Liza Mundy, Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, in a recent article in The Atlantic (June 2013), “The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss,” claims that, based on research, same-sex couples are happier than heterosexual couples. This means that gay and lesbian couples have much to teach traditional, heterosexual couples about happiness. This is a common claim made today.

The problem – it is wrong! W. Bradford Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, writes in response, “Unequal, Unfair, and Unhappy: The 3 Biggest Myths About Marriage Today”:

There is only one problem with the dour and dismal portrait of heterosexual marriage painted by Liza Mundy in this month's Atlantic cover story. It's wrong.

In her bleak rendering, contemporary marriage comes across as unequal, unfair, and unhappy to today's wives. Wives are burdened with an unequal and unfair "second shift" of housework and childcare, husbands enjoy "free time" while their wives toil away at home, lingering gender inequalities in family life leave many wives banging "their heads on their desks in despair," and one poor woman cannot even have a second child because she does "everything" and her husband does nothing. Mundy also suggests that recent declines in women's happiness can be laid at the feet of "lingering inequity in male-female marriage."

Of course, it's true that some marriages are unequal and unfair, leaving a minority of wives (and husbands) unhappy. And most husbands and wives experience moments or even periods of frustration with their work-family arrangements. Nevertheless, the big picture for marriage in America—for those Americans fortunate enough to have tied the knot—is markedly more rosy than Mundy's portrait would suggest. Most husbands and wives make about equal total contributions to the paid and unpaid work needed to sustain a family, judge their marriages to be fair, and are happily married.

Two summary points:

First, this is a very good reminder to look behind claims made. Remember to be careful about using statistics to prove a point without validating those statistics. Evangelicals (and others) are often suspect when using statistics in that they are often used to make a point, whether or not they are accurate.

Second, make sure that you preach faithfully the Word of God about the purpose of marriage. And then, by God’s grace, which is not a euphemism but literally true, live out God’s purpose for marriage for His glory. May the truth of God’s Word regarding marriage be beautiful as it is lived out in your marriage.