Education and Marriage Success

Marry an educated person

I am a college economics professor and getting PhD, and I am a school chess coach. I can with good authority say, that education is one of the best ways to live a successful, happy fulfilled life. Further, it can get you married and get you to stay married.

there are two fairly significant correlations with regards to education. One is you will earn more income. This is pretty straightforward. The second is you will be more likely to stay together in marriage. Yes, you can show me exceptions to the rule and point to people who have done it without and I think that is great. But the reality is the more educated you are, generally you will make more and stay married.

Evidence of the positive effect of education on life and relationships

You can research yourself but here is some data:

Do not be surprised if beauty and virtue are synonymous

How education can be your dating strategy

I think the above correlations make sense in the content that education is painful. It takes commitment and it takes perseverance. It takes cognitive diligence and the ability to overcome circumstances. You need to be able to go through with a commitment. You have to stick with it even though it has ups and downs. Therefore I think it is no coincidence, especially with the data to support my argument, that women and men with only high school educations are more likely to split. In contrast men and women with a college education are less likely to break up. If you have a couple with Masters degree or PhDs they usually stay together.

The idea is the ‘consistency of behavior’. If someone can be trusted in little things they can be trusted with big things. That is if someone consistency with regards to going to class and actually getting their degrees, then I think there is a greater chance they will stick it out when times are hard in a relationship.

Education is almost a stamp of persistence and dedication

How does this translate into a search for a spouse

Forget the endogenous and exogenous variables what do these studies mean for you? Here is what it means. Look for someone who is educated at least to your level.

Yes, on one level educational achievement never mattered to me, because people have different ideas and circumstances about how to live their life. On the other hand:

a tree will be known by its fruit

Luke 6:44

For example, when I meet my wife I did not know or ask her level of education. I thought my wife had a high school degree for a year into dating. However, she had a Masters and a medical college. I did not base my rapport with her on her resume, but rather all the subtle hints my subconsciousness received that she had an elevated mind.

Love sees with the heart and not with the eyes

My relationship with my wife while dating was captivating for me partially because she loved to read and converse on topics in-depth and with an intellectual curiosity. Just her vocabulary and her ability to analyze issues were indications that she was an educated person.

In contrast, with exceptions, you can tell an uneducated person within a few minutes of speaking to them. Often these are the people you will encounter at a party or social gathering or when you are interacting, and within a few sentences your subconscious brain knows who you are dealing with. When having a tête-à-tête with an uneducated girl you often want to escape from the conversation and their nonsense. In your mind, you say to yourself ‘at some level, this person has nothing more to offer’ and the enchantment of their beauty disappears.

Education is easy pickings for critics and cynics

I know there is a lot of criticisms of our education system. I am often education’s largest critic. However, considering the positives and the negatives, education or at least the people who educate themselves are more stable in relationships and in my experience are more interesting to be around. Their minds seem to possess a little more intellectual curiosity and have a little more objectivity.

Often those in the limelight, whether it be on Youtube or in the entertainment industry, people who have the spotlight, are not educated. Some might even tout you do not need an education. You might draw a conclusion from these flexers that education is not an essential ingredient to life success. My rebuttal is – I would rather have my life than theirs.

People in my class have class

For example, I noted that in my PhD program the people have a calm, relaxed and cheerful demeanor. They are reserved in their opinions and if they have them, they are cautious and listen to your opinion with interest and consideration, rather than reacting. When I am in class I am happy and feel refreshed. Then, when I go back home and am shopping at Walmart or interacting with some rude or an opinionated customer service person, I feel depressed.

If you extrapolate that approach to interpersonal relationships, would you not want a spouse who is intelligent? You want a partner who is not reactive, but rather cool, calm and collective, a problem-solver and tries to see issues with objectivity?

Classroom of life

  • In the classroom of life, specifically when you are married, it seems like it is a series of tests that require patience and problem solving skills.

For example, not that marriage is a test, or a challenge – it is not, marriage is easy, rather life sometimes puts you through challenges. For example, life challenges are choosing a house or a job based on commute time, versus income or a school for your child, or budgeting. What will you do when something breaks and you do not have the money? If you are educated you have a better change to navigate through these problems. Are you going to give up or react, or are you going to with a calm, objective mind, be persistent in trying to solve the problem? When you have a partner who does this it makes life easier. You want to marry someone who is educated and this will make your life go smoother (generally).

Education trains your mind, but also helps you in mate selection. It helps you determine who has this ability to follow through with long terms goals and plans despite adversity.

  • My warning however, is not to collapse this into an Americanized version of simply adding this filter to a dating app or website. Rather just beware of the influence of education, particularly a liberal arts education at a graduate level life quality.

A stable home often leads to a stable future marriage

Perhaps it might be as simple as people who are educated generally come from a more stable home environment and therefore, are more emotionally stable. I do not want to be pedantic. However, if I am selfish and honest I want to couple with a smart person in life.

I know my message to you about choosing an educated person sounds like a bold statement, but I wold refer back to the statistics on income, crime, longevity, marital success. Granted it is only one variable, but I am saying, if you are going to spend the next fifty plus years with someone day in and day out, choose someone who excites the largest organ of arousal in your body, your brain.

You want your genes to propagate

When choosing a spouse on a subconscious level I also think you are choosing someone who will raise a good family. There is evidence that when the parents are educated the children do better in life and have a higher IQ. You want your genes to survive so why not choose a mate that will facilitate this and according to it looks like someone who is educated.

Another strategy for gene propagation is to live in a double-wide and have eight kids. However, you could live in trailer and have eight kids and be educated. Would that not be better?

