When I saw pay the wonders close,

listen to the best of the Church's music

for the season of Lent at at lutheran public radio

dot org

sacred music for the season of l, Lutheran Public Radio.org. There are a lot of misunderstandings about marriage nowadays that all it really takes is love,

how the family is comprised. Gender, inclination really is irrelevant as long as there's love and then there's that old soulmate

myth you need to find your soulmate how dangerous is that myth to actual marriages

welcome back to issues etc I'm Todd Wilkin. Joining us for the case for natural marriage,

Dr. Bragg and Wilcox, he's professor of sociology and director of the National

Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He is the Future Freedom Fellow

at the Institute for Family Studies

and author of the new book Get Married,

Why Americans Must Defies, Forge Strong Families

and Save Civilization. Dr Wilcox welcome back.

Great to be here, Todd.

What are some signs of hope for the future of the institution of marriage?

I think there are really two signs of hope and one is that we are seeing a slight

uptick in the share of kids being raised in stable married families. You know a lot of

people think that one in two marriages end in divorce, but we've actually seen

that trend go down.

That's good news because kids are more likely to thrive in stable marriages.

And the other piece of good news that my book Get Married reports is there is no group of Americans or more likely to be thriving in terms of having more meaning their lives, more money in their lives, and more happiness in their lives than married moms and married dads

...