught at Boston College and Pepperdine University. He was Professor Emeritus of Management and Public Administration at UCLA and was previously Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University. He wrote more than a dozen books on the subjects of public policy, bureaucracy, and political philosophy. He was president of the American Political Science Association, and he is the only political scientist to win three of the four lifetime achievement awards presented by the APSA. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 2003.
Professor Wilson passed away in March of 2012 after battling cancer. His work helped shape the field of political science in the United States. His many years of service to his American Government book remain evident on every page and will continue for many editions to come.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 11, 2013
It was every bit as sexist and oppressive as I expected it to be, just another log on the fire of men making judgments on what women should do to improve their lives. Before I start sounding all femiragey, I should point out that the book isn't really about people like me. It mostly discusses the problems with having illegitimate children at an early age, how minorities are at a higher risk, and the prevalence of divorces. Like most works of its kind it makes two hideously incorrect assumptions:
1) All women want to have children.
2) All single people are feverishly awaiting the day they won't be single anymore.
As someone who has many real scars that can be sourced back to bittersweet relationships from days gone by, I can honestly say my single days are the happiest days. Some of us want to live honest, productive lives without marriage or children. Hey, it happens.
I'm afraid that the people who could benefit most from this book won't ever read it: the teenagers in poorly-funded schools who are products of this "marriage problem". Their role models are sparse and unreliable, and they aren't getting the proper resources to succeed.
The book's intellectual, high-horse point-of-view will most likely be read only by white people from middle-class nuclear families who want to confirm what they already believe. The author doesn't really answer the question, "So what?" so I'm going to suggest not reading this book and spend your time helping a troubled teen instead.
1) All women want to have children.
2) All single people are feverishly awaiting the day they won't be single anymore.
As someone who has many real scars that can be sourced back to bittersweet relationships from days gone by, I can honestly say my single days are the happiest days. Some of us want to live honest, productive lives without marriage or children. Hey, it happens.
I'm afraid that the people who could benefit most from this book won't ever read it: the teenagers in poorly-funded schools who are products of this "marriage problem". Their role models are sparse and unreliable, and they aren't getting the proper resources to succeed.
The book's intellectual, high-horse point-of-view will most likely be read only by white people from middle-class nuclear families who want to confirm what they already believe. The author doesn't really answer the question, "So what?" so I'm going to suggest not reading this book and spend your time helping a troubled teen instead.
February 3, 2026
Valuable take on the problem of marriage ca. 2000; not much advice on what to do.
The Marriage Problem.
This book appeared in 2002, long enough ago that it needs some historical perspective. President Clinton had recently implemented welfare reform, curtailing Aid to Families with Dependent Children. America's major cities had recently implemented the "Broken Windows" theory of policing advocated by this author, James Q. Wilson. Crime rates were coming down from their recent highs, but crime remained a major concern in American cities.
Wilson was 71 years old, a well-established academic who would live another 10 years. His thesis is that many of the social problems that existed in America, and in particular those affecting the black community, could be traced back to a decline of the institution of marriage. His thesis is that marriage should be encouraged to the extent possible by law and custom. He is pessimistic on the culture/custom side, conceding that not much is likely to be done. For that reason the book is more of a description of the situation at the time of the writing and an explanation of how it came to be than a prescription for change.
Here are brief descriptions of the books 9 chapters.
Two Nations
The thesis in this chapter is that America is divided into the middle class and an underclass. The two are culturally quite different. In the underclass, work is not terribly common, marriage is not respected, and crime and promiscuity run rampant. There is a major racial aspect of this. Although both Hispanics and Blacks are poor, Hispanics are inclined to be married and to stay together, Blacks inclined not to marry.
Why Do Families Exist?
Family has existed throughout the history of mankind. Marriage is taken many forms. It may begin with the church ceremony, a couples moving in together, or the birth of her first child. The important thing is that it is recognized by society and enforced by society. Society has a vested interest in the well-being of which younger members, and in the parents of the children paying for their upbringing.