You can be a slacker as long as you are educated and the same goes for your spouse.

My ancestry comes from Eastern Europe and one of the reason the Ashkenazi Jews fared well was their culture stressed education. Even with surmountable odds against them, they somehow survived because they educated themselves. Maybe circumstances are not so extreme today but maybe they are on an analogous level for the time, when you consider how much the country in going into debt and how the Gini coefficient shows an increasing stratification of income.

Weird urban single hermits

Are people who have an education snobs? Maybe some are, but I think it is no worse than what a lot of people do, that is become some weird urban hermits that belittle education or careerists whose ego defense mechanisms weave a world of opinions to justify their hermitage and single-hood. At least in school you are participating in life.

Education is so conventional

Never confuse school with your education

Mark Twain

You can be unconventional and educated. The two are not mutually exclusive. For example, I grow my own food on an organic homestead, see myself as an online entrepreneur, traveled the world on a backpack, literally hitchhiking and camping out in parks, I am basically Peter Pan. Few of my ideas are conventional, for example, I personally think we do not need US currency rather a classic commodity standard would bring price stability and higher growth than the Federal Reserve. I would do a yoga retreat anytime or walk the Appalachian trail, the whole thing, if the opportunity avails.

Stretch your mind and your life experience will change

Yet, when it comes to education, as enlighten and aware as think I am, I believe other people can still teach me something. I believe my brain needs to be challenged and stretched in ways that go beyond my solitary quest and exploitation of this existence.

It is very easy to poke fun at our schooling. However, the truth is, even if one in ten of your professors are worth your tuition, when you can get a professor who is life changing or has an influence on you it elevates you. Who is not inspired by stories of beautiful minds?

What does this meaning when choosing a husband or wife? You want someone who is always inspired and excited about ideas. Not trivial and base things like money and prestige, but impressed by eternal things like virtue and the mind.

We all add up to one hundred percent and are all children of God, so going through a formalized education system does not matter. Yet on a humanistic level, rather than spiritual level I just enjoy spending my time around people who challenge me intellectually. It is not the facts you learn but the who idea of learning that makes education important.

Its really about you life experience

Education has another benefit, that is, it expands and trains your mind if you have good professors. If your school is about multiple choice questions and standardized tests, I would switch schools. If your school is about online courses, I would switch schools. If your school has teachers that really challenge your brain and draw information out with the Socratic method, than this will benefit you, your whole life.

Anyone who does not live at the height of their culture, swindles themselves out of their own life.

Its funny how the more you educate yourself, the people you find attractive are more intelligent

Good news about School – It is where the cordial girls are

Both as a teacher and a student, I can unequivocally say that there, is an infinite stream of attractive women you want to marry who are in school. I would say one in twenty of my students has an Instagram account. Most people in my Ph.D. program post to their Facebook, once a year or so. In my hundreds and hundreds of students, I have really only a couple that has a Youtube account. My point is if you are looking online for girls to marry, why not consider an alternative reality, school. The ones that are more offline than online are women you want to marry. If you want to be counter culture and buck the trend, find a sweetheart in school or who educated.

  • As a college professor I can say people meet in my class and date.

If a girl spends time online tending to her social media compared to her education, chances are when you are married she will spend more time on social media.

What type of Education is optimal for mating and life fulfillment?

My recommendation is go for an education. I know it seems long run and boring and a waste but it is not. You will develop and meet people, that will change you world.

What types of education do I recommend? I think a classical education or home school or a parochial school is best for K-12. Public school is good if the child is enrolled in after school chess for example and goes to tournaments on the weekend.

For a college the best are small liberal arts schools or if you can not afford it a small state school over the big factory universities. A school that does not interfere with your education, that is gives you just enough structure without being an institution.

Forget practical, go for that liberal arts girl

For Master, best is not an MBA or a Law Degree. Education can lead to arrogance if it is coupled with a false sense of elevation based on what society though income matrix gives feedback on. However, as a note my counter to that is uneducated people can also be arrogant. Mental power needs to be tempered with wisdom.

To get this combination of education and wisdom, my recommendation is rather than focus on the practical, focus on a broad liberal arts experience. For example better is to major in Economics, Psychology, political science, English or Philosophy, again, liberal arts. Education is not about getting the degree, but about the exam of life. So if you educate yourself for money itself, it is a waste of time. If you educate yourself or choose someone who educates themselves for wisdom and learning in and of itself than you will win and choose a winner.

Find that liberal arts girls who looks amazing for you. Educate yourself, not with an online MBA or a nursing degree or something practical, but educate yourself with something impractical but you love, like philosophy or art history and do it with real brick and mortar classes. The amount of time and mental energy you spend on looking for a girlfriend, boyfriend or wife would be better spend in class where it could happen magically for you anyway.

Too old or in a career?

What if you are in your career and too old? I would recommend pick out a burial plot and call it a day. Just be honest – you are waiting for the measureless gulf of eternity to shallow you and wipe your seed from the face of the earth.

Are we clear? Do not take council of your fears, but rather educate yourself and move forward in your life in some remarkable way, start to think of ways to improve your life for the long term.

In conclusion

I would put religion as #1, looks #2 and education as #3 for criteria for selecting a mate you can spend your life with. Why ignore the wisdom of the ages that proclaims: Mens sana in corpore sano?

All things mind and body

If you do not know where to start looking for a wife or husband or how to continue your education, write me in the comment or to my contact.

Author: Mark Biernat

I live in with family between two worlds, US and Europe where I create tools for language learning. If you found my site you probability share my passion to be a life long learner. Please explore my site and comment.

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