The Rational Case for Marriage!

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux examines secular arguments for marriage, responding to a listener's query about non-religious justifications for the institution. He defines marriage as a lifelong commitment focused on pair-bonding and sexual exclusivity while exploring its evolutionary significance tied to human reproduction and parental investment. Molyneux discusses the economic implications for men, particularly regarding paternity certainty and the historical motivations for traditional marriage practices. He emphasizes the importance of stable, monogamous relationships for effective child-rearing, linking these concepts to the broader success of the species. The lecture concludes with reflections on the consequences of choosing not to have children and the potential hardships faced in old age without family support, advocating for a return to traditional marriage ideals that enhance emotional and social stability.  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right, Stephen Molyneux from FreedomAid, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show,

00:06help out philosophy, really would deeply, humbly, and gratefully appreciate your kindness

00:13and support freedomain.com slash donate. So question from an ex-reader, sounds like an ex-girlfriend,

00:23from an ex-reader, a follower, and the question is this. What are the secular arguments for

00:32marriage? He said all they can come up with is sort of vague hedonism and things like that.

00:36What are the secular arguments for marriage? Well, the first thing, of course, we need to

00:43figure out is what is marriage for? Marriage, of course, is the goal of a lifelong love and

00:51pair-bonding monogamous commitment from usually a male to a female for purposes of reproduction.

00:58I mean, that's the definition. Again, roads are for cars, but bikes use them too, right? So

01:03that is the general idea. So why? Why is there such a thing as marriage? I mean,

01:11rabbits don't have it. Other creatures, mongoose, mongooses don't have it. So why do we have marriage?

01:21Now, marriage is for one thing fundamentally and one thing only, and that is the regulation of

01:29sexual activity. And how do we know that? Because it's the most unforgivable thing in a marriage

01:37to have sex with other people. You can be friends with other people. You can go to concerts with

01:43other people. You can play squash and tennis with other people. You can go to parties with other

01:47people. Again, assuming none of this is flirty or sexually charged. You can do just about anything

01:54with other people, but you cannot have sex with other people. That's cheating. Now, again, I know

02:01there's emotional affairs, but emotional affairs are dangerous insofar as they generally lead to

02:06physical affairs, and they also take away from emotional investment and the pair-bonding

02:10attachments of the marriage. So, marriage is about the regulation of sexual activity.

02:20In other words, oh, look at that. Look at that. Well, you can't look at that, but the car has just

02:25told me for the first time this year, roads may be icy. Drive with care. There we go. Time to gun it.

02:34And I knew then I was going to have to gun it. So, since marriage is about the regulation of sexual

02:42activity, then the next question is, why sexual activity, or why only sexual activity, or why

02:50primarily sexual activity? You know, obviously, if you're a man who's married to a woman, you can be

02:57close to your sister, right? Because you're not going to have an affair with your sister, and so on,

03:02right? So, why does human sexuality need to be regulated? In other words, why haven't rabbits

03:08evolved to pair-bond and to have lifelong attachments and wolves and humans have? Well, of course,

03:18the answer, I don't need to hedge or be coy, right? The answer is relatively simple, and that's because

03:25of the products of human conception, right? The products of sexual activity are, of course,

03:34human beings, human babies. Now, human babies take 21 to 25 years to reach brain maturity.

03:41I mean, that's a big old investment. I mean, if you've ever signed a mortgage for 25 years,

03:47it's kind of a big old investment that's going on with the mortgage, right?

03:52And so, because of that, you're like, wow, I've got a bill to pay for 25 years.

04:00And even if we say, you know, historically, maybe kids got married off at 18 or whatever,

04:05okay, that's still an 18-year investment. And particularly when the kids are young,

04:13it's a massive investment, right? You're up three times a night, four times a night,

04:18you get very little sleep. And this goes on for a year or two or three, depending on a variety of

04:24factors, could even go longer. But, you know, generally, that's the sort of, that's the time

04:28frame. And I'm under, you know, zero illusions about that because I was a stay-at-home dad

04:34from the time my daughter was born. So, no illusions about that.

04:40So, the products of human conception render the mother economically non-viable, right?

04:51Just, you need to sort of let that sink, let that sink in. You need to let that sink in,

04:56that the products of human conception are, make the mother economically non-viable.

05:04So, the mother turns in, turns from someone who can produce economic value to someone who requires

05:12enormous economic value, rather than being a gatherer and a protector and a, you know,

05:22grinder of flour and a baker of blah, blah, blah, rather than any of that stuff.

