“American marriages have a pipeline problem. As William A. Galston notes in his column "America Needs More Husband Material" (Politics & Ideas, Dec. 24), college-educated women continue to say "I do," while those without degrees have trouble finding men who are marriageable. Improving men's economic prospects is part of helping young people form families, but the problem runs deeper.
In 10 years of surveying high-school seniors, the Monitoring the Future project has found that fewer and fewer young men and women expect they will be "very good" as a spouse. It's little wonder the share who expect to get married has plummeted in parallel.
Holding a stable job and being able to provide for one's family is part of what it means to be a good spouse, but it flows out of bigger questions of character and how one handles responsibility. If we want to see marriages rebound, it isn't enough to focus on expanding blue-collar work.
High-school seniors need to have more faith they can handle the duties of marriage and child-rearing. Giving them more lectures on how important marriage is won't do it -- they think so highly of the institution that they judge themselves incapable of living up to it. Kids need more time away from adult supervision, pursuing projects of their own design, with the freedom to fail and to learn.
My husband was marriageable well before he landed his first job because he'd spent his homeschooling years organizing a student Shakespeare troupe. No adult would come to the rescue when "the show must go on" -- it was up to him to find a solution or inspire a peer to step up.
Young men need to take ownership of smaller projects before they're prepared to be good partners in marriage.
Leah Libresco Sargeant
Hyattsville, Md.
Mrs. Sargeant is author of "Dignity of Dependence."” [1]
1. The Key to Making More Marriageable Men. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Jan 2026: A14.
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