No substitute for marriage

The coronavirus killed the girlboss. Long live … the stay-at-home girlfriend?

Tradwives, stay-at-home moms, and aspirations of a “very mindful, very demure” lifestyle have risen to the cultural forefront again. “Athleisure” and an appreciation for the little things of life—baking bread, hosting friends, and self-care—now challenge rigid pantsuits and demanding corporate careers. But Generation Z (born 1997–2012) has also introduced another trend that isn’t nearly as promising: the stay-at-home girlfriend. It may imitate a certain tradition, but it undermines the most universal institution—marriage.

The traditional stay-at-home wife is increasingly seen as an unattainable luxury suited only for the upper class. By combining cohabitation with leisure, the stay-at-home girlfriend is a cheap parody of that perceived luxury. As a recent Wall Street Journal article describes it, a typical SAHG begins her day “at 8 a.m., [when] she makes the bed and cooks pancakes for her boyfriend before he goes to work. After a green juice, it’s time for self care: a private Pilates reformer session and microcurrent facial.” The remainder of her day includes cute outings with friends, long walks, podcasts, and, of course, “time to get ready for date night.” For someone like me, who will soon have two girls 2 and under, the SAHG’s daily life sounds like a dream vacation.

But all is not as it seems. The Journal article, which profiles three women, is careful to raise concerns about a woman’s financial stability (what happens if you break up?) and long-term plans. Only one of the young women profiled says that she and her boyfriend have discussed marriage. Another one is newly single after a multi-year SAHG arrangement.

For the women involved, the arrangement appears as pragmatic as romantic. With the cost of purchasing a home now seven times greater than the median household income, free rent and shared lifestyle costs seem like a no-brainer.

Most SAHGs are not leaving a glamorous career, either. One woman from the Journal article was an hourly hotel employee, and the other two women are online content creators. For these women, the SAHG life—while it lacks long-term stability—provides an alternative to the girlboss model of professional striving. For the boyfriend who can support a SAHG, he gains a status symbol and someone to help around the house.

Unlike children “playing house,” who are imagining themselves as age-appropriate mothers and fathers, the SAHG is the antithesis of the traditional “housewife.” Unless you count the occasional pet, most SAHG are childless by choice, pursuing instead a self-absorbed life of leisure rather than a productive partnership of domestic, economic, or social pursuits. In many cases, SAHGs even admit to hiring a housekeeper. As Levin complains to his wife, Kitty, in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “The more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”

Ironically, these women are, in many ways, repeating the errors of the stereotypical 1950s housewife conundrum. Without prioritizing meaningful pursuits by mere cohabitation in and through the home, the SAHG is setting herself up for failure.

While divorces have declined, cohabitation rates continue to rise throughout the United States—including among self-identified evangelicals (58 percent of whom think it is morally acceptable, according to Pew Research).

People tend to think, incorrectly, that cohabitation is either a positive relational step—to test-drive the marriage, so to speak—or that it does not harm future marital success. Sadly, this could not be further from the truth.

A recent report for the Institute for Family Studies shows that “living together before marriage has long been associated with a higher risk for divorce, contradicting the common belief that cohabitation will improve the odds of a marriage lasting.” Indeed, those who cohabit before getting married or at least engaged are more likely to divorce than those who did not live together before marriage (34 percent versus 23 percent).

Cohabitation, including SAHG arrangements, encourages what psychologist Scott Stanley calls “sliding vs. deciding.” Far from preparing men and women for lifelong marriage, these low-commitment arrangements result in much higher levels of breakup, divorce, and instability. Similarly, the rise in SAHGs will likely result in more women dissatisfied with domestic life, wary of children, and less likely to find or remain in healthy, lifelong marriages.

There is no substitute for marriage. When cohabitation, contractual domestic duties, and leisure are elevated above the hard and glorious work of building a meaningful life with one’s spouse, many women may give up on the real thing altogether.

The life of a stay-at-home girlfriend may seem glamorous. But it cannot deliver the meaningfulness that each woman, and man, desires. For the sake of this generation and the generations to come, we need wise men and women to encourage and direct young people toward marriage.