05:26She now is kind of exhausted all the time and she needs like, I don't know, 500 extra calories or more

05:34a day just because she's breastfeeding and she is recovering from childbirth and so she's not

05:42exactly going to be, you know, sprinting down to catch the errant lamb or kid, goat or whatever,

05:50right? So, she turns from somebody who is economically productive to somebody who requires

05:56massive amounts of economic support. Now, the amount of investment, of course, that her husband,

06:04let's just say, the amount of investment that the father of her child needs to put into his child,

06:12into his wife, into his family, is massive. 90% of a man's income, if he's married and has a couple

06:19of kids, 90% of his income goes to his children. That's a massive investment. And now, of course,

06:27as the saying goes, mama's baby, daddy's, maybe, maybe, the man needs to know that the children are

06:33his because it is an absolute catastrophe. Genetically, it's an absolute catastrophe.

06:39The worst conceivable, get it? The worst conceivable catastrophe for a man is to invest his resources

06:47into children that aren't his. Absolute catastrophe. Not only is he not propagating his

06:56own genes, he, in fact, is propagating other men's genes. Now, for a woman, if she is going to be

07:05provided for, for a woman, she would rather choose the most high-quality, high-value, high-height,

07:13high-assertiveness, high-dominance, high-uber-chad, giga-chad, or whatever, she would rather have his

07:21children, because he is the highest-quality specimen, so to speak, she would rather have

07:27his children, if he can provide for her, this is the harem idea, or the warlord idea, or whatever,

07:34right? So, assuming that the man, she would much rather have the highest-value man possible,

07:39which is why it's so easy to tell women, you know, don't settle, or why women would rather be

07:45the side piece of a high-quality man than the wife of a lower-quality man. And again, I'm not saying

07:53all, but there's this sort of impulse. And we can see this, of course, in the dating patterns, where

07:58the chads are able to get a lot of girls, and the sort of lower 50% of men, it's pretty tough,

08:06right? So, women are drawn to get the highest-value man that they can get to provide for their

08:12children. Men, in order to be motivated to provide for their children, need to know that their children

08:20are theirs. And, of course, as we know, the traditional way that men know that the children

08:28are theirs is to marry a virgin and to have sex with her on a honeymoon where she's away from all

08:37other men. That's what the purpose of the honeymoon is. The purpose of the honeymoon is to take a virgin

08:43away from all other men and have a lot of sex with her for a couple of weeks, and then you know

08:51that the resulting children are yours. And that cements the pair bond. The pair bond for the man

08:58happens on the honeymoon when he's around his bride 24-7 for a couple of weeks in some place where she

09:05doesn't know any men, and therefore the only sex she's having is with him, and therefore the children

09:10that are, or at least the first child that is produced from that is his child, right? That's what the purpose

09:16of the honeymoon is. If the woman is not a virgin, at least have her not be pregnant, or have children

09:25when you marry her, and then you again go away for the honeymoon, and it's just you having a lot of

09:30sex prior to birth control, of course, having a lot of sex with your bride, and then the children that

09:36come out are yours, and so on. Now, of course, you know, you go to work and so on, and there's supposed

09:42to be a bro code, you don't sleep with married women, particularly those with children, because

09:46that is a betrayal of the other man's paternity certainty, and all this kind of stuff. So this

09:52is sort of in the past, and this is why women who slept around would get the Scarlet Letter,

09:57right? And this is the Anna Karenina, and the Scarlet Letter, and all of these stories about the

10:03women who are just madly drawn to some other man, and how sad, and how tragic, and blah, blah, blah.

10:07But the reason why adulterers were stoned is because society will not function, like society

10:15literally cannot function if men are uncertain of paternity. So that's just kind of foundational.

10:24If men are uncertain of paternity, men will not pair bond. The purpose of pair bonding for men

10:29is paternity certainty. Now, of course, you can get this from DNA and all of that, but we're

10:34talking about how sort of these things evolved. So men want a virgin's and a honeymoon to ensure

10:41the children are theirs, or at least the first child is theirs, and then, you know, everyone

10:46around you is kind of married, and so on, and you hopefully trust your wife she's not going

10:51to step out, and just that and the other, right? So a woman wants the highest quality mate who's

10:59going to provide for her. In this case, unfortunately, because the provision is provided by the

11:04government, women don't have to choose high-quality men in terms of provision, and therefore they

11:08choose exciting situationships with guys they can't get to commit to them because it's sexually

11:15stimulating, and it allows them to squeeze their tender parts into old faithful geisters of

11:24sheer orgasmic joy. So the purpose of marriage is to provide resources to women and paternity

11:36certainty, or as close as possible, to men. So why do we want that? Well, children flourish

11:45in a pair-bonded, and again, I'm just talking male-female, though I get that people who are gay or lesbian

11:53can also marry. We're just talking about sort of how the institution evolved. Trust me, if you've

11:57spent any time around the gay community, or had any friends who are gay, you would recognize that

12:02it's not the most fertile ground for the evolution of pair-bonding conventions such as marriage.