Men and women have different interests in a marriage. While they of course overlap, men tend to be more concerned with the paternity of their children, and women in the man's providing ongoing support.
Sex and the Marriage Market
The sex ratio is the major theme in this chapter. It is "The number of men per hundred women in a society" when there are more men than women, it is a high sex ratio. A high sex ratio favors women, who can drive a harder bargain, requiring that men commit to marriage, and allowing the woman to select a partner with better earning potential.
There have been historical times of low sex ratios, such as after major wars when large numbers of men have been decimated. African Americans suffer a perpetually low sex ratio because of their rates of mortality, incarceration, and drug addiction and unemployment, all of which make them poor marriage prospects.
For any number of reasons, sex ratios have been low in most developed countries for a while now. Implications for marriage are not good.
The Rise of the Modern Marriage
Modern marriage appears to have emerged in medieval England and northern Europe. English yeoman farmers were independent in large measure from their families and from feudal lords. They ran their own show. They had more freedom instead choosing their own wives than other societies in the world. The young man would stake out a farmstead and get it started and then marry when he had it established. The marriage was consensual; the women had the power to refuse and to choose.
The pattern was different in other parts of the world. In the Middle East social life was controlled by tribes, cousin marriage was common, and the selection of marriage partners was largely determined by the elders. The same was true in China and Japan. Although the partners had a say in the matter, the elders provided extensive guidance. This is also true in Eastern Europe where there were communal farms, no land to be inherited. Wilson's description is a variance with what one reads elsewhere, but in any case there was little private ownership. He contends ownership was communal, by the people who work the land. Other authors contend it was by large landholders, often called boyars.
In Africa the scarce resource was labor to work the rather infertile soil, not the soil itself. Women generally managed the hoe gardening while men did the politicking and the warfare. Polygamous arrangements made sense. Since there was nothing to inherit, paternity was not a compelling issue. Monogamy was not highly prized.
Among American Indians it was similar. They needed lots of babies, but who fathered them didn't matter too much. They were all closely related in any case. Wilson relates that the situation was not ideal; there was quite a bit of jealousy. Other anthropologists are not so strongly convinced about the jealousy issue. In any case, monogamy was not strictly observed. Even Benjamin Franklin observed (I add as an aside) that colonial women kidnapped by Indians and forced to join their tribes were often reluctant when "liberated" to return to the more restrictive conventions of the English colonists.
Women have been gaining more power in Western society since the Enlightenment. Even before the Industrial Revolution they had a high level of social freedom. The French court gave women a great deal of latitude in both intellectual and romantic life. See the biography of Franklin for how this played out in dalliances.
The Victorian era saw a return to emphasis on traditional morality: monogamy, fidelity, and also the virtues of temperance and support of social betterment movements. Divorce rates were low, but rose consistently. World War I marked the end of the era. Since that time social liberalism has expanded constantly, accelerating particularly in the 1920s and 1960s.
African Americans and Slavery
Many authors attribute the situation in African-American families to slavery and Jim Crow. While Wilson does not totally discount these factors, he notes that marriage and sexual relations among African-Americans followed patterns that were well-established in Africa itself.
He alludes to cultural and genetic differences. He edges up to the Overton window of acceptable opinion on the reasons for the observed behavior in the African-American community, but does not go beyond. For a more open discussion, read Philippe Rushton.
Mother – Only Families
The question here is whether Murphy Brown is a viable role model. No, concludes Wilson, families with fathers do better by almost every measure.
Divorce
Divorce is increasingly easy. The grounds for divorce have softened. It used to be that adultery was about the only argument that the courts would accept. Now it is divorce by mutual consent – three quarters of divorces do not involve accusations of abuse by either party.
Easier divorce is a logical conclusion from Enlightenment thinking. It favors the individual over the family. Children get lost in the shuffle. Some argue that children are better off after a divorce than living in the household of an unhappy marriage. Wilson generally disagrees.
