The first question that came to my mind in thinking of your question was “how does he define happiness?”

If you are talking about happiness in the modern sense, which Merriam Webster on-line defines as:
a state of well-being and contentment, or
a pleasurable or satisfying experience
then the answer is “no.” Marriage does not on average lead to happiness.

If however, you are speaking of happiness in its older - more classical sense - say as Aristotle talks about it in the Nichomachean Ethics. Defined as a life of virtue according to reason, then the answer should be “yes,” in so far as the parties have a right understanding of marriage.

Some of the commenters above have put an emphasis on the primary procreative purpose of marriage. I think this is a mistake. In the traditional Judeo-Christian view the ultimate purpose of marriage is the sanctification of the spouses. Procreation is penultimate. From this standpoint, the traditional Christian view of marriage - as a state that leads to sanctification and eternal reward is entirely “sympatico” with the Aristotelian view of a life of virtue according to reason, or perhaps more properly a life of virtues “practiced” and being governed by reason.

Obviously, without the fundamental biological purpose, there would be no humans, monkeys, flys — gay or not.

Your comment may be a victim of thinking on the run so maybe you would clarify your actual objection to the notion that “Marriage is the intended stable basis on which this fundamental thing [creating new life] can best be achieved.”

Human generativity is both-sexed. Human community is both-sexed. The family, founded on marriage, is intended as the stable basis for human community. Marriage is the basic human community that pre-exists the wider society. It is founded on the nature of humankind — two-sexed — and the nature of human procreation — both-sexed — and, thus, provides contingency for *responsible* procreation.

We are each, as part of the both-sexed procreative duo, directly responsible for the children we create — barring tragedy and misfortune.

Human happiness is not guaranteed, but marriage is indeed how we adapt to our physiology and biology. It is this cultural adaptation that is featured so strongly in the variability of the protocols of marriage but not in the core of this social institution.

So I’d agree with the summation offered by steven_1941 at
March 16th, 2007 18:57.

I train at a gym which has a number of very beautiful physique competitors. I asked one I know very well how she rated herself out of 10. She saw herself as a seven. I asked a guy I knew who didn’t know her how he rated her out of 10. He said she was 11 out of 10.

What says that the happiness evaluations people made many years ago were made on the same basis as they are now?

We are not measuring objective or accurate factors so to get locked into the magic of dissecting the not so far apart numbers is not a good way.

1) “and women are probably still expecting to be the primary care-giver when they have children”

The suggestion here is that there is a relationship between the extent that the man earns more than the women and a womens expectations of being a primary care giver. It may well turn out to be true based on practicalities (you go back to work because I earn less than you), but I’d like to see evidence that it is actually incoporated into people’s judgements at the time of marriage.

2) Narrow gaps in education levels also help - presumably giving more shared experiences and conversation topics.

This is surely confounded with IQ. I wonder how much unique variance educational levels actually explain, especially after removing out selection bias effects (e.g., I met you at university and we got married).

3) I reckon that one of the reasons for a significant loss of sense of purpose or meaning for many people today is that too many of them have forgotten the fundamental biological purpose of life - to have children and enjoy them. Marriage is the intended stable basis on which this fundamental thing can best be achieved.

This sounds like geneticist talk to me — trying to find simple rational reasons for exceedingly complicated behavior when perhaps there is no simple reason to be found. If it was really a fundamental biological purpose, I don’t see how we could have have gay humans, monkeys, flys.. etc. Also, the notion that people have children to help enjoy life seems like a very recent (and hence not biologically plausible) idea to me. I’m sure through most of history (and throughout the rest of the animal kingdom) this aspect of having children has had approximately zero weighting (think of what it would be like as a caveman — I’ll have 10 children with 3 females because I can, or life from the start of civilization — I’ll 10 children with 1-3 females, whether they want to or not, who will then look after them, whether they want to or not, whilst I go out and do male-things)

There is an existential mystery at the heart of the universe, but speculating on that is part of the fun. The universe, either by plan or accident, has become self reflective through us. It would seem much more depressing to me if, through misadventure or pessimism, the mechanism of that self reflection went into suicidal decline, rather than expanding out into the universe.

This is why people should marry and have children!