Marriage is sexy
But Hollywood is conditioning you to believe otherwise
There’s a memorable scene in How I Met Your Mother when Marshall pushes back against Barney’s teasing that he lacks “game.”
Marshall: I ran the numbers. If [my wife] Lily and I have sex twice a week—which, let’s be honest, we all know is being conservative—and we’ve been together for ten years, plus seventeen more times on the honeymoon, minus the two week drought when I said the checker at the grocery store reminded me of a young Lily, then we have had sex a total of... wait for it... 1,053 and a half times. (My mom called once.) But that’s more times than Barney has ever had sex—and to your point, Ted, Lily is a quality girl. I win.
Marshall’s point: even Barney, the infamous playboy, may have had more “success” if he had just gotten married.
According to the data, Marshall is right—and not just about sex:
Married adults are likely to be about 30 percentage points happier than unmarried adults [University of Chicago]
Married adults are 16 percentage points more likely to say they are thriving than unmarried adults [Gallup]
Married adults have 20% higher average income than unmarried adults [US Census]
Married adults have 30% more wealth than unmarried adults [US Census]
In any given year, a married adult is half as likely to die as a never-married adult [CDC]
Married adults are 17 percentage points more likely to be very satisfied with their relationship than unmarried, co-habiting adults [Pew]
To recap, being married makes you more likely to: be happier, be thriving, have higher income, have more wealth, lower mortality, and more relationship satisfaction.
Yet, for the rest of that HIMYM episode, Marshall continues to be the butt of the joke. And it isn’t only in this one sitcom—it’s in nearly every TV show and every movie. Hollywood portrays married people as one of the following archetypes:
Old and/or ugly – the “dorky parent” type
Unhappily married – pursuing some kind of extramarital excitement
Divorced
No wonder the share of people who are unmarried by age forty has risen by about 20 percentage points over the past few decades [Pew]. You are being conditioned by the entertainment industry to avoid getting married.
However, the data tell us a different story than those TV tropes:
The current average age of marriage is 29 [US Census] and the average age of having a first child is 28 [CDC] – so parents of teenagers are typically in their early forties, not their sixties.
Per the above statistics, most married couples are happy in their marriage – and, according to that Pew study, more likely to trust their partner to be faithful than unmarried couples.
The commonly-cited stat that “50% of couples get divorced” is false. Nowadays, the divorce rate is about 30% [ConsumerShield]. (Also: I like to joke that “100% of marriages end in death or divorce.” Meaning, just because something will eventually end doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.)
So the stereotype of an old/ugly/unhappy married person is not reflective of reality; it is untrue.
I’m not saying you should get married. I’m not saying you “should” do anything! Everyone has a different life path, and you should determine for yourself what will ultimately bring you the most long-term fulfillment. I merely want to provide you information, so that you can make decisions based on knowledge rather than being subconsciously influenced by the movies and music you consume.
For what it’s worth, I do think there are people who, due to the way they are wired, are probably better off never getting married. I just think that number is closer to 3%, not the 50%(?) that seems represented in TV and movies.
This all leads to my nonobvious solution to the impending population collapse: Hollywood just needs more hot, young married couples as main characters.
Or, you can set that example yourself.
But what if, rather than being in-a-relationship-and-deciding-if-you-want-to-commit, you are single?
Obviously, being single is being better than being married to the wrong person! So how do you find that right person?
There’s an entire chapter on this in my book. For now, you can start with this post.
Whose kid is blond boy?
I don't agree with the premise that Hollywood is conditioning people to think that marriage is not sexy. Using How I Met Your Mother is an outdated reference (2005 - 2014), but if you want to pull from that era The Big Bang Theory (2007 - 2019) was a wildly more popular than How I Met Your Mother and had three successful, loving marriages out of the four main male characters. If you want to reference current shows that span age range and popularity you only have to look at 2025 season 3 The Summer I Turned Pretty (young people desperate to marry, though I would say too young) and then And Just Like That, depicting strong, enduring marriages through thick and thin for two of the middle-age main characters.