12:09So what is best for children is a pair-bonded, you know, mother-father relationship where paternity

12:18certainty is there, and provision is there. If there's paternity uncertainty, provision is faltering

12:27or non-existent, and if the women are not provided for, if the woman is not provided for, then very

12:34bad things happen, right? Bad things happen if the husband is not sure he's the father of his children,

12:42and bad things happen when a man impregnates a woman and does not provide for her, which is what's

12:49called a shotgun wedding, right? You impregnate my daughter, I will make you marry her. I will force

12:56you to marry her. If you try to run, we will hunt you down, and we will drag you back, and we will put

13:01you in front of the priest, and you will be married under the law. You will be married, and you can't

13:09escape. You can't get away. And this is why, of course, there was an enormous amount of effort

13:14throughout almost all of human history to control particularly teenage sexuality from its natural

13:20florid expression, so that commitment could be established prior to coitus, which produces

13:27children. So that's what we're evolved for, at least in the colder climates in the West.

13:34In warmer climates, it's not as bad because you don't have winter, so there's a little bit less

13:39pair bonding in warmer climates. So that's what it's for. Now, what's the secular sort of modern

13:48argument? Well, I mean, the secular moral argument is that's what we have evolved for and towards

14:00as the very best environment for children. Children flourish by far the most in a stable,

14:10monogamous, pair-bonded, two-parent household. Again, evolutionarily speaking, we're talking

14:16males and females. Sort of modern reproductive technology and surrogates were generally not

14:21available or accepted. So it's sort of saying, well, why should I not eat grass? It's everywhere.

14:30And people might even pay me to eat their grass because it's like mowing their lawn. Well, why would

14:36you not eat grass like a horse does or a cow does? Well, because we can't digest it because we don't

14:42have four stomachs or whatever. I don't know, cows, they do that. I don't know how horses do it. But

14:45why do we not? Because we haven't evolved to eat grass. It's like saying, why do we eat food rather

14:54than just getting our energy from sunshine? That's photosynthesis or chlorophyll or whatever, right?

15:00Well, because that's not how we've evolved. We have evolved to eat meats and fruits and grains and

15:06vegetables. I know the grains is a little dicey for some people, but let's say at least meats and fruits

15:11and vegetables. We've evolved to eat those. So that's what we got to eat. We have evolved to pair-bonded,

15:17and children have evolved to be happiest and most secure and to flourish the best in that

15:27environment. Now, if you don't want to have kids, if you don't want to get married, I mean,

15:35whatever, that's fine. But, you know, you better save your money. Like, people are like, oh, I don't

15:41have kids. I could spend all my money. Look at all the stuff I can do. It's really great and blah,

15:45blah, blah. And there are these, there's this really, I mean, to me, it's just outright propaganda

15:49probably comes from some adversarial foreign power, which is like, yep, had a great time,

15:54dropped past my nephews. And then the moment they got difficult, I bounced out of there and I went

15:59for my walk in the woods and, right, you know, had a great time being single, single life, blah,

16:03blah, blah. A day in the life of a carefree idiot single guy. Okay, that's fine. Then you just save

16:11your money because nobody's going to be there to take care of your wrinkled old ass

16:16when you get ancient. And you say, oh, but the government is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well,

16:20good luck with all that. Okay, I don't, I don't. People who don't have kids, like when the money

16:24runs out, the government money runs out, don't care. I don't care what happens to them. I mean,

16:31I don't care. Oh, it's going to be tough. Yeah, well, I mean, you chose not to have kids.

16:35It's, it's like people who, like in university, right? I remember this girl asked me out in

16:42university and it was like the second or third week in university. And I'm like, nope, I'm staying

16:49in to write an essay because I just spent like a year and a half working up north. And I was like

16:54keen to not do that anymore. Right. So, so I didn't, but it's like the people who like, well, I,

17:02I partied, I partied for the last couple of months, every weekend, you know, Friday, Saturday

17:10night, and I drank during the week and I, I didn't study and I didn't do any homework and I didn't

17:15write, didn't write my essays. And oh man, I failed. It's like, but you, but you had fun. Like

17:21you had fun when I wasn't having fun. You had fun partying and I was studying. So you failed. It's

17:27like, oh man, but this is really terrible. It's like, well, I mean, I don't care. I don't care.

