Recovering Love and Marriage in a Loveless and Divided Culture

"Instead of taking it for granted that eligible men and women will find one another, get married, and build a life together, friends and family must actively bring about this outcome and help participate in the process."

From Crisis

By Auguste Meyrat

Sandwiched between arranged marriages and committing sins of the flesh with random strangers is an intentional culture designed to weed out bad matches and encourage real courtship.

The online Right lit up last week with the scandal of two right-wing influencers (one of whom was a Catholic who had her marriage blessed by the pope) cheating on their partners with one another. In itself the whole story was more salacious gossip than actual news, but in the context of today’s romantic wasteland, it understandably provoked questions about the value of love and marriage.

Naturally, Catholic conservative podcaster and family man Matt Walsh proudly defended marriage against those who see it as a bad deal for men. While acknowledging the perils that sometimes come up, he nevertheless argues that marriage is the centerpiece of a happy, virtuous life and a fundamental building block of society. In a follow-up episode, Walsh responded to critics who disagree with his disapproval of close friendships between men and women. Again, what should seem obvious (i.e., that close friendships with the opposite sex are not good for marriage) requires extensive explanation.

Although Walsh makes short work of people who malign marriage and willfully misunderstand human nature, this discourse sheds light on a deeper problem lurking underneath. If so many millennials and Zoomers are this jaded about relationships and the demands of monogamy, how will they ever find a spouse and have children?

The short answer is that they won’t. Marriage rates have declined in recent decades and will continue to decline in the foreseeable future. The dating scene is abysmal, with both men and women often giving up on finding their soulmates and settling for various substitutes (i.e., pets, AI girlfriends, leftist activism, etc.) to fulfill their need to love and be loved. On a mass scale, this collective turning away from marriage threatens to usher in a bleak, childless future of aging, childless adults devoid of hope and vigor and dependent on dehumanizing dating apps for companionship.

However, in order to solve this crisis, it is essential to understand the mindset at the root of it. Beyond changing material circumstances, many people today have largely adopted a passive approach to relationships that prevents them from building anything real.

 Deprived of any serious moral or religious instruction, they succumb to social forces and biological impulses that limit their personal agency or ability to cultivate meaningful connections with others. Their love lives (or the absence of such) are thus predetermined, and the people who should be intervening and helping are instead deriding them for their failure to find a wife or husband.

British writer Thomas Hardy illustrates this dilemma in his final novel, Jude the Obscure, at the turn of the 20th century. His protagonist, Jude, is a young man filled with potential and dreams of becoming a great scholar, but his parents have abandoned him and he has no role model to help him achieve his goal. Consequently, his ambitions are quickly sidelined by a peasant girl who seduces him and tricks him into marriage. 

After his first wife leaves him, he falls in love with a neurotic, progressive woman named Sue who rejects the idea of marriage. After an awkward courtship with Jude, Sue marries a much older man she doesn’t love; but she reunites with Jude shortly afterward. The two end up having children out of wedlock together, scandalizing the neighbors who refuse to accept them. Eventually, their situation breaks down in a series of horrible events that leave everyone miserable or dead. 

Like today’s frustrated singles, Jude grows up with little guidance, falls prey to forces outside his control, and suffers society’s disapproval for falling short of their expectations. He and Sue are left to navigate complex relationships with little to go on beyond simplistic societal conventions and their own sexual impulses. They have no close friends, remain outside any real community, and thus become alienated and frustrated.

What is needed to rectify this sadness is a cultural reorientation toward love and marriage. Instead of taking it for granted that eligible men and women will find one another, get married, and build a life together, friends and family must actively bring about this outcome and help participate in the process. They must model healthy relationships and equip younger generations with conversational skills, social prudence, and emotional continence. 

Instead of taking it for granted that eligible men and women will find one another, get married, and build a life together, friends and family must actively bring about this outcome and help participate in the process.
This setup is brilliantly illustrated in the classic novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Unlike the tragic figures of Hardy’s novel, Austen’s characters are witty, eloquent, and purposeful in their encounters with neighbors and possible suitors. Their social virtues enable them to find the right match and build up harmonious and fruitful households. More importantly, they are supported by friends and family to make wise decisions and resolve any personal difficulties that arise. At no point are they locked into a loveless marriage or made to doubt the possibility of love altogether by judgmental peers and elders.

Beyond enjoying the order, civility, and charm of this novel, people today should learn what ideas enable these good qualities to exist in the first place. Nothing is left to chance; instead, all is made intelligible and rational through extended verbal exchanges at elegant social gatherings and long promenades through the countryside. While Jude and Sue try in vain to make sense of their world and themselves with little outside help, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy master the world and themselves with the help of their families and one another. 

While some aspects of Pride and Prejudice occasionally drift into the ideal, the novel still works as an exemplar for people today wanting to revive courtship and marriage. It is still possible to pass on wisdom about relationships, train young people in social interaction, and communicate clear expectations about what marriage entails. Even in modern-day America, people can host gatherings, take walks, write letters to loved ones, put away distractions, and strive for deep connections.

And in those cases where it may not be possible—where poverty, negligence, and poor habits prevail—Christians, particularly Catholics, should work to remedy such ills after they put their own houses in order. The time is late and the issue has become all the more urgent. Too many young adults are struggling with forming lasting connections because they have been fundamentally misled and made to feel powerless. Nevertheless, they can overcome this with the help of loving friends and family and a little more Jane Austen (and a little less Thomas Hardy) in their lives.