The Case for Marrying within One's Class

Chapter 5 of The Information Class

Note: The Information Class is a book about class, being published chapter by chapter via Substack. It’s a tract for the times because what I call “the information class” (a.k.a. “symbolic capitalists” (Musa al-Gharbi), “elite human capital” (Richard Hanania), “Belmont” (Charles Murray), “bobos” (David Brooks), “the creative class” (Richard Florida), “Anywhere people” (Henry Olson), and “the laptop class”— not that the terms’ referent is exactly coextensive, but still) is the bastion of support for actual continuity of the American republic, as against the nihilistic populism that is ravaging the country right now and casting doubt on the future of democracy. But the book is also a work of economic theory and a moral self-help guide, and the three purposes go together because economists need to fix the blind spot of being indifferent to virtue. This post is about endogamy because that’s part of the meaning of class. For a tour of the book, see this post.

If college-educated professionals tend to marry each other, should they? If people could be persuaded to marry across class lines enough, classes would disappear in a generation or two. Should that be encouraged?

I'm as romantic as the next person, quite ready to concede much to the claims of true love. Still, finding reasons to marry within your class is as easy as finding hay in a haystack.

First, it’s easier to get along with someone like you. Agreement comes naturally. Less needs to be explained. You can converse fluently on more subjects. You understand similar things, and like similar things.

Second, there’s less reason to suspect mercenary motives or feel unequally yoked.

Third, it’s easier for your families to get along. In-laws tend to be a challenge even in the happiest marriages. He has his and she has hers, and the instincts of each have reason to fight the kin-selection instincts of the other, and the diversion of one’s resources to unrelated individuals. If your families are from the same class, they’re more likely to understand each other and see eye to eye. If they're from different classes, that's a source of misunderstandings to exacerbate the discordant instincts.

Fourth, what applies to families applies to your broader networks of friends and colleagues. If you’re from the same class, you may already know many of the same people, and anyway, you can connect with them more easily. His connections may benefit from a new second-hand connection to her connections, and vice versa. Your friends and your spouse will be more likely to understand each other, and to like hanging out. And if your marriage faces cross-pressures, they’ll be able to see both sides and give more balanced advice.

Fifth, it’s easier to raise kids together if you have a lot of shared assumptions about how to do it.

Sixth, your children will have a male and a female role model of the same class, as opposed to the complication of gender and class being correlated within the household.

Seventh, the natural integration of a same-class marriage with the friend networks of both spouses can benefit your children through an “it takes a village” effect. It will be easier to bring them into contact not only with two parents but with lots of potential role models leading lives that their class upbringing is likely to enable them to emulate.

Eighth, your spouse will be better able to understand what you do for work, to give advice, and to justly assess what to do in situations where ethically motivated decisions that you need to make at work, which may involve sacrifices or risks to your earning power or household situation. Your spouse may find it easier to make sacrifices for your professional integrity if they understand what it consists in.

I could go on, but this is enough to work with.

Is there anything to set in the balance against all these reasons for class endogamy? In individual cases, certainly! You might serendipitously meet a wonderful person from a different class, and fall in love. Inter-class marriages can certainly be successful, and may even be an interesting adventure, with a different kind of benefits for children, who get a glimpse, through their parents, of different walks of life, instead of growing up in a bubble.

That said, our instincts are savvy to the advantages of marrying within your class, and they’ll tend to make you fall in love with someone similar to yourself. If you follow your heart, it’s likely to lead you to practice class endogamy. And some of the reasons why it might not are troublesome. Women have an instinct to “marry up,” which can lead them to be gold diggers. Men are drawn to youth and beauty, and may come to grief by letting an infatuation attach them to someone frivolous and shallow. The prudent consideration of long-term compatibility is likely to favor class endogamy.

What about society? Clearly, endogamous behavior by college-educated, computer-wielding, creative professionals will tend to reinforce the class stratification that many deplore. Someone might marry across class lines on purpose in order to combat class stratification. I don’t recommend that. Not only is it unfair to your family, spouse and kids, but it’s likely, on balance, to impoverish society by weakening what you have to give to your social networks and on the job.

I really don't feel inclined to discourage anyone from marrying across class lines if they fall in love and understand the duties of marriage. We need more happy marriages and children across the board, and whatever works for that deserves approval and encouragement. Facilitating class endogamy might help to achieve that, too. But mainly, I want to fend off any suggestion that the unwelcome rise in class stratification should be combated by discouraging or stigmatizing class endogamy. Marrying within one's class is often the right thing to do.