17:31I don't care. Particularly if you've given people good advice, then the, the, the really

17:38great, you know, this is why maybe I'm a bit of a busybody, but the reason why I give people

17:42good advice is obviously I hope that they'll listen and, and, and all of that and, and make

17:48better decisions or make good decisions. I hope they'll do that. But the great thing about

17:53giving people advice is, well, um, you don't have to care if they don't listen. Like it's

18:03great. It's really great. You don't have to care if you, if they don't listen. Right?

18:07So you say to, you know, uncle Joe, man, you gotta, you gotta stop eating so much and you

18:12gotta stop smoking because being fat and a smoker is really bad. And you, you sort of nag

18:17him a bunch of times and he's like, nah, I just like to have fun. You're square. And it's

18:21like, so then when he gets sick, you don't have to care. I mean, that's what the purpose

18:25of good advice is. Like the worst case scenario of good advice is people don't listen and then

18:30you don't have to care. So, I mean, all the people who don't have kids, they don't save

18:37their money and then they get old and, you know, even if they get pensions, it'll be

18:41worth very little and they're going to complain and, and blah, blah, blah, and, and whine

18:46and, and, and get hysterical. And it's like, yeah, I don't care. I don't care.

18:51I don't care. I mean, you knew that the society was in debt. You knew about the national debt.

18:55You knew about unfunded liabilities. And if you didn't, well, then that's on you too,

19:00right? I mean, a friend of mine genuinely forgot when his exam was. He wrote down the

19:06wrong date. Genuinely forgot when his exam was. And they just thunked him. It was a genuine

19:13accident. I get that. I understand. Like, um, you know, whatever they got their rules and

19:16everyone can say, I forgot. And I get all of that, but, uh, nonetheless, right? I

19:21mean, so he made a mistake and he, he failed the course. And so, you know, I was always

19:29told, well, you know, you've got to be knowledgeable politically and, you know, don't, you know,

19:33democracy, you, you, you, people want the right to vote, which means that they, I mean,

19:39nobody says I want the right to vote, but I have no idea what I'm voting about. I remember

19:43a guy on a plane was telling me that he voted for just for, for, uh, Pierre Trudeau because

19:47Pierre Trudeau's wife was hot, right? So, so that's fine. You can do that. Uh, you can

19:54ignore reality. You can ignore math and you can ignore facts and, uh, and then you're going

20:00to be broke. Okay. I mean, I have as much sympathy as for people who were like, well, I'm, uh, I'm

20:06going to go down to the track and I'm going to bet my life savings on the ponies. And then

20:10they, they lose it all, right? Red 22, right? They lose it all. It's like, well, that's,

20:15you know, I'm not even going to say that's a shame. You, you gambled and you lost. I'm

20:22not going to, you know, I'll say to people, I don't think it's a good idea to gamble, but

20:26if you go gamble and you lose everything, I don't care. I don't care. I sort of save my

20:31compassion for people who are, uh, who are going through bad things through no fault of

20:36their own. I'm not at the same time as I have compassion for people who are going through

20:41tough stuff through no fault of their own, like the kids in particular, children in

20:45particular. Um, I'm not at the same time going to have compassion for people who are going

20:51through difficult things through no fault of their own and also have compassion for people

20:56who are going through bad things through every fault of their own. Like I'm just not going

20:59to do it in the same way that I, I'm not going to forgive people who genuinely apologize

21:04and make restitution. And also those who deny they've done anything wrong and get mad at

21:09me for even bringing it up. Like, I'm just not going to do it. I mean, I guess you can,

21:13if you want, I just, there's no way that you couldn't, couldn't pay me enough money to do

21:16that. So the purpose of course, of marriage is it's best for kids, right? I mean, baby rabbits

21:27have evolved to be comfortable with no dad, right? But, uh, baby wolves, uh, need a father

21:35figure, right? And we have evolved as the ultimate case elected creatures. We have evolved to flourish

21:43in a situation of pair bonding. And of course there's also, there's a massive amount of knowledge.

21:47This is why pair bonding is important is that there's a massive amount of cultural and religious

21:51and legal and moral knowledge that needs to be transferred. I mean, from, from parent to child.

21:57I mean, in the same way that wolves, uh, they need, they need to transfer a lot of knowledge

22:02about hunting to their offspring, right? Uh, what do you need to, what do you need to say

22:07to your baby rabbits? Um, eat grass that's everywhere, uh, bang anything with fur that moves

22:14and watch out for hawks. I mean, that's it, right? It's not like that. Eat, screw, run.