Working Mothers
Working mothers have to have some sort of childcare. It is a given that the caretakers do not in general see their role as passing on culture, standards of behavior, and other such values that the parents might hold. How do the kids turn out? Smart but nasty is one take. They get fairly used to being around other kids, manipulating them, but they become rather self-centered.
The Cultural Challenge
The conclusion is not terribly strong. Pulling together all of his observations, Wilson does not do more than simply observe that this is the way things are. He hopes for the best.
The Marriage Problem.
This book appeared in 2002, long enough ago that it needs some historical perspective. President Clinton had recently implemented welfare reform, curtailing Aid to Families with Dependent Children. America's major cities had recently implemented the "Broken Windows" theory of policing advocated by this author, James Q. Wilson. Crime rates were coming down from their recent highs, but crime remained a major concern in American cities.
Wilson was 71 years old, a well-established academic who would live another 10 years. His thesis is that many of the social problems that existed in America, and in particular those affecting the black community, could be traced back to a decline of the institution of marriage. His thesis is that marriage should be encouraged to the extent possible by law and custom. He is pessimistic on the culture/custom side, conceding that not much is likely to be done. For that reason the book is more of a description of the situation at the time of the writing and an explanation of how it came to be than a prescription for change.
Here are brief descriptions of the books 9 chapters.
Two Nations
The thesis in this chapter is that America is divided into the middle class and an underclass. The two are culturally quite different. In the underclass, work is not terribly common, marriage is not respected, and crime and promiscuity run rampant. There is a major racial aspect of this. Although both Hispanics and Blacks are poor, Hispanics are inclined to be married and to stay together, Blacks inclined not to marry.
Why Do Families Exist?
Family has existed throughout the history of mankind. Marriage is taken many forms. It may begin with the church ceremony, a couples moving in together, or the birth of her first child. The important thing is that it is recognized by society and enforced by society. Society has a vested interest in the well-being of which younger members, and in the parents of the children paying for their upbringing.
Men and women have different interests in a marriage. While they of course overlap, men tend to be more concerned with the paternity of their children, and women in the man's providing ongoing support.
Sex and the Marriage Market
The sex ratio is the major theme in this chapter. It is "The number of men per hundred women in a society" when there are more men than women, it is a high sex ratio. A high sex ratio favors women, who can drive a harder bargain, requiring that men commit to marriage, and allowing the woman to select a partner with better earning potential.
There have been historical times of low sex ratios, such as after major wars when large numbers of men have been decimated. African Americans suffer a perpetually low sex ratio because of their rates of mortality, incarceration, and drug addiction and unemployment, all of which make them poor marriage prospects.
For any number of reasons, sex ratios have been low in most developed countries for a while now. Implications for marriage are not good.
The Rise of the Modern Marriage
Modern marriage appears to have emerged in medieval England and northern Europe. English yeoman farmers were independent in large measure from their families and from feudal lords. They ran their own show. They had more freedom instead choosing their own wives than other societies in the world. The young man would stake out a farmstead and get it started and then marry when he had it established. The marriage was consensual; the women had the power to refuse and to choose.
The pattern was different in other parts of the world. In the Middle East social life was controlled by tribes, cousin marriage was common, and the selection of marriage partners was largely determined by the elders. The same was true in China and Japan. Although the partners had a say in the matter, the elders provided extensive guidance. This is also true in Eastern Europe where there were communal farms, no land to be inherited. Wilson's description is a variance with what one reads elsewhere, but in any case there was little private ownership. He contends ownership was communal, by the people who work the land. Other authors contend it was by large landholders, often called boyars.
In Africa the scarce resource was labor to work the rather infertile soil, not the soil itself. Women generally managed the hoe gardening while men did the politicking and the warfare. Polygamous arrangements made sense. Since there was nothing to inherit, paternity was not a compelling issue. Monogamy was not highly prized.
Among American Indians it was similar. They needed lots of babies, but who fathered them didn't matter too much. They were all closely related in any case. Wilson relates that the situation was not ideal; there was quite a bit of jealousy. Other anthropologists are not so strongly convinced about the jealousy issue. In any case, monogamy was not strictly observed. Even Benjamin Franklin observed (I add as an aside) that colonial women kidnapped by Indians and forced to join their tribes were often reluctant when "liberated" to return to the more restrictive conventions of the English colonists.
