Materialism and marriage

We can’t blame Cinderella for our dismal dating scene.

In a recent New York Times column, Sarah Bernstein argued that female gains in education and careers are poisoning the dating and marriage pools because “our society still has one glass-slippered foot in the world of Cinderella.” By this, she means that “our cultural narratives still reflect the idea that a woman’s status can be elevated by marrying a more successful man—and a man’s diminished by pairing with a more successful woman.”

Bernstein argues that female advances relative to men have resulted in too many accomplished women competing for too few even more accomplished men. These high-status men can play the field, thereby consigning many of their lower-status counterparts to the fringe of the relational marketplace and presenting many women with what seems to be a choice between cads and losers. This imbalance produces all sorts of bad things: loneliness, demographic decline, angry internet subcultures, and—perhaps worst of all—Donald Trump as president. Again.

Despite this liberal framing, much of Bernstein’s piece echoes observations made by others, including many conservatives. If the specter of Trump is what it took to get these ideas in front of New York Times readers, well, be thankful the ideas are getting attention. But though Bernstein identifies real problems in the relational landscape, her diagnosis is incomplete and her solution inadequate—all she offers is the injunction that we must first abandon the cultural ideal of men as breadwinners.

Considered historically, she has a point, because for nearly all of human history, breadwinning was the work of the entire household, not just one wage-earner laboring outside of the home. Households were places of production, not just consumption, and both men and women were part of this joint enterprise. In this context, it would be nonsensical to idealize a male breadwinner set opposite a female homemaker, which is why the “excellent wife” described in Proverbs 31 was, among other virtues, an economic dynamo.

This sort of household productivity has been diminished by economic and technological changes but its cultural and spiritual prerequisites have also been vitiated. The distorted romantic landscape Bernstein bemoans is inevitable without chastity, fidelity, and a staunch rejection of materialism. She ignores how our promiscuous culture enables high-status men to casually play the field, with all the ill effects she notes. Without commitment, sacrificing one’s career for the greater good of the family will seem like a sucker’s move, especially in a culture that doles out status and respect to those with wealth and worldly accomplishments, thereby teaching both men and women that sacrificing career and cash for family is degrading.

And the asymmetries and differences between the sexes do not disappear just because they are ideologically inconvenient: Men still desire the respect of their wives, and women still want husbands they can respect. It is true that wealth and worldly achievement should not be the measure of a man, but without a robust alternative, that is what people will default to.

Respecting men for more than wealth and worldly status requires honoring neglected virtues and returning to institutions that form men in them. In particular, if we want to encourage men to be good husbands and fathers, we will need to look to our churches, for it is Christianity that can provide our culture with a different metric for success in this life. Churches can teach men and women to live in faithfulness and solidarity with each other. Churches can teach us to value people, starting with our own family, over worldly goods and status.

In contrast to the world’s zero-sum approach to status, churches can give honor and respect to any and all men seeking to live righteously. And in a world where many men feel superfluous, churches often have a surfeit of opportunities for involvement, service, and even leadership. A man who is humble in the eyes of the world may be wise in the ways of God, integral to and honored by his church, and the leader of his family. A godly man will deserve the respect of even the most accomplished (by worldly standards) wife, regardless of which of them earns more money.

The solidarity of Christian marriage, which measures worth by other measures than those of the world, and self-sacrificially emphasizes the good of the family as a whole, is the real solution to the destructive relational status games that Bernstein identifies.

The problem in our romantic landscape isn’t too much Cinderella—it’s not enough Jesus.