22:21Right? Wasn't that a, no, eat, pray, love. Sorry. That's same difference. So, uh, that's why,

22:29that's what's best for children. And that's what we evolved to do. That's how our hearts have evolved.

22:35evolved. That's how our emotions have evolved. That's how our gut sense, our moral sense has

22:44evolved. And that's how our sexuality has evolved. Say, oh, we want variety. And it's like, I get

22:50that. I mean, I get that. But when it comes to sexuality, it's better to have someone around

22:56for your whole life who cares about what you like and, and, you know, gets better at it. And it's like,

23:02that's, that's what you want, right? I mean, that's, that's better, right? So why,

23:09what is the secular case of marriage? It's what we're built for. It's what we've evolved for.

23:14It's what's best for us. It's what's most natural for us. And it is also what is best and healthiest

23:20for children. So again, if people don't want to get, have kids, then it doesn't, you know,

23:25it doesn't massively matter whether they participate or not, live together or not. It doesn't,

23:30doesn't matter because the purpose of marriage, as I said, is proficient for the woman, which

23:37if you don't want to have kids, the woman is just going to work, right? So she doesn't need

23:41provision. The purpose of marriage is to raise to as high a level of probability as humanly possible

23:48paternity certainty for men. If you're not going to have kids, what do you care about paternity

23:53certainty? It doesn't matter at all because you don't have kids, right? And the purpose of marriage

23:57also is to create a pair bond between parents, uh, parents, and then also a bond between parents

24:05and children so that when the parents get old, I mean, they'll take care of each other. And usually,

24:12uh, you know, the way that it usually works is the husband dies first and then there's a mother who

24:18lives on for another sort of five to seven years and she will not be able to provide for herself.

24:24And so there is a bond between parents and children so that the adult children take care

24:31of the elderly, uh, parents. And that's another thing that is sort of important. Now, in the past,

24:41you needed this because you couldn't really store your wealth very well. And during the course of our

24:45evolution, right? I mean, what do you store up a whole bunch of elk carcasses for when you get old?

24:50Like they're just going to get, uh, into the wild on you and get flies and rot and you won't be able

24:57to use them. So now sort of in the modern world, if you don't want to have kids, then you are going

25:05to be responsible for needing, you're going to be responsible for finding some way that you're going

25:13to be taken care of in your old age. And of course, the answer to that is, well, you have saved

25:18massive amounts of money by not having children, right? A couple of hundred thousand bucks to raise

25:24a kid. So you're going to save all that money and you're going to invest it. But of course,

25:30a lot of people spend it and then they get old and they don't have the $2 million plus,

25:36which you can easily get. I mean, you can easily get that money if you simply invest the money you

25:40would have spent on children, right? You, most people have kids in their sort of mid, late twenties,

25:44maybe early thirties. So you invest that quarter million over time and you are, uh, totally fine

25:52when it comes to your retirement. But of course, people blow that money and they don't save it and

25:57they don't have kids and then nobody cares about them when they get old and they have no money other

26:02than some sort of government pittance or whatever it is, which is again, you know, somewhat survivable

26:06now, but sure as hell isn't going to be in the future. So, um, that's what it's for as well is to provide some sort of

26:14security or resources in your old age and we're going to need that. Now, again, you can, you can save

26:22your money and then what? I mean, the way that it worked in the past is you would simply move in

26:28with your kids. You'd provide some fairly creaky childcare in return for, uh, food and shelter as you

26:37aged out, right? And, uh, so you get live in care, right? Live in care. And again, usually you'd provide

26:45some sort of childcare assistance, um, as, as you're an old, particularly an old woman, right?

26:51And so that's the way that works. Now, when you get old, uh, if you want to pay for live in care

26:59for seven or eight years, well, that's going to be a lot of money and you better have that all

27:06saved up. And you can't pay people, you cannot pay people to care for you in the way the family cares

27:12for you. You just can't do it. I mean, I can pay someone to make a meal, but I can't make, I can't pay

27:20for someone to make a meal with love and give me great conversation at dinner in the way that my wife

27:24does. I can't do that, right? So that's the secular case. And again, it only really matters

27:32if you want to have kids. The rest of it, I mean, you're like a bike on the, on the road. It's not

27:37built for you, but it's no particular harm for you to use the road, right? It's fine. So the secular

27:45case is provision for children, paternity certainty, and provision into the old age. And yeah, I mean,

27:53of course, there's, we've evolved from all these general pleasures of children growing up and all

27:57of that. So hopefully that makes sense. I'd love to hear what you think. FreeDomain.com slash donate

28:01if you find this stuff valuable. All right. Take care, my friends. Bye.

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