Women have been gaining more power in Western society since the Enlightenment. Even before the Industrial Revolution they had a high level of social freedom. The French court gave women a great deal of latitude in both intellectual and romantic life. See the biography of Franklin for how this played out in dalliances.
The Victorian era saw a return to emphasis on traditional morality: monogamy, fidelity, and also the virtues of temperance and support of social betterment movements. Divorce rates were low, but rose consistently. World War I marked the end of the era. Since that time social liberalism has expanded constantly, accelerating particularly in the 1920s and 1960s.
African Americans and Slavery
Many authors attribute the situation in African-American families to slavery and Jim Crow. While Wilson does not totally discount these factors, he notes that marriage and sexual relations among African-Americans followed patterns that were well-established in Africa itself.
He alludes to cultural and genetic differences. He edges up to the Overton window of acceptable opinion on the reasons for the observed behavior in the African-American community, but does not go beyond. For a more open discussion, read Philippe Rushton.
Mother – Only Families
The question here is whether Murphy Brown is a viable role model. No, concludes Wilson, families with fathers do better by almost every measure.
Divorce
Divorce is increasingly easy. The grounds for divorce have softened. It used to be that adultery was about the only argument that the courts would accept. Now it is divorce by mutual consent – three quarters of divorces do not involve accusations of abuse by either party.
Easier divorce is a logical conclusion from Enlightenment thinking. It favors the individual over the family. Children get lost in the shuffle. Some argue that children are better off after a divorce than living in the household of an unhappy marriage. Wilson generally disagrees.
Working Mothers
Working mothers have to have some sort of childcare. It is a given that the caretakers do not in general see their role as passing on culture, standards of behavior, and other such values that the parents might hold. How do the kids turn out? Smart but nasty is one take. They get fairly used to being around other kids, manipulating them, but they become rather self-centered.
The Cultural Challenge
The conclusion is not terribly strong. Pulling together all of his observations, Wilson does not do more than simply observe that this is the way things are. He hopes for the best.
July 9, 2019
Bumped into Wilson during a couple of reads of Jonathan Sacks and Stephen Carter. Since I think highly of the latter two, I thought I might like him. Glad I was right.
Some people claim that this book is anti-feminist. I wouldn't really call it that. I would say that the stats (especially 20 years ago) just didn't point in the direction that the feminists wanted. And the research is quite thorough. He doesn't really just look at one side. He always looks at both sides and then provides the most recent or most solidly supported scholarly research. The book is definitely dated(updating the stats on Hispanic culture may be needed) but, when compared with more recent work like Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age, you can see where we've ended up.
However, where Wilson succeeds in comparison to the latter is in his answer to the "why" question. Hymowitz does a good job explaining what, and how, and a potential solution, but Wilson really delves into the reasoning behind current actions and explores the history of marriage in Western, Eastern, and Southern cultures. I also loved his treatment of racism and its effects.
Worth the read. Gives me higher hopes for his other books.
Some people claim that this book is anti-feminist. I wouldn't really call it that. I would say that the stats (especially 20 years ago) just didn't point in the direction that the feminists wanted. And the research is quite thorough. He doesn't really just look at one side. He always looks at both sides and then provides the most recent or most solidly supported scholarly research. The book is definitely dated(updating the stats on Hispanic culture may be needed) but, when compared with more recent work like Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age, you can see where we've ended up.
However, where Wilson succeeds in comparison to the latter is in his answer to the "why" question. Hymowitz does a good job explaining what, and how, and a potential solution, but Wilson really delves into the reasoning behind current actions and explores the history of marriage in Western, Eastern, and Southern cultures. I also loved his treatment of racism and its effects.
Worth the read. Gives me higher hopes for his other books.
August 3, 2023
8.5/10
January 5, 2011
Serious, thoughtful, well supported. Everything you expect from James Q. Wilson.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews